SIVACRACY.NET

Well I answered 10 questions correctly, anyway.

You Passed 8th Grade Math

Congratulations, you got 10/10 correct!

Posted by Ann Bartow at 10:21 PM | Permalink

Is nothing sacred?

Posted by Ann Bartow at 6:42 PM | Permalink

Kenneth Ciongoli, head of the National Italian-American Foundation (NIAF), released the following statement, which, unsurprisingly, is being largely ignored by the MSM, always quick to avoid discussing how frequently Italian-Americans are the victims of crappy puns:

The NIAF is distressed by the attempts of some senators and the media (CNN,CBS) to marginalize Judge Samuel Alito's outstanding record, by frequent reference to his Italian heritage and by the use of the nickname, "Scalito." Appropriately, no one mentioned that Justice Breyer was Jewish or suggested that he was lock-step ideologically with the other Jewish Supreme Court Justice, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, it would have been outrageous to do so. We still do not know Justice Robert's ethnicity.

We are justly proud of Justice Alito's Italian heritage and his sterling academic and judicial records as well as his impeccable integrity. However, he should be considered as an individual. In honor of the memory of the just-departed Rosa Parks the Senate champions of civil rights should insist that Judge Alito be considered only on his extraordinary merits.

Sincerely,

A. Kenneth Ciongoli
Chairman of the National Italian American Foundation

And then David Corn goes ahead and writes this headline:

Can Dems Say 'Finito' to 'Scalito'?

As Sivacracy's resident Italian-American (I think! Any amici Italiani here?), I'd just like to say that I'm offended by the lack of cleverness in this headline, though I'm more offended by the NIAF's shameless promotion of Andrea Bocelli's Christmas concerts. Why is it that, as an Italian-American, I'm expected to love syrupy, mawkish, overly orchestrated versions of "Ave Maria"?

Posted by David Leheny at 5:53 PM | Permalink

Maureen Dowd should either be ignored or mocked mercilessly. As should any woman who ever spent one single second of her life wondering if she should "pick up the check."

Today, we live in country where very soon we may be required by law to ask our husbands/boyfriends/rapists/incestuous uncles for permission to control our own bodies.

Lipstick and padded bras are irrelevant, as is the shallow thinking of Maureen Dowd.

Posted by Melissa Henriksen at 12:56 PM | Permalink

Despite a fair amount of evidence to the contrary, I really thought that, like O'Connor, Harriet Miers would be unwilling to go down in history as the woman who virtually singlehandedly overturned Roe v. Wade.

With Alito on the Court, (which is all but a fait accompli as I read the tea leaves), I can picture a not-too-distant future in which either Congress has banned abortion outright, which the Supreme Court has found constitutional, or a handful of states continue to allow abortion, but the states that do not have made it a crime to obtain or assist others in obtaining an abortion, and the Supreme Court has found this to be constitutional. I hope I'm wrong.

Posted by Ann Bartow at 12:46 PM | Permalink

So I knew an article in the WaPo entitled "Scandal Overkill?" was probably going to annoy me, but I wasn't quite prepared for this sentence:

"The underlying issue in the Plame debacle -- the alleged manipulation of intelligence used to justify a war and retaliating against a critic, Joe Wilson, who challenged that effort -- is arguably more important than the Clinton-era debates over whether oral sex was sex."

Posted by Ann Bartow at 12:40 PM | Permalink

Posted by Ann Bartow at 11:59 AM | Permalink

Here! Via Pen-Elayne.

Posted by Ann Bartow at 11:40 AM | Permalink

Apparently President Bush will announce his next pick for Supreme Court justice on Monday.

I think Justice Libby has a nice ring to it, and frankly, he's already won my vote as "Best Alleged Perjurer Ever!"

Most importantly, he's one justice who won't let little things like laws get in the way of destroying our nation's enemies, including those who have cleverly concealed their identities by working to safeguard our national security. And if Roe vs. Wade is going to be overturned, along with all those pesky Fourth Amendment protections, I want to see the opinions written in this type of prose:

"You went to jail in the summer. It is fall now. You will have stories to cover -- Iraqi elections and suicide bombers, biological threats and the Iranian nuclear program. Out West, where you vacation, the aspens will already be turning. They turn in clusters, because their roots connect them. Come back to work -- and life.

Scooter, you've won my heart -- and my support. I mean, Justice Scooter. Come back to work -- at the Supreme Court.

Posted by David Leheny at 10:46 PM | Permalink

Maureen Dowd asks: "So was the feminist movement some sort of cruel hoax?"

Me, I’m asking the same thing about the New York Times’ reputation for quality journalism. Apparently feminists have been letting Dowd down her entire life. For example, Dowd says a bunch of stuff I've put in italics below, to which I respond in plain old feminist-style type:

“I didn't fit in with the brazen new world of hard-charging feminists. I was more of a fun-loving (if chaste) type who would decades later come to life in Sarah Jessica Parker's Carrie Bradshaw. I hated the grubby, unisex jeans and no-makeup look and drugs that zoned you out, and I couldn't understand the appeal of dances that didn't involve touching your partner.”

Those horrid "hard-charging" feminists were grubby, ugly, druggy people who danced without touching their partners, so of course Dowd didn't want to hang out with them. But she still expected to benefit from any progess they made.

“In those faraway, long-ago days of feminism, there was talk about equal pay for equal work. Now there's talk about "girl money."”

In the unlikely event that feminists are talking about "girl money" they probably are refering to gender equity in wages, or the concept of comparable worth. Men who vocally impute insubstantial earnings, or "girl money," to individual women without knowing their true circumstances are clods, not feminists. They are, however, evidencing accurate knowledge of a social phenomenon. If "girl money" talk is drowning out discussions about pay equity and comparable worth, maybe Dowd could look for clues about why this might be happening in the very pages of the New York Times.

“Women in their 20's think old-school feminists looked for equality in all the wrong places, that instead of fighting battles about whether women should pay for dinner or wear padded bras they should have focused only on big economic issues.”

Right, the Padded Bra Battles completely distracted feminists from the Big Economic Issues, which is the main reason women still earn less than men. If the feminists had only let men pay for dinner and worn those padded bras without complaint, we would surely have true equality by now, wearing our padded bras to boardrooms, courtrooms, elite medical practices, and banks.

“While I never related to the unstyled look of the early feminists and I tangled with boyfriends who did not want me to wear makeup and heels, I always assumed that one positive result of the feminist movement would be a more flexible and capacious notion of female beauty, a release from the tyranny of the girdled, primped ideal of the 50's.”

“When Gloria Steinem wrote that "all women are Bunnies," she did not mean it as a compliment; it was a feminist call to arms. Decades later, it's just an aesthetic fact, as more and more women embrace Botox and implants and stretch and protrude to extreme proportions to satisfy male desires. Now that technology is biology, all women can look like inflatable dolls. It's clear that American narcissism has trumped American feminism.”

Damn those ugly early feminists who did such an inadequate job of broadening the notion of female beauty. And then to get trumped by narcissism! Wrinkled losers!

"It was naïve and misguided for the early feminists to tendentiously demonize Barbie and Cosmo girl, to disdain such female proclivities as shopping, applying makeup and hunting for sexy shoes and cute boyfriends and to prognosticate a world where men and women dressed alike and worked alike in navy suits and were equal in every way."

So per Dowd the early feminists were naive and misguided because they didn't value or recognize the importance of shopping and make-up and sexy shoes and cute boyfriends. They were too busy ignoring the Big Economic Issues, trying to pay for dinner, and stupidly "demonizing" dolls and magazines that emphasize the cultivation of an unattainable standard of beauty using expensive and at times unhealthy clothing and beauty products. Encouraging women to feel comfortable and confident with their bodies is apparently just not a goal she can support. If only those feminsts had called her to find out how to more productively use their time and energy. Not that she would have actually taken their calls, of course. Early in the piece Dowd says:

"Maybe we should have known that the story of women's progress would be more of a zigzag than a superhighway, that the triumph of feminism would last a nanosecond while the backlash lasted 40 years."

Dowd takes no responsibility for the present status of women; it's so much easier for her to blame the feminists, whom she can only ever criticize, never support. Those feminists are not doing their jobs, depite the lofty salaries they receive, their high profiles with the mainstream press, and the ways they get elected to political offices and promoted to powerful corporate positions in such overwhelming numbers, and generally control the world. She may reject their methods, their goals, and their very looks, but dammit they owed it to her to make sure that she could have it all, but failed to deliver.

See also: Echidne, Rox Populi, Brutal Women (twice), Pandagon, Sisyphus Shrugged, Jonquil, Majikthise and My Amusement Park.

Update: And here is a quick note from Siva, who is having trouble staying fully on blog hiatus:

"To this: "... it's so much easier for her to blame the feminists, whom she can only ever criticize, never support."
I would add:"or quote." Who, exactly, is she talking about? What books are she quoting? What studies is she citing? Who are these mysterious feminists? None that I know. I hate it when anyone sets up a bogeywoman by saying "feminists believe ..." or "liberals want ..."

Posted by Ann Bartow at 10:09 PM | Permalink

Angry/calm, calm/angry optical illusion, via Alas, A Blog.

Posted by Ann Bartow at 7:14 PM | Permalink

You are a Revisionist Historian. You are the Clark
Kent of postmodernists. You probably want to
work in a library or in social services. No
one suspects you of being a postmodernist...
until they read your publications!


What kind of postmodernist are you!?
brought to you by Quizilla

Posted by Ann Bartow at 7:04 PM | Permalink

I often enjoy Oliver Willis's blog, but see if you can spot the sexism, and racism, in this post.

Posted by Ann Bartow at 6:55 PM | Permalink

Stratfor, whose "World Terrorism Report" can probably keep safe anyone with the $350/year to spend on a subscription, helpfully reports that Al Qaeda has now become a misleading brand name used to describe any number of terrorist groups with Islamic leanings and only tangential connections to one another. Which is pretty much exactly what I, among many researchers, have been saying for a long time.

Most important, however, Stratfor (here's a link to the full story, reported on an email list) points out that the Qaeda name now leads to "hyper-confusion." As, of course, does the word hyper-confusion.

Posted by David Leheny at 11:12 PM | Permalink

Chapter 7
Removing A Malignant Brain Tumor

In This Chapter
Proper Tools For A Real Headcase
Having Fun With Cancerous Neuronal Tissue Removal
Where To Go From Here (Other Than The Bathroom!)

This procedure, like any complex surgery, can get pretty difficult. Since your patient’s life is in your hands, you want to be sure that you are fairly familiar with this material before getting started. It is suggested that you read through this chapter at least twice.

Posted by Ann Bartow at 5:24 PM | Permalink

Many more here.

Posted by Ann Bartow at 5:11 PM | Permalink

Story here. Be sure and read the P.P.P.S. at the bottom if you have trouble discerning satire.

Posted by Ann Bartow at 8:58 AM | Permalink

Every one who reads this blog knows what an extraordinary person Siva is; thoughtful, smart, energetic, open-minded and imbued with an outstanding value system. He is the heart and soul as well as the namesake and driving force of this blog. So it is with great regret that I announce I will be relentlessly cheapening the tone of the discourse in his absence. Luckily the other contributors will continue to add gravitas, balance, and diversity of thought, as they always do. I haven't posted much about the Google Print case so far, but as with so many topics, I have opinions, and they will surface soon. Meanwhile, best of luck to Siva and Melissa with all their wonderful projects.

Posted by Ann Bartow at 6:08 PM | Permalink

Dear Friends:

I am way behind on a couple of major projects. My tenure file is under review by my department right now. And I have a bunch of other things going on in my life (all good).

I really can't blog for a while. It's too draining and distracting to do battle so publicly. It might actually be risky. NYU is in the midst of some serious union busting and the grad students are about to go on strike. And there is a chance that NYU will chicken out on the most serious gay rights and first amendment case in a generation: whether to continue to ban the military from recruiting on campus as long as it discriminates against good patriotic Americans.

And the Google Print/Library things has taken over my life.

I usually can't help mouthing off on all this stuff. But it's not wise.

So I must refrain from blogging until the semester is over. I might announce a few things (papers, etc.). But I can't post like a maniac.

The other folks should be able to pick up the slack for me.

Thanks for understanding.

Siva

PS -- Go Longhorns!

Posted by Siva Vaidhyanathan at 11:35 AM | Permalink

ACRLog:

Tony Sanfilippo Says: October 20th, 2005 at 4:36 pm

What about the effect this will have on the non-profit university press community? Mr. Lessig is free to give away all the content he wants, as long as it's his. Google is giving away our content. I'm not talking about snippets, I'm referring to the complete digital copies they are turning over to the participating libraries. Those libraries are among our best customers. They have most, if not all of what we've published in our 50 year history. They have all bought or subscribed to our digital content in the past. Now they won't need to. We are attempting to digitize our own out of print content so we can bring it back into print and offer digitally. Google is causing irreparable damage to that endeavour.
We have a mandate from the university-Be sustainable. Make less money, then publish fewer books. It wouldn't benefit ARLs or scholarship to have those books published by the for-profit sector instead. We work hard to make all of our content as affordable as possible. What Google is proposing is a wonderful thing, how they have chosen to do it is wrong and will ultimately hurt scholarship.
Tony Sanfilippo, Marketing and Sales Director, Penn State University Press
October 20th, 2005 at 5:54 pm

Barbara Fister Says:

October 20th, 2005 at 8:50 pm

Tony, I have huge respect for university presses - and my last question was a barbed one meant to make people think but honestly I was thinking more in terms of the AAP's approach to these issues rather than that of the AAUP - though that organization, too, has expressed concern about the Google project. I personally (though not a lawyer) thought Google's approach was likely not legal, but given general reluctance of publishers to join Google Print, I found it a bold and interesting move.
Here's a question: say publishers win this round. Will it make UPs any more financially viable than if Google were to win? The library whose copy was digitized will own one digital copy, just the one, and other libraries won't presumably have access to it. Google having a copy on which they base their searchable version won't cut into revenue since it won't be possible to read much of anything online (less, in fact, that in Amazon's Search Inside). There's potentially some sales to be gained through readers discovering books. So while on principle it may make sense to say this is illegal, and a big, rich company shouldn't throw its weight around, I don't follow an argument that libraries will buy fewer books as a result.
I am concerned we're buying fewer books - because we are spending more on other things. I wrote a rather tongue-in-cheek piece for Library Journal about it when Northeastern announced it was closing. I'm not sure it shows, but I was enormously angry when I wrote it because I wasn't hearing much concern from academic librarians. And we need the university presses more than ever.
Barbara

Once again, it's not about selling books. It's about selling electronic copies, access, and indexing functions. Google is crowding out that market. That's what courts will consider. That's how the fair use argument falls.

As William Patry has pointed out, it's that extra copy to libraries that could complicate the fair use claims beyond reach.

Posted by Siva Vaidhyanathan at 10:09 AM | Permalink

Overheard in New York:

White guy: God! This is taking forever!
Black guy: Hey man, you don't like it then go back to Omaha or Ohio or whatever square state you're from.
White guy: But I'm from Brooklyn.
Black guy: Then act like it!

--Whitehall Staten Island Ferry terminal

Posted by Siva Vaidhyanathan at 6:58 PM | Permalink

From the Washington Post.

Posted by Siva Vaidhyanathan at 4:56 PM | Permalink

Someone named a baby after Google.

Posted by Siva Vaidhyanathan at 4:53 PM | Permalink

Ok. This is puzzling.

Is this not abuse of the powers of copyright? Can the AAAS really use its copyright powers to restrict a state agency that is using its material while publishing "standards?"

Now, of course, you would expect me to cheer for the scientists against the anti-education kooks who run the Kansas School Board. But think about it. By publishing "standards," the board is merely referring to, quoting from, or abstracting copyrighted material. What part of copyright law forbids a state government from being stupid?

This is copyright as censorship, plain and simple.

Read the whole story:

2 Science Groups Say Kansas Can't Use Their Evolution Papers.

October 27, 2005 2 Science Groups Say Kansas Can't Use Their Evolution Papers

By JODI WILGOREN
CHICAGO, Oct. 27 - Two leading science organizations have denied the Kansas board of education permission to use their copyrighted materials in the state's proposed new science standards because of the standards' critical approach to evolution.

The National Academy of Sciences and the National Science Teachers Association said the much-disputed new standards "will put the students of Kansas at a competitive disadvantage as they take their place in the world."

The stinging rebuke came less than two weeks before the state school board is expected to put the science standards into effect. The new standards have also received a lukewarm review from an external education company.

While the copyright denial could cause delay in their adoption, as the standards are rewritten, it is unlikely to derail the board's conservative majority in its mission to require that challenges to Darwin's theories be taught in the state's classrooms.

"Kansas students will not be well-prepared for the rigors of higher education or the demands of an increasingly complex and technologically-driven world if their science education is based on these standards," Ralph J. Cicerone, president of the National Academy, and Michael J. Padilla, president of the teachers' group, said in a joint written statement today. "Instead, they will put the students of Kansas at a competitive disadvantage as they take their place in the world."

In the statement, as well as in letters to the state board, the groups opposed the standards for singling out evolution as a controversial theory, and also for changing the definition of science itself so that it is not restricted to natural phenomena.

A third organization, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, echoed those concerns in a news release supporting the copyright denial, saying: "Students are ill-served by any effort in science classrooms to blur the distinction between science and other ways of knowing, including those concerned with the supernatural."

The president of the state school board, Steve Abrams, who is the leader of its 6-4 conservative majority, said members could approve the standards on Nov. 8 as planned - but with a caveat directing a copyright lawyer to remove direct references to the groups' materials.

"The impact is minimal - it won't change the concepts," Dr. Abrams said. "They obviously don't have copyrights on concepts."

But the chairman of the standards-writing committee, Steve Case, said copyrighted material appears on almost all of the document's 100 pages, and predicted it could take two to three months to revise them.

"In some cases it's just a phrase, but in some cases it's extensive," said Dr. Case, an assistant research professor at the University of Kansas, who opposes the criticism of evolution that conservatives inserted into the standards. "You try to keep the idea but change the wording around, the writing becomes horrifically bad."

The copyright skirmish is not a surprise: the two groups took a similar step in 1999, when the Kansas board stripped the standards of virtually any reference to evolution, a move that was reversed when conservative members were ousted from office.

A board member who supports evolution, Sue Gamble, said the science groups' strong statement would not block the standards' adoption but could have a longer-term effect.

"Nothing is going to stop these six members from doing what they're going to do," Ms. Gamble said of the board's conservative majority, four of whom are up for re-election in 2006. "It won't make any difference, but I think it will make a difference next year in the election."

Posted by Siva Vaidhyanathan at 4:48 PM | Permalink

The new boss at CBS News gave money to Bush-Cheney.

Back when I was a reporter (not so long ago), contributing to a political campaign would get you fired. I guess all rules are out the window now that conservatives run everything.

Posted by Siva Vaidhyanathan at 3:14 PM | Permalink

This is a hilarious video.

Posted by Siva Vaidhyanathan at 3:01 PM | Permalink

This is important:

We should be concerned about Google Print's contractual restrictions on holders of its scanned works. But we should not fear Google simply for being the first entrant into the market. Google turns out to be evil? Implementing DRM, gathering and exploiting private personal data, indexing our DNA, imposing restrictive licensing agreements on its source material holders? Fine, criticize the evil practices (and Google too). Some other entity turns out to be evil, and wants to restrict copyright such that only Google's database is valid? Criticize them, too. But I want to recommend that we resist the conflation of evils. If we're concerned that Google is going to have a big huge really valuable database, then the answer is, in First Amendment terms, more speech. More databases, more indexers, more more more.
And by the way, you publishers, authors, and copyright-holders. You want to cash in on this market? Why don't you consider selling the electronic texts to the aggregators and indexers for cheaper than they can scan them in and with reasonable licensing terms? There's your market, right there. In fact, technology has made that market available to you for MORE THAN THIRTY YEARS. Dialog, Lexis, WestLaw, and other database vendors could have been using the full text of books for a really long time. Libraries would have killed to have full-text access to books.

On Laura's first point: Google will use its patents to ensure there is no real competition. We are talking about the next Microsoft here. Why would Google allow competition? I am afraid "more speech" is wishful thinking here.

On Laura's second point: Publishers have been doing exactly what she prescribes here. They have been doing it for almost a decade. I know this because I was involved in discussions among unversity presses on how they might offer this very service (and more, including full-text access). They are suing because Google is undermining that very market before it matures. This is why Google's fair use claims are flimsy. It's not about the book market. It's about the index and electronic text market.

Posted by Siva Vaidhyanathan at 10:36 AM | Permalink

Derek's post title is "Google is not a library, but so what?" This, frankly, saddens me. It means that somehow the understanding of the role and nature of libraries has decayed to the point of being "information warehouses." Ugh.

There are some very heavy "so whats" about libraries. I can't go through them again. Search back on the posts about Google and libraries over the past four months and you can get them. Meanwhile, can I get a shout out from some more librarians on this issue? Let's get control of this debate, please. We can't let the technologists and lawyers tell librarians what their job is and keep making facile comparisons between a company that merely ranks things and the process of effective and ethical information organization and management.

Bluntly: Librarians have ethical codes. Libraries have public duties and oversight. Is that enough "so what?"

Ok. Here is part of Derek's response:

... In fact, it's my hope that others will - so far as I know, the libraries have cut a non-exclusive deal, and other companies are interested in getting into this space.� Google's responsible to its shareholders, but it's also responsive to consumers and the market.� Other companies will compete to provide consumers with the most useful version of this service.� Siva seems to worry about the interaction between Google Print and Google's closed search algorithm, privacy policy, and potentially restricting some uses. But if consumers don't like that, a competitor can hopefully offer them a different service.

I'm more concerned with copyright holders having such an extensive exclusive right that they get to control who can to create a Google Print-like service.� A Google loss will choke off competition.� In many cases, the economic inefficiencies of copyright as monopoly are worth the trade-off for greater production of creative works.� But not in all cases, and I'd say not in this one for several plausible reasons, most importantly because the potential injury to copyright holders is minute, the potential benefit to them is significant, and the potential public benefit is even greater.

Can the market satisfy all our public policy concerns?� No.� But Google can be a private company and still fufill public policy objectives.

First, let me assert once again that Google of 2025 most certainly will not resemble the Google of 2005. It might not even exist. Think about it.

Ok. I will go farther than Derek on one point: copyright holders would suffer absolutely no harm from Google Library. But that's not the point. Courts don't care about real harm. They care about potential harm to potential markets and they take the word of the plaintiff to be the last word on the question. The exclusive right to copy is the exclusive right to copy. The only exception to that right that courts would consider demonstrates a clear public benefit. The public benefit here is not so clear to courts (although it is to Derek and me and most Sivacracy readers). The private benefit of free-riding is.

Saying "where is the harm?" (the Google corporate refrain) reveals an unwillingness to recognize the extent to which real-world effects influence most federal judges in copyright cases: not at all. Congress has made it clear that it does not care about real-world effects. Courts have as well (see the 9th Circuit in Napster or the Supreme Court in Grokster). All Congress cares about is the trump cards it can deal out to copyright holders. And courts tend to respect that even if it makes no sense or harms the public (see Eldred).

So just as the widespread worship of Google baffles me, the widespread faith in the reasonableness of courts (especially SDNY and the 2d Circuit) baffles me more. Have we not learned any hard lessons from the last few years? How often since Feist has a federal court shown that it "gets it?" Certainly, in Kelly. But Kelly is no longer settled law. Google Print/Library might kill Kelly. If we get a very different indexing/cacheing decision out of the 2d Circuit then the Supreme Court (wild cards all around) will have to choose between them. And must I remind everyone that Ginsburg is now the most dominant copyright voice on the court? I suspect the courts are exhausted by all the hard thinking we have made them do over the past few years and they are in fact more rigid, more fundamentalist, than in the recent past. The copyright moral panics have made a difference. And this one is no different.

And have we not learned not to count on private industry to stand up for principle and the public good? Where is the consumer electronics industry now in the DRM fight? Derek seems to have faith in something called "competition." I have not seen this mythical beast for many years. Google can only do this project because it has this amazing super-secret patented scanning machine. It controls the patents on it. There shall be no competition unless some other firms actually licenses the electronic files from publishers (a market that would dry up if Google continues).

I can't believe I have to remind anyone of this: DRM, nondisclosure, and patents destroy competition. That's why we have them. They are what Google depends on to do its job. These are not trivial problems. These are not neutral technologies. There are great complications and problems here. We should not be blind to them.

Again agreeing with Derek -- "a Google loss would choke off competition." Exactly. Before Google loses, there is a crowding-out effect. After it loses, there will be a chilling effect. Meanwhile, publishers fear that a market that Amazon created for them: "search inside the book" licensing, will evaporate. Worse, of course, is possible. A bad loss threatens everything we hold dear about the Internet.

And I am still waiting for anyone (Derek, Michael, Larry?) to come to terms with the privacy problems here. As Julie Cohen and Sonia Katyal have shown us, digital copyright and surveillance are intricately linked. What is Google doing to prevent anyone from snooping on our reading habits? Please read the Google privacy policy. I promise it will send chills up your spine. Check out the part about law enforcement. Then go ask your librarian if he would go to jail to protect your confidentiality. I know many librarians who would. Google: promises to turn you over to the Feds. Libraries: promise to do everything they can to protect you from the Feds. You decide who you trust.

So to review: a Google win (unlikely as it is) would choke off competition. A Google loss would choke off competition. And we are unlikely to get the really cool public library text-search index we deserve in any case.

This remains a good dream and a bad deal all around.

Posted by Siva Vaidhyanathan at 10:04 AM | Permalink

No way I can do this justice through excerpting or description, just go read it yourself.

Posted by Ann Bartow at 8:24 AM | Permalink

From Fark.com:

Posted by Ann Bartow at 8:20 AM | Permalink

WNBA Star Opens Up About Being Gay:

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

NEW YORK (AP) -- Houston Comets forward Sheryl Swoopes is opening up about being a lesbian, telling a magazine that she's ''tired of having to hide my feelings about the person I care about.''

Swoopes, honored last month as the WNBA's Most Valuable Player, told ESPN The Magazine for a story on newsstands Wednesday that she didn't always know she was gay and fears that coming out could jeopardize her status as a role model.

''Do I think I was born this way? No,'' Swoopes said. ''And that's probably confusing to some, because I know a lot of people believe that you are.''

Swoopes, who was married and has an 8-year-old son, said her 1999 divorce ''wasn't because I'm gay.'' She said her reason for coming out now is merely because she wants to be honest.

''It's not something that I want to throw in people's faces. I'm just at a point in my life where I'm tired of having to pretend to be somebody I'm not,'' the 34-year-old Swoopes said. ''I'm tired of having to hide my feelings about the person I care about. About the person I love.'' ...

Swopes is one of the finest athletes and competitors I have ever seen in person. I had the honor of seeing her play many times when she starred for Texas Tech back in the early 1990s. I had the displeasure of seeing her frequently defeat the University of Texas Lady Longhorns. Sigh.

The only sad thing about this story is that she did not feel confident enough to come out when she was 18 (not that many people from Texas do). Back then, rumor has it, she rebuffed recruitment efforts from the Longhorns because she met a few lesbian players in Austin. Had it not been such a big deal, Swoopes might have led Texas to a couple of more National Championships and the world would be a better place.

But that's my thing. The important thing is that she is being strong and honest now. And she will inspire thousands of young women to be proud of themselves instead of ashamed.

Bravo.

Posted by Siva Vaidhyanathan at 1:45 PM | Permalink

From Cindy Adams:

SCHWARZENEGGER is furious. Furious at Bush. Furious GOP fund- raisers have been sanctioned in Ar nold's area. Furious because he himself is up for re-election. Furious on account of he wants to cover the state passing the hat. Furious because he his own personal self sent word Washington must stay out of California for now. Furious because the White House as much as showed him he knows what he can do with this hat. The gov is so furious at the prez for invading his territory that he's toying with pickpocketing the Dems. So furious that he's raising the specter of perhaps...

Do we really need the least popular governor in America to become a Democrat? I think not.

Posted by Siva Vaidhyanathan at 12:21 PM | Permalink

From gnuosphere: Is Google The Right "Person" For The Job?

I couldn't agree more. Google's informal corporate motto of "Don't Be Evil" is irrelevant. Google is a for-profit corporation. This means neither good nor evil as Google's capacity for "personhood" exists merely in a legal sense. It's not that conscience is ignored, it's that it simply does not exist. This means an exclusive obligation to Google shareholders without any regard to stakeholders (i.e. the public). Google is driven - by law - to maximize profit for its shareholders. The question of "good or evil" entirely misses the point. That is, Google's actions will be driven by the legal commandment to increase profit. We are looking at a corporation structured to maximize profit yet in control of the largest digital database of knowledge and culture to ever exist.Personally, I'm not against having an institution be granted the right to create such a database. But I'm wary about handing over such privilege and control to a body that is not working for the people. Should a corporation control what could potentially become the world's first digital library? What is the purpose of a library? Why do libraries exist? For who do libraries exist? If this project is to become a globally accessible library, should there be someone controlling your right to read?As the database of books increases in size and therefore scientific and cultural value, is an unregulated for-profit corporation the best choice to manage and control that database?

Posted by Siva Vaidhyanathan at 12:17 PM | Permalink

From Madisonian.net:

When the Copyright Clearance Center/Blackboard deal was announced recently, I posted a glib, cynical observation about what it means for fair use. Tarleton Gillespie has gone me one better, with a succinct explanation in Inside Higher Ed of why this is a bad deal for copyright.

First, it's a bad deal because it reduces copyright to a brutal transactions costs essence. If a professor posts material on Blackboard, the CCC permissions process automatically kicks in. No more wasting valuable time wondering about "educational" or "teaching" or "critical" uses of copyrighted works. Just pay the man.

Second, it's a bad deal because the technological combination hides that point. The posting and clearance process is supposed to be seamlessly integrated, not only making the transaction itself effortless but completely eliminating the thought process that goes into the fair use equation. Is it permitted or is it not? The machine will literally do the teacher's thinking, and no one -- not the institution, nor the teacher, nor the student -- will be the wiser. Copyright history teaches that copyright is about more than transactions costs. Sometimes, copyright means never having to say you're sorry. But you do need to have the choice.

There is much more in Michael's eloquent post. If you teach at a university, this is a must-read.

Posted by Siva Vaidhyanathan at 11:15 AM | Permalink

From USATODAY.com:

Iran's president: Israel must be 'wiped off the map

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) -- Iran's hard-line president called for Israel to be "wiped off the map" and said a new wave of Palestinian attacks will destroy the Jewish state, state-run media reported Wednesday.

Great. We lose 2,001 good Americans (as of this morning) so that the murderous Mullahs of Iran can run Iraq via their cronies and thugs.

Good job, Mr. President. Way to go.

As I have said all along, radical and violent fundamentalists have no better friend in power than George W. Bush. He gives them everything they want: chaos, hopelessless, poverty, humilation, torture, and a "crusade." It's a dream come true for Islamist recruiters!

Too bad W can't recruit American soldiers nearly as well.

Posted by Siva Vaidhyanathan at 11:06 AM | Permalink

How about truth and justice:

... In many ways the Fitzgerald investigation is a sideshow; we have plenty of evidence showing what happened. The secret Office of Special Plans, the "stovepiped" intelligence, the Pentagon's war against State and the CIA -- it has all been reported, and new evidence and accusations keep coming in. Just in the last week, former Secretary of State Colin Powell's chief of staff, Lawrence Wilkerson, blamed the war on "a cabal between the Vice President of the United States, Richard Cheney, and the Secretary of Defense ... that made decisions that the bureaucracy did not know were being made." In the Oct. 31 issue of the New Yorker, Brent Scowcroft, who was national security advisor under Bush I, blasted the neocons who dreamed up the Iraq war, and uttered this amazing statement: "I consider Cheney a good friend -- I've known him for thirty years. But Dick Cheney I don't know anymore."

Whatever Fitzgerald decides, it's high time -- past time -- for Congress to begin asking deeper questions about how this war was sold to the American people. The 2,000 Americans who have given their lives deserve nothing less.

Posted by Siva Vaidhyanathan at 11:00 AM | Permalink

From American Prospect Online:

... The key documents supposedly proving the Iraqi attempt later turned out to be crude forgeries, created on official stationery stolen from the African nation's Rome embassy. Among the most tantalizing aspects of the debate over the Iraq War is the origin of those fake documents -- and the role of the Italian intelligence services in disseminating them.

In an explosive series of articles appearing this week in the Italian newspaper La Repubblica, investigative reporters Carlo Bonini and Giuseppe d'Avanzo report that Nicolo Pollari, chief of Italy's military intelligence service, known as Sismi, brought the Niger yellowcake story directly to the White House after his insistent overtures had been rejected by the Central Intelligence Agency in 2001 and 2002. Sismi had reported to the CIA on October 15, 2001, that Iraq had sought yellowcake in Niger, a report it also plied on British intelligence, creating an echo that the Niger forgeries themselves purported to amplify before they were exposed as a hoax.

Today's exclusive report in La Repubblica reveals that Pollari met secretly in Washington on September 9, 2002, with then-Deputy National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley. Their secret meeting came at a critical moment in the White House campaign to convince Congress and the American public that war in Iraq was necessary to prevent Saddam Hussein from developing nuclear weapons. National Security Council spokesman Frederick Jones confirmed the meeting to the Prospect on Tuesday.

Pollari told the newspaper that since 2001, when he became Sismi's director, the only member of the U.S. administration he has met officially is his former CIA counterpart George Tenet. But the Italian newspaper quotes a high-ranking Italian Sismi source asserting a meeting with Hadley. La Repubblica also quotes a Bush administration official saying, "I can confirm that on September 9, 2002, General Nicolo Pollari met Stephen Hadley."

The paper goes on to note the significance of that date, highlighting the appearance of a little-noticed story in Panorama a weekly magazine owned by Italian Prime Minister and Bush ally Silvio Berlusconi, that was published three days after Pollari's meeting with Hadley. The magazine's September 12, 2002, issue claimed that Iraq's intelligence agency, the Mukhabarat, had acquired 500 tons of uranium from Nigeria through a Jordanian intermediary. (While this September 2002 Panorama report mentioned Nigeria, the forgeries another Panorama reporter would be proferred less than a month later purportedly concerned Niger.) ...

Posted by Siva Vaidhyanathan at 10:40 AM | Permalink

He makes a strong case:

Again, Siva's real fear appears not to be the meltdown caused by Google Print the case, but what he speculates will come after. When I look at the Google Print case, I say "game on" - I see a chance for a legitimate defendant to take a real shot at making some good law. There's broad and even unexpected support for what Google's doing. A strategy of just patiently waiting on the sidelines, to try to hold Congress off, seems potentially very damaging. I don't know how it's productive to copyfight that way - should Grokster not have been fought, because if we had clearly won, the INDUCE Act would have passed?

Yes, there are times to be bold and subjects to champion. I just don't think this is worth betting the Internet (or the copyright system) on.

My fears about Google losing (which are significant, and based on real copyright politics instead of wishful thinking) are only the premise of my criticism of Google Print/Library.

Look, when in comes to copyright, the Southern District of New York and the Second Circuit do not make good law. Learned Hand has been dead a long time. The chances of good law coming out of the home turf of Time Warner, Viacom, and the News Corporation at the behest of some punk-kid company from California are as slim as those of good wine coming from New York. I sure wish New York produced good wines. And I wish SDNY and the Second Circuit understood digital copyright better (see Universal v. Reimerdes). But we shall be waiting a long time for both these things.

And besides, my real issues are with the libraries here. Google can and should do what's best for its shareholders. The rest of us should worry about what's best for the culture, democracy, and the Internet. We can't count on any company to do that for us. We should be able to count on libraries to do it. They work for us. Google doesn't.

Basically, I think we as readers and researchers (and authors) should want such a full-text-search service. But Google is the wrong party to depend on for this in part because I think it will lose in court, undermine Kelly v. ArribaSoft, threaten future similar library projects, and crowd out other good initiatives in both the private and public sectors. The damage could be huge, both in court and Congress.

Please remember that this company is unaccountable to everyone but its shareholders. It depends on things like DRM, trade secrets, proprietary code, vague privacy pledges, and non-disclosure agreements to make this project happen. How can I cheer this on?

Look, the more fair-use friendly Google Print Library is, the more user un-friendly it is. The better the service is for Google and the publishers, the worse it is for us.

The idealization of both Google the company and the library project are really astounding to me. I just don't get it.

Posted by Siva Vaidhyanathan at 5:06 PM | Permalink

Martha Nussbaum is one of my intellectual heroes:

... What has been happening in India is a serious threat to the future of democracy in the world. The fact that it has yet to make it onto the radar screen of most Americans is evidence of the way in which terrorism and the war on Iraq have distracted Americans from events and issues of fundamental significance. If we really want to understand the impact of religious nationalism on democratic values, India currently provides a deeply troubling example, and one without which any understanding of the more general phenomenon is dangerously incomplete. In order to understand the situation, in turn, we need to turn to a set of events that show more clearly than any others how far the ideals of respectful pluralism and the rule of law have been undermined by religious ideology. These events are a terrible instance of genocidal violence; but they are more than that. The deeper problem they reveal is that of violence aided and abetted by the highest levels of government and law enforcement, of a virtual announcement to minority citizens that they are unequal before the law and that their lives are not worth the protection of law enforcement.

UPDATE: Here is part II.

Posted by Siva Vaidhyanathan at 4:27 PM | Permalink

From Kieran Healy of Crooked Timber:

... Those were the days. Men could be men, and women could be modest -- except for the ladies of easy leisure, who were available for extramarital sex, backalley abortions, syphilis, etc. ...

Those Crooked Timber folks are smart. Don't cross them, if ya know what's good for ya.

Posted by Siva Vaidhyanathan at 4:16 PM | Permalink

Boldface emphasis added by Siva:

From The (apparently clueless) Los Angeles Times:

A Love That Was Benched by Their Careers

The long-standing relationship between high court nominee Harriet Miers and Texas jurist Nathan Hecht entrances and puzzles their friends.

By Scott Gold and Richard A. Serrano
Times Staff Writers

October 8, 2005

HOUSTON — He was a country boy who grew up on a wheat farm, she a city girl who played on her high school tennis team.

The lives of Nathan Hecht and Harriet E. Miers began to intertwine in the early 1970s, shortly after they finished law school at Southern Methodist University in Dallas.

Soon, they were rising stars at the same law firm, and their lives seemed to be converging in every way. They were earnest, ambitious and increasingly affectionate with one another. Friends thought they would get married.

Instead, for 30 years, Hecht and Miers — President Bush's Supreme Court nominee — have nurtured a kinship that has entranced and confounded their closest friends. They are traditional conservatives content in a modern, nontraditional relationship, one that leaves plenty of time for their true love, their work, to take center stage.

Romantic at times, the relationship has played an important role in their ascent to power — she as White House counsel, he as a justice of the Texas Supreme Court, where he has served for 15 years.

"I think they thought seriously about getting married," said Dallas commercial litigation attorney Brady Sparks, who lived across the hall from Hecht in law school and has been friends with Hecht and Miers ever since. "They both decided that it just wasn't in the cards for the agenda they both wanted, and that was to do about three lifetimes worth of work in one lifetime."

The Rev. Ron Key, their pastor, said God called him to preach, not to play matchmaker. He said that in his long career as a minister, theirs was the only relationship that had ever tempted him to intervene.

"It's been great to watch — and a little puzzling sometimes," Key said. "Their relationship has been such a special one. Sometimes I think they wanted to protect how special it was by not getting married."...

"... confounded their closest friends ..."

Ha ha he he he.

I bet it does. :)

Posted by Siva Vaidhyanathan at 3:58 PM | Permalink

Remember in the VP debate last fall when Cheney claimed he had never met John Edwards, except that he had? A lot. And there were pictures. And remember how no one in the conservative media cared that the VP of the United States blatently lied to us all?

Well, Cheney has done it again.

Remember when he told Tim Russert he had didn't know who Joe Wilson was?

Hmmmmm. Think he was telling the truth?

Puleeez.

Posted by Siva Vaidhyanathan at 3:33 PM | Permalink

According to a CBS News poll, a majority of Americans now reject evolution.

That's right. We are getting dumber thanks to the radical right and its anti-truth, anti-science, anti-thought agenda.

Wasn't Bush supposed to IMPROVE education?

Did you ever think an entire nation might qualify for the Darwin Awards?

Posted by Siva Vaidhyanathan at 3:07 PM | Permalink

Here is Dan Solove writing about the ridiculous cost of this surveillance program.

And here is civil libertarian hero Dan Gilmore:

The NYT covered this story, on the front page, too. But somehow it was all about "Colleges Protest Call to Upgrade Online Systems". It wasn't about the government automating the bugging of every student, professor, and staff person by typing a few commands from the basement of the FBI building. The nasty word "wiretap" didn't appear til the eighth paragraph, "below the fold", and when it did appear, it was buried in mid-sentence, right next to "criminals, terrorists and spies". (They never wiretap "citizens", "innocent bystanders", or "suspects", and everyone wiretapped is of course guilty-as-charged, though they haven't been charged with any crime yet.)

There's no shortage of bias in the New York Times, but this is a particularly blatant example. Now why is it in the interest of the Times to build wiretapping into the hardware of the Internet?

The story also claimed that "Because the government would have to win court orders before undertaking surveillance, the universities are not raising civil liberties issues." I think there's a civil liberties issue when the US Government wants to wire the country like the Stasi wired East Germany for indiscriminate bugging. And there's no "winning" of these court orders; they happen in secret, without the participation or knowledge of the target of the wiretap. The university cannot appear in court to argue about whether the order should be issued (and very few challenge them after issuance). In most cases the judge is *required* to issue the secret wiretap order every time the Feds merely say "we need the info". To get 99% of such
orders, they don't need a warrant, nor probable cause to believe that a crime has been committed.

What used to be tough wiretap standards have been whittled away inch by inch by decades of aggressive pushing on the part of the FBI, DEA, CIA, NSA, and DoJ. In August, one judge woke up and published a decision that said, despite his previously regular issuance of secret orders to track the location of peoples' cellphones in real time, without probable cause or any suspicion of criminal activity, he was concerned about whether this routine secret practice was actually legal. (See http://www.eff.org/news/archives/2005_09.php#004002).

Bravo for that one judge who found his conscience. The government argues that under the same conditions (no warrant, no reason to suspect you in particular), they can monitor about 40% of the bits you send over the Internet, in real time, including where you are, who
you're talking with, what protocols you're using, and every URL, email address, IM name, or other "addressing and signaling information". (I argue that they don't have this authority, but I never get to show up in court at these discussions with the judge.)

Not only is this information supposedly legal for the government to get about every citizen, it's perfect for automated software tracking of who's-talking-to-who, all the time. The NSA term for it is "traffic analysis", and most of it works even if your communications are encrypted.

I understand why the authoritarian brass would want routine wiretapsof the innocent; as Orson Welles said, "Only in a police state is the job of a policeman easy." They've lost sight of their goal (keeping people safe and free), yet redoubled their efforts. Why this would be
in the interest of the citizens (or the FCC, or the NY Times) is the puzzle.

Posted by Siva Vaidhyanathan at 2:48 PM | Permalink

For how long?

Posted by Siva Vaidhyanathan at 12:07 PM | Permalink

Posted by Ann Bartow at 11:10 PM | Permalink

His article, "Between What’s Right and What’s Easy" from Inside Higher Ed, is a wonderful exhoration to educators to boldly employ fair use, even as we split infinitives.

Posted by Ann Bartow at 6:01 PM | Permalink

"Protecting the Presidential Seal. No Joke." by KATHARINE Q. SEELYE
in the October 24, 2005 NYT:

"You might have thought that the White House had enough on its plate late last month, what with its search for a new Supreme Court nominee, the continuing war in Iraq and the C.I.A. leak investigation. But it found time to add another item to its agenda - stopping The Onion, the satirical newspaper, from using the presidential seal.

"Despite the seriousness of the Bush White House, more than one Bush staffer reads The Onion and enjoys it thoroughly," he said. "We do have a sense of humor, believe it or not."

Via The Poor Man, and like The Poor Man, Sivacracy is proud to feature the Seal of the President of the United States, only ours is bigger, not that size matters of course.

Posted by Ann Bartow at 11:32 AM | Permalink

And wins!

Posted by Ann Bartow at 8:21 AM | Permalink

In 1999 Senator Kay Bailey Hutchinson thought perjury was pure evil. In 2005, it's no big deal! Julia at Sisyphus Shrugged fills us in.

Posted by Ann Bartow at 6:49 AM | Permalink

Read the reviews, (e.g. "This one is up there with Plato's Republic, Aristotle's Ethics, Dante's Inferno, and The Left Behind Series. Cogently argued, thoughtful, bold, outside the box thinking from America's finest living reporter. Comparable in American letters only to Paine's "Common Sense," in which this book abounds. Every single fact was checked, and re-checked against reality. And if the liberals can succeed with Christmas, wait till they get their greasy little hands on Good Friday. The mind reels."), but if you buy the book someone should pinch you hard. Via Jesus' General.

Posted by Ann Bartow at 12:16 PM | Permalink

Many of these pets look embarassed, but also well fed, unlike most human models. A bunch more photos and lots of corporate sponsor propaganda here.

Posted by Ann Bartow at 11:10 AM | Permalink

Read about the silencing of a military blogger at The Tattered Coat, via Suburban Guerrilla.

Posted by Ann Bartow at 10:53 AM | Permalink

If there are not enough antiviral drugs available, it will be more than a "PR disaster" but it was good to see this article draw attention to the effects patents have upon potentially life saving drugs, and also mention (though somewhat obliquely) the fact that the United States does not like to play by the IP rules it wants to set for everyone else.

Drug industry tries to avert bird flu PR disaster, by Ben Hirschler, European Pharmaceuticals Correspondent, Reuters

"Drug industry executives are working overtime to prevent what could be a positive news story on bird flu from turning into a public relations disaster.

"Normally, there must be an attempt to negotiate a voluntary licence but in a national emergency that step can be bypassed in order to save time, though the patent holder would still be entitled to a payment, according to the WTO secretariat."

FEELING THE HEAT

"This time round, the stakes could be even higher, with pressure on patents potentially coming not only from developing countries but also rich nations worried about drug supplies.

"Roche and the rest of the industry have a challenge to navigate this controversy successfully.

"Companies are very aware of the AIDS experience and the impact that had on their reputation. Have they learnt the lesson? It is difficult to speculate on that before we see what actually happens in practice," said Simon Friend, global pharmaceuticals practice leader at PricewaterhouseCoopers."

Posted by Ann Bartow at 10:35 AM | Permalink

Bob Geiger at the Yellow Dog Blog observed:

..."Sixteen states and the District of Columbia have minimum wages higher than the national level, with Washington and Oregon topping the scale at $7.35 and $7.25 per hour, respectively. Californians earn a minimum of $6.75 per hour while San Francisco – that proud bastion of liberalism – requires that employers pay at least $8.50 per hour.

"[This] means that these are primarily liberal-leaning states and an excellent example of why we should wear that label proudly going into the 2006 and 2008 election cycles. In doing better at defining ourselves – rather than letting Republicans misrepresent who we are – drawing these kinds of distinctions is central to our definition of what being liberal and Democratic means." ...

Read the whole post here.

Posted by Ann Bartow at 10:24 AM | Permalink

A day after being eviscerated by