In many areas, I’ve become less and less an absolutist as I’ve gotten older (someone once told me it would be the other way around). Large scale societies and the many good things that come from them exist because of compromise. So I’m willing to accept that the job of protecting public safety will always operate in a contentious manner with the idea of civil liberties. During wartime, the compromises will be greatest. However, I don’t consider protecting ourselves from terrorist attacks a “war” (with all that loaded term implies) as much as a condition of being a nation. The potential to be attacked by another is as much as a characteristic of peace as it is conflict. So the question becomes: how much compromise and intrusion is permissible?

Our government has seriously bungled this question in multiple ways. The current furor over the NSA tracking of phone numbers and connections would be much less intense had they not already admitted to illegal wiretapping despite the highly liberal provisos of FISA that would have allowed them to operate legally just as easily as not. Keeping track of phone numbers and doing social network analysis to try to identify connections is almost precisely what the NSA should be doing. It’s almost the very definition of acceptable domestic surveillance.

Ironically, the actually acceptable method for this kind of analysis was already put in place once by the NSA, but killed due to political infighting. It’s not as if the methods are opaque– this kind of de-referenced study is common to a plethora of studies that involve human subjects. Leave it to the government to kill a sensible, logical program for fear of being embarrassed by the results– only to embark upon much more embarrassing methods a decade later…

In case anyone has been looking for it, Google Video is the sanctioned home for the Stephen Colbert roast of President Bush. The response to Colbert is interesting. Lefties generally applaud, of course, while staunch Republicans are still trying to figure out the joke… and the mainstream media– particularly those in and around the Beltway– don’t get it at all, complaining that it wasn’t funny, that Colbert “bombed” and that it was “too harsh.”

But the interesting thing is that while Colbert did “bomb” in a traditional sense (the pained looks on the faces of many in attendance attests to that), he was right on target when it comes to the audience that he was really aiming for: all of us out here, outside Washington. Colbert’s performance was meant for the bloggers and bit-torrent downloaders. It was custom-made for internet video redistribution. The new media, the new viral marketing, the new audience.

It’s fun to see the traditional formula turned upside down– usually these Washington events are so filled with insider references and information that to the casual viewer they are wholly unintelligible– even while it’s scary to see how air-tight and thick the bubble in which our leaders operate has become.

Anyone who has been thinking about Net Neutrality should check out this current report on Senate net neutrality activity by Art Brodsky– it’s going to start heating up…

Mike McCurry doesn’t like the hostility of the rhetoric surrounding net neutrality. McCurry asks:

Do you really believe this is good v. evil or just an honest disagreement about what will make the ‘net flourish and prosper?

The answer, of course, is that it is both– it is an honest disagreement about a technology that is permeating our society, making it a deeply moral issue as well as a commercial one.

It’s certainly no secret that the fundamental question here is one of profit. ISPs would love to monetize the services they provide twice. They would surely love to create premium rates not for more bandwidth (which is fine on a neutral net) but for access to particular services… many of which they can charge for a third time through the media vendors. According to those opposing net neutrality, this is all OK because it’s the American way.

But as if this weren’t obscene enough, you have cancerous growths like Hands Off the Internet, funded by bandwidth/media conglomerates and conservative non-thinking tanks treating the term “regulation” as if it always has the same effect and moral meaning no matter how it is applied. Sadly, there might just be enough ignorance out there that these shrill cries of “regulation! regulation! Run!” might find a sympathetic audience, despite the simple eloquence of people like Tim Berners-Lee.

It’s interesting that people don’t mind regulation when it is performing services such as forcing cable providers to provide local and broadcast channels as part of their basic packages, or cell phone providers to allow complete interconnects with all wired carriers (not to mention free and ever-present access to 911). Regulation is, in and of itself, meaningless.

“Regulating” the Internet by legislating that it remain in operation as it has since the beginning of its phenomenal growth isn’t regulation in the sense that the scare-mongers would have you think. If everything has been so wonderful in terms of the Internet’s current growth (as most on both sides agree), then what’s wrong with protecting that status? It’s like complaining that keeping people who would like to shoot and rob me at an ATM machine are being unfairly regulated by having laws that prevent them from pursuing these actions. After all, so far I haven’t been shot and left to die…

“No matter what the studies say, bullying happens and it must be our goal to stop it,” says the visiting ‘expert on bullying’ who runs a ‘Stop the Bullying’ foundation, before going on to quote shallow (and debunked) ideas about video games and aggression.

A cynic might think that this is a person who is enjoying his paid Alaskan vacation– the fruits of his alarmist scare-mongering– just as he enjoys dozens and dozens of others each year to spots around the country, and that the last statement just planted the seeds for a return visit in the future. But I’m a realist, I suspect he means what he says and is merely ignorant.

In the meantime we have a very real weapons and school-terror drama happening at nearby North Pole Middle School, where six students have been arrested for plotting to kill peers and staff alike.

Does anyone really believe that the ministrations of the platitudinous bullying expert– if he’d just been heard earlier– would have prevented the North Pole incident? Maybe a few. Will we be hearing about how video games must be involved in this near tragedy? I’m sure. But both of these represent either outright ignorance or a willful desire not to face the fact that what we are seeing here is nothing new.

School violence hasn’t increased since 1990; in fact it has decreased. This may well be due– in part– to a focus on bullying and discipline. It also creates a chafing, hidebound system that encourages the festering of small-scale conflicts and social friction with no remaining outlets to escalate to tragic proportions.

Back in the late seventies and early eighties when I was a teen, we not only had violent video games, but actually played outside practicing very real violence on ourselves. We beat (literally) and shot at (literally) each other as cowboys and indians, GIs and gooks, and commies and Americans. My father had 22 slug buried in his leg from his days of playing war as a teenager.

The fact is, as poor Piggy discovered, children have an intrinsic tendency to violence and exclusion that is matched by a natural tendency to explore and embrace. It’s the paradox of the human animal, evolved (or not) as we are.

The solution– as usual– lies in the simple things. Parents need to stop looking for blame and start fully loving their children. This means paying attention, participating in their lives, providing firm but rational discipline. Stop paying for outside, fear-mongering experts to go on vacation and pay the good teachers who actually care about and provide innovative nurturing learning environments for students… and fire the rest.

[ruminate bullying violence education parenting]

from the New York Times:

Something has gone very wrong with the United States patent system.

What was their first clue??

[ruminate ip patents BlindinglyObvious]

At least in Georgia. The real problem here can be seen in the headline: if these are going to be acceptable in a public high school, then they shouldn’t really be “bible classes” should they?

I heard a news segment on this legislation this morning. Even proponents argue it will be hard to teach. But it shouldn’t be hard at all if the subject is actually taught as history and literature not as religion. While the sponsor of the bill said that this wasn’t about religion or indoctrination and that the subject matter would be taught in a secular manner as a subject of social studies, history, and literature, he is proposing this in a heavily conservative state with a strong Christian conservative lobby.

It was ironic, but not surprising, that the first legislative supporter interviewed talked about how this class was needed because students “need faith… they need to understand the power of scripture.” Sounds real objective to me.

[ruminate education religion]

Media Matters is great at documenting spin as it happens. The rhetorical move from “domestic wiretapping” to “terrorist surveillance program” is a classic.

[ruminate, spin, wiretapping, the sucking sound of our civil rights being stolen]

Nick Carr asks poetic, rhetorical questions about Wikipedia and the potential effects of its success on other publications and resources:

Might not this statistical optimization of “value” at the macroscale be a recipe for mediocrity at the microscale - the scale, it’s worth remembering, that defines our own individual lives and the culture that surrounds us? By providing a free, easily and universally accessible information source at an average quality level of 5, will Wikipedia slowly erode the economic incentives to produce an alternative source with a quality level of 9 or 8 or 7?

Mitch Hedberg, one of my favorite standup comics, died last Wednesday. Of course just about every news outlet is speculating on whether or not his death was drug-related (he had a heart condition and as far as I can tell nothing has come out to show that he didn’t die of simple heart failure) instead of his unique talent. Hedberg was the comic I was always trying to get my friends to listen to, particularly because without his throwback-stoner, non-stop, non-segue delivery, his bits just don’t have the same impact. But I’m going to reproduce a few anyway.

“I opened up a container of yogurt, and under the lid it said “Please Try Again” because they were having a contest I was unaware of. But I thought I might have opened the yogurt wrong, or maybe Yoplait was trying to inspire me. ‘C’mon, Mitchell, don’t give up. Please try again. A message of inspiration from your friends at Yoplait. Fruit on the bottom, hope on top.’”

“Rice is great when you’re hungry and want 2,000 of something.”

“An escalator can never break. It can only become stairs.”

“I’m against picketing… but I don’t know how to show it.”

“You know that Pepperidge Farm bread? That stuff is fancy. That stuff is wrapped twice. You open it, and then still ain’t open. That’s why I don’t buy it, I don’t need another step between me and toast.”

At my hotel room, my friend came over and asked to use the phone. I said “Certainly.” He said “Do I need to dial 9?” I say “Yeah. Especially if it’s in the number. You can try four and five back to back real quick.”

Someone handed me a picture and said, “This is a picture of me when I was younger.” Every picture of you is when you were younger. “…Here’s a picture of me when I’m older.” Where’d you get that camera man?

I bought a doughnut and they gave me a receipt for the doughtnut… I don’t need a receipt for the doughnut. I give you money and you give me the doughnut, end of transaction. We don’t need to bring ink and paper into this. I can’t imagine a scenario that I would have to prove that I bought a doughnut. To some skeptical friend, Don’t even act like I didn’t buy a doughnut, I’ve got the documentation right here… It’s in my file at home. …Under “D”.

[ruminate hedberg comedy obit]