From the Archives: Policy analyst James Gattuso discusses problems with Net Neutrality – Part II

Policy analyst James Gattuso discusses problems with Net Neutrality – Part II
January 24, 2011 12:15 AM MST

In a January 11 interview with the Charlottesville Libertarian Examiner, James Gattuso – who is a senior research fellow in regulatory studies at the Heritage Foundation in Washington, where he focuses on communication policy – spoke about the Federal Communications Commission’s recent ruling on so-called “Net Neutrality.”

Gattuso argued that the new rules were at odds with efficient economic operation of the Internet and also that they were based on “flawed” claims of legal authority by the FCC.

He also predicted that Congress will take action to reverse the FCC's ruling.


Congressional Review Act
One avenue will be the Congressional Review Act, which was passed in 1996 and allows Congress to overrule executive branch regulations.

Another possibility, Gattuso said, is “standalone legislation to reverse the FCC’s decision and strip them of authority to act in the future.”

This could face a hurdle, however, because Net Neutrality rules have “been a priority item for president Obama and he can veto any such standalone bill.”

He suggested that a “much more potentially winning strategy is going to be the funding approach, where they will put on an appropriations rider prohibiting the FCC from using any funds to enforce this rule.”


Threat to the First Amendment

James Gattuso (c) 2011 Rick Sincere

Finally, Gattuso expressed his concerns that the FCC’s new rules could have negative implications for freedom of expression now protected by the First Amendment.

“The rules as written by the FCC ban ‘unreasonable discrimination,’” he said. “They use the word ‘reasonable’ quite a bit in the rules, which ultimately means the FCC will have discretion to decide how content can be treated on the web, what can be given priority, and what must be given priority.”

This means, he added, that “whenever a company has a plan for treating one group of content different from another or even treating it the same as another, the FCC can say ‘yes’ or ‘no.’”

That will put the FCC “inevitably into the business of deciding what speech is valuable, what speech is important, and which speech is favored.”

That, Gattuso concluded ominously, is “a dangerous path.”

Publisher's note: This article was originally published on Examiner.com on January 24, 2011. The Examiner.com publishing platform was discontinued July 1, 2016, and its web site went dark on or about July 10, 2016.  I am republishing this piece in an effort to preserve it and all my other contributions to Examiner.com since April 6, 2010. It is reposted here without most of the internal links that were in the original.

From the Archives: Policy analyst James Gattuso discusses the problems with Net Neutrality – Part I

Policy analyst James Gattuso discusses the problems with Net Neutrality – Part I
January 24, 2011 12:03 AM MST

When the Federal Communications Commission issued rules regarding Net Neutrality in December 2010, it set off a debate about the value and legitimacy of those regulations.

Earlier this month, the Charlottesville Libertarian Examiner had an opportunity to interview James Gattuso, senior research fellow in regulatory policy at the Heritage Foundation in Washington. Gattuso had addressed a group of Virginia political activists in Richmond about the FCC’s new rules.

Gattuso summarized his remarks by saying that “the FCC last month adopted rules to regulate the Internet. They’re vague rules but, I think, very detrimental rules to society and the economy.”


‘Vague notion of fairness’

The argument for these rules, he said, “is essentially a vague notion of fairness,” which posits that “ISPs -- companies like Verizon and Comcast, which provide Internet service to individuals and businesses -- should treat all traffic the same, with no differentiation between how the speed or quality with which they’re delivered.”

This, he went on, is a “tempting idea but ultimately flawed.”

It is flawed “because for practical purposes there’s always been and needs to always be differentiation” in services regardless of what kind of business is under discussion.

Moreover, Gattuso said, “the idea of premium services and discount services is inherent to a marketplace. I can’t think of a single industry that does not use premiums and discounts. It’s an economic tool that’s beneficial to consumers.”

Premiums and discounts, he continued, are “necessary to the success of the Internet itself.”

No legal authority

Gattuso also argued that the FCC lacks the legal authority to issue Net Neutrality regulations.

James Gattuso (c) 2011 Rick Sincere

The FCC gets its authority from the Communications Act of 1934 and many subsequent amendments, he said. This law “gives the FCC authority over broadcasting. It gives the FCC authority over the telephone system, but it does not give authority anywhere in the text [for] regulating the Internet.”

To get around this lack of legal authority, Gattuso noted, “the FCC has argued in the past that it has what is known as ‘ancillary jurisdiction,’ which means if they regulate something that is similar to the Internet, they can regulate the Internet itself.”

The problem with this position, however is that the claim “was thrown out in a case in federal court last April, without much ceremony. It was not taken seriously by the court, nor should it have been,” said Gattuso.

However, he added, “with this December decision, the FCC is coming back again with a very similar argument, this time based upon a particular section [of the code] that was meant to be deregulatory.”

In that section, “Congress instructed the FCC to act to encourage development of advanced Internet services. This was a provision that was meant to instruct the FCC to deregulate, to reduce barriers, to advance Internet services if they are not being deployed.”

What the FCC is claiming now is that this deregulatory provision of communications law is “in fact a new grant of authority that they did not otherwise have, mandating them to regulate.”

This, Gattuso concluded, is “a complete reversal of what Congress intended and, ultimately, also legally flawed.”

In Part II of this interview, James Gattuso talks about what the congressional response might be, and whether Net Neutrality is a threat to freedom of expression.


Publisher's note: This article was originally published on Examiner.com on January 24, 2011. The Examiner.com publishing platform was discontinued July 1, 2016, and its web site went dark on or about July 10, 2016.  I am republishing this piece in an effort to preserve it and all my other contributions to Examiner.com since April 6, 2010. It is reposted here without most of the internal links that were in the original.

Guest Post: There's something queer about Tumblr

Paul Byron, Macquarie University and Brady Robards, Monash University

Tumblr is a site that can leave many adults confused. But for more than 330 million users worldwide it is a visual medium for self-expression where anything from politics to fan groups goes.

What makes Tumblr special is the mix of content you will find there. Think of it as the long-form, image-centric version of Twitter – but more personal. A blog can feature sentences that describe a user’s day, and this could be scattered among photo sets of refugees being rescued at sea, cat gifs, pornography, or complex paragraphs that analyse Donald Trump’s presidency. Above all, Tumblr characterises itself as a space of creative freedom.

More young people are turning online for peer support networks.
shutterstock

Like most other social media platforms, it is also ripe with peer networking, community building, and opportunities to explore gender and sexual identities. And despite the panic that often surrounds the perceived effects of social media on young people – such as fears about Facebook and privacy, Snapchat and sexting, and Instagram and narcissism – Tumblr is often left out of the debate.

Perhaps that’s because it mostly appeals to a niche audience, and can be seen as the “weird” cousin of these major platforms. This makes it a perfect venue for queer and questioning youth to hang out.

It’s a queer world

In 2016, we organised a research project called Scrolling Beyond Binaries to explore the ways young people of diverse genders and sexualities use social media. We looked particularly at how young lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex, queer, and asexual (LGBTIQA+) people use the network. To do so, we surveyed over 1,300 people aged 16-35 who identified in these ways.

Compared to broader surveys of young people’s social media use, we found young LGBTIQA+ people are using Tumblr much more frequently.

Queer and gender diverse youth in Australia are using Tumblr more than their straight and cisgender peers.

There are some issues in comparing these studies – the number of people surveyed, where they lived, and their ages – but that 64% of our respondents used Tumblr is noteworthy.

So why are this many young queer and gender diverse Australians using Tumblr? For many, it offers an intricate network that supports safe explorations of identity and a sense of self.

For instance, writer and Tumblr user Jonno Revanche said it provides social connections that are otherwise unavailable due to geographic isolation and social anxiety. Others have used Tumblr to foster mental health support, such as Mea Pearson, who took to the platform to chronicle her experience with borderline personality disorder.

While care must be taken when associating mental health with queer identity, these matters often intersect. Evidently, many young people’s everyday dealings with key social institutions like family, work and school can be uncomfortable or even traumatic.

The view from Tumblr

Many of our respondents said that Tumblr was crucial to nurturing their individual identity. One person said it helped them identify as agender (loosely defined as without gender).

I actually learnt about agender and all the other genders from Tumblr. (20, agender, bisexual, rural)

One participant described how Tumblr assisted them in coming to terms with their pansexuality (attraction to all genders), and finding a space where this was more accepted and not reduced to bisexuality:

I came out as Pan on Tumblr a few years ago, when being Pan was seen as just a fancy way of saying Bi. I felt very alone for a long time, but found other Pan people to talk to. (22, non-binary, pansexual, urban)

Other participants attributed Tumblr to broadening their overall understanding of identity:

I had no idea that lgbt+ people existed (my parents are quite homophobic and very strict, so you could say I was very sheltered), and by using Tumblr I was able to fully immerse myself within its very lgbt+ culture. It also brought up words … I had never heard before, and through this I was able to “find myself” within a safe environment. (17, female, lesbian, urban)

I would’ve never realised my real gender or sexual orientation without tumblr. (25, trans masculine, asexual, regional)

For many Tumblr users, the platform is a supportive place. Engaging with online peer networks can be easier, and less risky, than talking to close friends. Young people reported making friends on Tumblr too, and most of them felt safe in doing so, citing the ability to block and unfollow others if needed.

I’ve made a lot of friends through there, and Tumblr helped me working out my own sexuality when I was younger. Because when I was younger I didn’t know anything, I thought there was just gay and lesbian and when I didn’t fit into any of those categories I was like “what the hell do I do now.” It was honestly, like going on Tumblr and [finding] there’s this thing where you can like more then one, I was like “woah, that’s amazing.” (19, trans male, queer, urban)

Disconnecting from Tumblr

At the same time, these digital spaces come with their own challenges. Although Tumblr is often used daily, it also seems to have a limited lifespan – which is unsurprising, given the intensity of interaction and content that many users report. Some respondents discussed their need to disconnect from the site to avoid drama, to free up time, or to spend more time in other social media spaces.

I stopped [using Tumblr] because I often used it to talk about my problems and it got to be really upsetting to have such a negative space. I feel like it just fed my mental health issues. (18, non-binary, bisexual, rural)

In this sense, Tumblr can be productive for a time but it can also become overwhelming. Users manage this by moving between platforms and taking breaks.

Safe spaces

At a time when young queer and gender diverse people are in the spotlight, with support programs coming under fire and human rights being trampled upon in political crossfires, they continue to find and build their own safe spaces.

LGBTIQA+ young people should feel safe and empowered in everyday physical spaces, and many do – often with support from a wider community of peers who share similar experiences.

But until the world becomes more friendly for queer and gender diverse people, we expect they’ll continue to find safety, community, identity, and friendship on Tumblr.

Paul Byron, Associate Lecturer, Macquarie University and Brady Robards, Lecturer in Sociology, Monash University

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

Live Internet Townhall Tonight with Governor Gary Johnson

I'm unfamiliar with the platform (yowie.com) but tonight at 8:00 p.m. (EDT) (or 5:00 p.m. Pacific time), Republican presidential candidate Gary Johnson will be hosting a live internet townhall.  He is inviting participation from people around the country.

The graphic below should take you to the site.  If not, check out http://www.yowie.com/videochat/58r.

'Beaded Curtain'

The other night, during his Tweets and emails segment, TV's Craig Ferguson naughtily coined a phrase:  "beaded curtain."

Well, he didn't coin it per se; the two-word term has been around for a long, long time.  What he did was add an air of mystery to it, making it a sexually suggestive phrase.

Shortly after the show signed off for the night, I signed on to Urban Dictionary to submit a new definition:

A vaguely sexual allusion intended to distract and confuse network television censors. Originally used by CBS late-night host Craig Ferguson on June 29, 2011, in response to a question posed by a viewer via email.

Geoff Peterson: "I enjoy a good beaded curtain now and again."
Craig Ferguson: "Go ahead, censors, look it up. We'll wait."

To my surprise and disappointment, Urban Dictionary rejected my submission.

I think that web site will come to regret this decision. "Beaded curtain" in this sense is going to begin to take root. The Robot Skeleton Army (the Craig Ferguson fan club, so to speak) has already taken up the cause of adding "beaded curtain" to the national lexicon:

Is Beaded Curtain a Thing?

If it wasn’t, it is now. Craig and Geoff’s conversation about beaded curtains got the RSA’s @doxieone1 inspired to come up with a fun poster.

Here's a link to that poster, which shows Geoff Peterson behind a beaded curtain.

I predict you'll be hearing the phrase "beaded curtain" before too long, and you'll titter when you hear it. (And maybe titter about it on Twitter soon afterward.)

Be sure to visit my CafePress store for gifts and novelty items!
Read my blog on Kindle!
Follow my tweets on Twitter! 

See my articles on Examiner.com!

Survey Says? Bloggers Shape Opinion

The second of two (so far) annual surveys by the Society for New Communications Research has found that professional journalists have a stronger, more positive opinion about social media that both leads those journalists to use social media as a tool to disseminate information and also to rely on social media -- including Facebook and Twitter, for example, but also blogs -- as sources of information.

The survey was conducted by Jen McClure, the founder and president of the Society for New Communications Research (also CMO and director of community development for Redwood Collaborative Media), and Don Middleberg, CEO of Middleberg Communications. The survey included 341 journalists from around the world, with 54 percent from the United States. Among the survey's findings:

* Nearly 70 percent of journalists are using social networking sites, a 28% increase since the [previous] 2008 study

* 48 percent are using Twitter or other microblogging sites and tools, a 25% increase since 2008

* 66 percent are using blogs

* 48 percent are using online video

* 25 percent are using podcasts

* More than 90 percent of journalists agree that new media and communications tools and technologies are enhancing journalism to some extent

The most intriguing finding (to me, at least) was this:

Nearly 80 percent of respondents agreed that new media and communications technologies allow them to report with greater accuracy, and 80 percent of journalists believe that bloggers have become important opinion shapers in the 21st century and many are increasingly incorporating citizen-generated media into their reporting.

Paolina Milana, executive vice president for Marketing/Editorial Operations/Media Relations at Marketwire, a corporate sponsor of the study, said:

Social media is immediate, it is accessible, and it has irrevocably changed the relationship between makers, reporters and consumers of news. The more that all journalistic participants understand each other's needs, how they use various media channels at their disposal, and how they want to work with PR professionals, the better the entire communication process will be.

H/T Joe Ciarallo



Be sure to visit my CafePress store for gifts and novelty items!
Read my blog on Kindle!
Follow my tweets on Twitter! 

Images from Milwaukee's Marquette High c. 1952

Through the magic of eBay, I recently acquired the 1952 edition of The Flambeau, the yearbook of Marquette University High School in Milwaukee.

This particular volume caught my eye because the 1951-52 school year was the last one that my father attended MUHS.  (Today would have been his 76th birthday.)  I was also interested to see if I could find a photograph of legendary broadcaster Tom Snyder, who graduated with the class of 1953.

I scored on both counts, but also found a few other interesting things.

For one, it seems that virtually nobody at Marquette High in the early 1950s -- whether students, faculty, or staff -- had first names.  Some people in the yearbook were identified with a first initial, if they shared a surname with someone else.  The only people with first names were those who shared both a surname and first initial with another person.  So, for instance, my dad is identified simply as "Sincere" and the future host of NBC's Tomorrow Show is identified as "Snyder."

I also discovered that there were faculty and staff members at MUHS who spanned the period from 1952 to 1977, the year I graduated.  These included math teachers John Fountain and Laurence Kelly, S.J., librarian Miss Elizabeth Connelly, and English teacher Father Richard Forrey, S.J.  (I have an even earlier -- 1927 -- Flambeau that has a photograph of Mr. Fountain as a young teacher.)

By sheer coincidence, I found two MUHS graduates of the class of 1952 who later achieved prominence in their closely-related fields.

Tad W. Guzie became a Jesuit priest, theologian, and liturgist.  He later was laicized and married, passing away in 2001.  Juxtaposed on the same page as his graduation picture is a photograph of John M. Haas, who also became a theologian, specializing in bioethics.

This particular yearbook belonged to James Voell, who became a psychiatrist in the D.C. area, specializing in the problems of homeless people.

Here is the only photo in the 1952 Flambeau I was able to find with my father in it. He is identified as "Sincere" and is the fourth from the left in the top row:

As for Tom Snyder, I found more than a few mentions of his name.

First, his class photo (he is in the bottom row, far left):

Then I found him as one of the performers in the Prep Players' production of Mary Chase's Pulitzer Prize-winning play, Harvey.  He didn't play Elwood P. Dowd (the role made famous by Jimmy Stewart) but rather was cast as Dr. Sanderson:

In  years past, it would have been difficult to find something as rare as a nearly 60-year-old high school yearbook.  I wasn't exaggerating when I referred to the "magic" of eBay.  The Internet has made possible what we thought was impossible.

Update: The Winter 2010 edition of the MUHS alumni magazine arrived in my mailbox today (March 16) with this note on page 32:

Tom Snyder '53, the radio and late night TV talk show pioneer who often remembered Marquette University High School and the Revs. Jerome Boyle SJ and RJ Connell SJ on-air, paid homage to the school with a recent fift that established an endowed scholarship fund in his name....

The Thomas J. Snyder Endowed Scholarship Fund will help support students who demonstrate financial need and who participate in the arts during their time at MUHS.

The full announcement can be found here.

It wasn't until reading this that I discovered that, not only did Tom Snyder and I attend the same high school (at a distance of about a quarter-century) but we also attended the same elementary school, St. Agnes. (That is, of course, assuming that there has only been one St. Agnes School within the boundaries of the Archdiocese of Milwaukee, the one in Butler.)

Be sure to visit my CafePress store for gifts and novelty items!
Read my blog on Kindle!
Follow my tweets on Twitter!

Not Exactly Thomas Edison, But ...

A lot of odd details about the life of the late Michael Jackson have been cropping up in the days since he died and went to Neverland, sparking one of the largest increases in Internet traffic since Al Gore first told Mr. Watson to "come here, I want you."

For instance, who knew that the King of Pop was an inventor with a patent under his name?

I didn't, but now I do.

According to UnBeige, Jackson invented a kind of gravity-defying footwear:

That's right, intellectual property fans, Jackson is listed as the first of three inventors on United States Patent 5,255,452, granted in 1993 for a "method and means for creating anti-gravity illusion." Translation: special loafers fitted with heels that can slot into the stage floor to allow the wearer to lean forward, Smooth Criminal style, at gravity-defying angles.

According to the patent's abstract, the Jackson-devised system relies on "a hitch member movably projectable through a stage surface. The shoes have a specially designed heel slot which can be detachably engaged with the hitch member by simply sliding the shoe wearer's foot forward, thereby engaging with the hitch member." Jackson co-developed the technique as an improvement upon a previous method in which he and his dancers were rigged up with harnesses and cables.

What's more, UnBeige continues, Jackson's invention is also mentioned as an "antecedent" in a patent application for another highly useful gadget:

...another footwear innovation, patent 7,380,349. Granted last year, it covers flip-flops that have a bottle-opene[r] in the footbed. Perfect when you Wanna Be Startin' Somethin' but are ill prepared.

I guess you could call this a "footnote" to Michael Jackson's life.



Be sure to visit my CafePress store for gifts and novelty items!
Read my blog on Kindle!

Update on the Ashton Lundeby Case

I would like to apologize to my readers for overreacting and jumping to conclusions in a blog entry early Wednesday morning about the case of Ashton Lundeby, a 16-year-old North Carolina homeschooler who was arrested by the FBI on March 5 and who has been incarcerated in a juvenile lock-up in Indiana since then.

It appears that I was misled, along with hundreds of other civil liberties-oriented bloggers, by the initial news reports that appeared on line. These news reports, from WRAL-TV in Raleigh and The Daily Dispatch (a local newspaper that covers Oxford, the Lundeby family's hometown), relied too heavily on the word of Annette Lundeby, Ashton's mother, and neglected to perform the due diligence that one expects from established news media outlets.

Fortunately, Wired magazine and other sources have done some additional digging into the case and have found that Annette Lundeby seems to be prone to both exaggeration and omission.

First of all, Ashton was not arrested under the terms of the USA PATRIOT Act. He was arrested and charged under a far older (circa 1939) statute addressing the making of threats using telecommunications equipment. (He may, however, still face other charges, and it is not impossible that the PATRIOT Act will be cited against him.)

Second, it appears that Annette Lundeby was aware that her son had been making bomb threats over the Internet (using voice-over IP software) and had warned him against it, even suggesting to him that if he continued to do so, he could run afoul of the law.

William Grigg of Pro Libertate, who was one of the first bloggers to break this story, has also updated his initial report to note that there are serious questions being raised about the veracity of Annette Lundeby's media outreach efforts.

Fortunately, there are professional journalists like Kevin Poulsen of Wired who take the time to check facts and do analysis beyond hysteria. It's embarrassing to have to admit to being victimized by a too-bad-to-be-true story of a peachfuzzed adolescent abused by the law and whose mother paints him with a halo over his head, but this seems to be the case.

I am not willing to agree that Ashton Lundeby is guilty of any of the charges he faces now or in the future, but I am willing to say that I wrote too soon, without having better knowledge of the case.

At the moment, however, I think I've been punk'd.

Be sure to visit my CafePress store for gifts and novelty items!
Read my blog on Kindle!

Taking the Commercial Plunge

As I am coming close to 1,000 posts on this blog -- that is one thousand posts since December 17, 2004 -- it may seem odd that I am just now taking the plunge into Internet commerce in anything but the most peripheral fashion.

From the beginning, I have participated in the affiliate programs of Amazon.com and, eventually, also TLA Video. Emulating models in the blogosphere, however, I have now added to the various hats I wear: one marked, "CafePress Shop Owner."

Yes, I have opened up a shop on CafePress, hoping to tap into the bottomless wealth of the Internet. The shop is designed to meet the gift-buying preferences of readers of Rick Sincere News & Thoughts. That is, at least, what I hope.

The main page of the shop can be found here. The designs are mostly based on photographs I have taken over the years -- here in Charlottesville, in Milwaukee, in Britain and Europe, and around the United States. (Sharp eyes might catch one or two photos that would have been impossible for me to have shot.)

There is also a section devoted to Christmas products (called "Christmas Cheer"). Another section, called "Politics & Travel," will eventually be populated with products for the libertarian-minded shopper; for now, it has magnets and notecards decorated with various views of the Washington Monument and other notable buildings.

A third section, "Saints & Sinners," fulfills a more impish function. Check it out and see what I mean. It, too, will soon have more, and more distinctive, products.

More items and sections are sure to be added, and reminders will be posted here and around the web.

Mark Ellmore, Fabricator

In the old days, before the Internet and before bloggers, it was possible for political candidates to lie with impunity (even in print) and not fear being caught.

Not so anymore.

The Washington Post reports how congressional candidate Mark Ellmore, who is running for the GOP nomination in Virginia's Eighth Congressional District, fabricated quotations from that newspaper in a flier distributed to voters just days before the primary.

Theresa Vargas reports in today's Post:

A flier put out by Mark W. Ellmore's campaign days before Tuesday's U.S. House Republican primary in Northern Virginia falsely attributes material to The Washington Post, an error pointed out by his opponent and confirmed by Ellmore's staff yesterday.

Ellmore is running against Amit Singh in the primary for a chance to challenge Rep. James P. Moran Jr. (D-Va.), a nine-term incumbent.

The flier, which hit some mailboxes Friday, attributes the following photo caption to The Post: "Amit Singh with his political mentor Libertarian Ron Paul, who reportedly has plans to disrupt the Republican Convention in Minneapolis." Those words never appeared in the newspaper or as a quote elsewhere, and the photograph was not taken by The Post.

Political bloggers across Virginia have pounced on this as evidence that Ellmore -- who might be described as a "Mike Huckabee Republican," which is not exactly complimentary -- cannot be trusted to represent the people of the Eighth District.

Doug Mataconis, for instance, says:

It seems that Mark Ellmore’s campaign has been caught red-handed spreading blatant falsehoods about his opponent in Tuesday’s primary election....

I will say this much for Ellmore, he would be qualified to replace Jim Moran in one respect, they both seem to have an interesting commitment to the truth.

Posting at the George Mason College Republican Blog, The Young Reaganite offers:

Mark Ellmore has managed not only to make himself look like a liar, he is jeopardizing the entire Republican establishment in Northern Virginia. It is imperative we elect Amit Singh to be our Republican nominee for the 8th district.

Bearing Drift has a couple of updates on the story:

Update: The Ellmore campaign responded this afternoon with a press release that doesn’t address the accusations of false statements in their material, but in turn accuses Singh of using false statements in his latest mailer.

and

Update 2: The Washington Post writes today that the quote and photo on the flier attributed to them never appeared in the paper. The Ellmore campaign told Post reporter Theresa Vargas that the information for the quote comes from the LA Times and that it was an “honest” mistake. However, a simple search of the LA Times Web site reveals that there is no article that writes about Amit Singh.

You would think that, eight years into the 21st century and some fifteen years after the Internet began to play a role in political campaigns, politicians and their operatives would have learned that you can't get away with spreading falsehoods without being found out. Ellmore deserves to lose, not just because he's wrong on the issues, and not just because he's a liar, but because he's a stupid liar who's wrong on the issues.

Faking quotations from the Washington Post just invites scrutiny. Mark Ellmore, meet Gary Hart.

Update: After he saw this blog entry, Jon Henke asked me to write a short analysis of the Ellmore-Singh race for the new web site, The Next Right (motto: "Politics. Strategy. Action.") The result can be found here.

WaPo Journos Discuss News Biz, Election

The Washington Post reported on Wednesday, in a modest add-on in Howard Kurtz's Style section media column, that Susan Glasser, who has been assistant managing editor for national news, has been kicked upstairs. Kurtz wrote:

Susan Glasser, who directed The Washington Post's campaign coverage as assistant managing editor for national news, said yesterday she is leaving that job to work on a project for Post Co. Chief Executive Donald Graham.

Executive Editor Leonard Downie Jr. decided to remove Glasser after a high-level committee of editors concluded that her aggressive management style had led to a serious decline in staff morale. The timing, in the middle of the campaign, was unusual.

Meanwhile, Washingtonian magazine's blog reports that Glasser's husband, political reporter Peter Baker, may be leaving, too:

It is unclear whether Glasser, 39, will remain at the Post. It has been rumored that her husband, Peter Baker, who currently covers the White House for the Post, might be moving to the New York Times.

Early in March, I had an opportunity to see both Glasser and Baker speak at the annual meeting of the Virginia Electoral Board Association. They had been invited by VEBA president Maggi Luca, who knew Baker from his days as a reporter in the Post's Fairfax County bureau.

I had my video camera handy and recorded the whole presentation. Much of the discussion focused on the upcoming Democratic primaries in Texas and Ohio and whether Hillary Rodham Clinton would be able to survive them to go on to contest Pennsylvania. (We know how that turned out.)

One of the most interesting things said was by Baker, during some comments about how the Internet is affecting journalism. He said that the person who determines the most important story in the Washington Post is not Len Downie or any other editor on the Post's staff who might decide what goes on the front page, but rather Matt Drudge. He gave, as an example, an article he wrote that had been placed deep into the paper's A-section, but because Drudge linked to it, it had something like 250,000 hits -- or more than ten times as many hits as the front-page stories in the Post that day received.

I apologize for the poor video quality. The meeting room in the Homestead was lit quite dimly, and I was sitting near the back of the room (in an effort to be courteously unobtrusive).

By the way, when Maggi makes the claim in her introduction that Peter Baker was the first reporter to move from the Washington Times to the Washington Post, she is incorrect; that person was, in fact, Malcolm Gladwell, who later became a staff writer the New Yorker, and the best-selling author of The Tipping Point and Blink. (I knew Gladwell when we both worked at the Ethics and Public Policy Center; he left EPPC to work at the Times and it was big news when he was hired away from the upstart by the Post.)

For his part, Baker makes a historical error himself, when in Part II he claims that you have to "go all the way back to Monroe" -- 180 years -- before you can find the same political party holding the White House three terms in a row, except for Reagan-Bush. Even granting that FDR doesn't count because he was the same person who served four terms in row, what about Grant, Hayes, Garfield/Arthur? That's four terms in a row from 1869 through 1885. And then there was McKinley, Roosevelt, and Taft (1897-1913); that was followed by the Wilson interregnum and then Harding, Coolidge, and Hoover (1921-1933).

In Part III, Glasser talks about how the Internet "explodes" our notions about how elections should be run -- not only in how journalists report campaigns, but in how candidates raise money, and in how voters will turn out on Election Day. (She mentions how countries like Estonia already permit voting through the Internet, and how this may be the edge of a trend that will reach us eventually.)

In Part VI, Baker says the Democratic party would be "ripped apart" if the superdelegates end up handing the nomination to Hillary Clinton while Barack Obama wins the most states, the popular vote, and the most elected delegates. Letting the superdelegates exercise their discretion, he suggests, is "too divisive an alternative."

Also in Part VI, Glasser notes how these are "tough times" for the newspaper business, with the Los Angeles Times, the New York Times, and the Washington Post all offering buy-outs to their employees, in an effort to cut costs and improve profitability. By mentioning the "democratization of information" and the "power of collective thinking," she invites her husband's comment about the inordinate influence of Matt Drudge. Glasser says that "Google News is by far the producer of news on the Internet ... they have built a sophisticated and super-secret algorithm" for aggregating news, which undermines the value of the local morning newspaper. (Baker's remark about the Drudge Report comes in Part VII, at 03:08.)

Part I:



Part II:



Part III:



Part IV:



Part V:



Part VI:



Part VII:

This presentation by the husband-and-wife, reporter-and-editor team of Peter Baker and Susan Glasser was entertaining and informative, even provocative. Although this event took place almost two months ago, much of the material they present is still relevant (even within the context of the primary election campaign, and especially with regard to the changing nature of the news business).

Surfing Along the Axis of Evil

The Canadian newsmagazine Maclean's has uncovered the web sites of the remaining members of the Axis of Evil and other sordid types. What Maclean's has found -- in an article entitled "Websites of Evil" -- turns out to be (from the perspective of the web site owners) unintentionally humorous.

Take North Korea, for instance:

If there was one country you'd expect not to have a website, it might be Kim Jong Il's so-called "Hermit Kingdom," North Korea. Then again, Kim could claim to have invented the Internet himself and it wouldn't look out of place at korea-dpr.com. The "brief history" of dear leader's life runs 160 pages; his father's clocks in at 2,161. And the website has a shockingly liberal relationship with facts. For instance, the regional map provided acknowledges the significance of the 38th parallel, as does the "geography" page—but, in boasting 222,209,231 square kilometres of surface area, it seems to be claiming the entire peninsula for the revolution.

In the "business opportunities" section, visitors learn that North Korea "will become in the next years the most important hub for trading in North-East Asia." How will this be accomplished, considering the country's 85th-ranked GDP—149th, per capita? Thanks to the "lowest labour cost in Asia," a "very stable political system, without corruption," and the unbeatable convenience of dealing directly with the government and state-owned corporations. No middlemen!

You can see all this for yourself on one of the periodic tourist junkets organized by the Korean Friendship Association. Undoubtedly the slickest section of the website, it teases the adventuresome traveller with an idyllic panorama of Pyongyang, including a strangely blurred but nevertheless impressive view of the mammoth Ryugyong Hotel. You won't be staying there, however. Conceived as a little slice of Las Vegas on the Taedong River, complete with capitalist decadences like nightclubs, casinos and no fewer than seven rotating restaurants, it is best described nowadays as an empty 105-storey poured concrete shell with a giant crane marooned on top of it. It has been described as "the single most unsettling structure ever erected by the hand of man."

Then there is Iran -- you know, the place that has no homosexuals:

Thousands of miles west, but still along the Axis of Evil, you'll find Iran's surprisingly large English web infrastructure. Parts are almost charming. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's personal site, for example, includes a sample gallery of gifts he's received from visiting dignitaries both domestic and international. An unnamed lawmaker from the city of Neyshabor brought an ornamental pomegranate, while the Indian foreign minister favoured the President with a covered bowl. Both gifts are described as "inorganic."

Those with questions about their faith can send them directly to the Ayatollah [Khameni]...

"If somebody masturbates during the month of Ramadan but without any discharge, is his fasting invalidated?" another asks. Depends, says the Ayatollah. "If he do not intend masturbation and discharging semen and nothing is discharged, his fasting is correct. But, if he intends masturbation or he knows that he usually discharges semen by this process and semen really comes out, it is a ḥarām intentional breaking fasting."

I guess the Ayatollah Khameni is Iran's answer to "Ask Amy."

Maclean's correspondent Chris Selley looks elsewhere in the Middle East, and then to Latin America, but the results of its explorations are mixed:

The content at Hamas' palestine-info.info, likewise, is of the tenor one would expect from the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. The "comment" section includes a recent piece by Khalid Amayreh, who compares the Ukrainian Holodomor to what he believes is a looming genocide in Gaza. "Ehud Barak and Ehud Olmert, as well as the rest of the ruling class in Israel are more or less trying to emulate Lazar Kaganovitch and Genrich Grigorivic Yagoda, another Soviet Jewish mass murderer who probably killed or caused the death of more people than Hitler ever did," he writes. "We must mobilize … in order to prevent Israel from turning Gaza into another Auschwitz, another Treblinka, another Bergen Belsen, or another Theresienstadt. We must cross all the red lines if necessary."

Despite the freedom of information the Internet offers, however, some sites don't last. The various incarnations of Al Qaeda's web presence have disappeared. And the official website of the Colombian guerrilla organization FARC is also currently inoperative. By some accounts, the site was uncommonly slick for a terrorist organization; its content was certainly spirited. According to the Google cache, the final post, on December 20, called Colombian president Alvaro Uribe a Mafioso, a paramilitary, a buffoon, a vulgarian and a slanderous liar. But while Uribe might well have objected to this characterization, it's unlikely he was behind the website's demise. It was hosted, of all places, in Switzerland—proof, perhaps, that free speech is where you find it.

So the next time you're surfing the web late at night, be sure to leave a comment for Kim Jong Il or Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. I'm sure they'll appreciate the thought. You might even get a reply -- if black-hooded thugs knocking down your door at 3:00 a.m. is your idea of a reply.

Porn Producers Fight Back

Has it really come to this? Has the Internet spawned so much piracy and so many copyright violations that even the core business of on-line profitability must turn to the courts for relief?

From today's Los Angeles Times:

A major porn producer filed a lawsuit Monday against an X-rated knockoff of YouTube, alleging that it profited from piracy by allowing its users to post videos that include copyrighted material.

Vivid Entertainment Group filed the lawsuit in Los Angeles federal court against PornoTube and its parent, Data Conversions Inc., which does business in Charlotte, N.C., as AEBN Inc.

The suit is apparently the first of its kind in the adult film industry, which has done a better job than the major Hollywood studios in finding ways to profit from putting entertainment products on the Internet.

But in the last year or so, the rapid increase in consumption of all manner of videos on the Web has in some ways hurt the porn producers more than the mainstream companies because consumers of adult fare often get what they are looking for in clips of five minutes or less. Free short clips are easy to find on the Web, undercutting the established porn producers, which earn most of their money from long-form videos.

"We've decided to take a stand and say 'no more,' " Vivid co-Chairman Steven Hirsch said. "We will go after all the free sites."

But wait! There's more:

The suit accuses PornoTube of hosting excerpts of tapes that include such Vivid titles as "Night Nurses," "Where the Boys Aren't 7" and the private work of TV personality Kim Kardashian. The suit seeks damages of $150,000 per infringed work.

Other porn companies also are upset by the explosion in Web video sites, many of which rely on user submissions that borrow heavily from copyrighted material.

"What's happening in the industry is an unacceptable amount of theft," said Jon B., a vice president at Red Light District who asked that his full name not be used because family members don't know what he does.

He said Internet piracy might be reducing his company's profit 35%.

I think the LA Times has come up with a way to make the business pages more -- well, "vivid" is an adjective that comes to mind. Here's the story's conclusion:

Piracy has always existed, but it's more detrimental for the company as it tries to sell more of its content over the Web, Hirsch said. Competing with free Internet videos is bad enough, but competing with free versions of Vivid's material is maddening, he said.

Industry revenue as a whole is up, but it is getting split into more pieces, said Farley Cahen, publisher of Adult Video News Online magazine.

"In the past, it was peer-to-peer networks" that took a modest amount of technical ability to use, Cahen said. "Now, there's PornoTube, XTube, RedTube -- any kind of -Tube you can think of."

"There are longer and longer clips that are free, and the companies are at a loss over what to do."

I just can't wait for this lawsuit to reach the U.S. Supreme Court. That is one case where I'll want to be present for oral arguments.

Harry Potter: Economic Dynamo

With the impending release of both the fifth movie and seventh book in the Harry Potter series, interest in the boy-turned-adolescent wizard is at new heights.

Release Me has a post of a press release from the Nielsen companies about the economic impact of Harry Potter -- books, movies, DVDs, music CDs, toys, games, and miscellany -- since 1998. Much too long to repost in its entirety here (it has many nuggets of information and various statistics), it says in part:

Here is a unique look at the Harry Potter effect.

— Book sales (Nielsen BookScan) - Since 1998, when Nielsen began measuring book sales in the United Kingdom, the six Harry Potter books have sold more than 22.5 million copies in the UK alone. In the United States, the Harry Potter titles published after 2001 have sold more than 27.7 million copies.

— Box Office sales (Nielsen EDI) - Combined, the first four Harry Potter films have grossed more than $3.5 billion worldwide. The first film, “Harry Potter and The Sorcerer’s Stone,” is the fourth all-time highest grossing film worldwide.

— Advertising (Nielsen Monitor-Plus) - In the U.S., ad spend for all Harry Potter branded merchandise (including books, movies, DVDs and other promotional products) totals $269.1 million from 1998 to date. Outside of the U.S. from 2000 to date, $119.3 million was spent on total advertising for all Harry Potter branded merchandise in Canada, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, South Africa, Switzerland, and the U.K.

— DVD/Video sales (Nielsen VideoScan) -All three Harry Potter DVDs/Videos - Sorcerer’s Stone, Chamber of Secrets, and Prisoner of Azkaban - debuted at #1 and remained the #1 family film for the first 3 weeks of each release.

— Internet Traffic (Nielsen//NetRatings) - The Warner Bros. “Harry Potter Order of the Phoenix” Web site drew 446,762 unique visitors in May 2007.

— Internet Buzz (Nielsen BuzzMetrics) - On blogs, the final book “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows,” is generating more “buzz” than the latest movie installment, “Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.”

— Music sales (Nielsen SoundScan) - The four Harry Potter soundtracks combined have sold more than 1.1 million copies in the U.S. and almost 100,000 copies in Canada since the initial release back in October 2001. There have been a total of 180,000 downloads of individual songs that tied to the four Harry Potter soundtracks.

— TV ratings (Nielsen Media Research) - Since 2002, the Harry Potter movies have aired on U.S. television a total of 366 times.

— Moviegoer Profile (Nielsen Cinema) - A recent survey of moviegoers shows 51% of persons age 12+ are aware that the new book is coming out next month. Twenty-eight percent of persons 12+ in the U.S. have read one or more of the previous Harry Potter books, and 15% have read all of the Harry Potter books-to-date.

— Consumer (ACNielsen) - More than $11.8 million has been spent by U.S. consumers on Harry Potter-licensed trademark cookies, candy and gum products since June 2002.

That's a mouthful, isn't it?

Speaking of mouths full, I was intrigued by that last item, which is expanded later in Nielsen's news release:

ACNielsen data also shows that sales for Harry Potter-licensed cookies, candy and gum products peak the week a Harry Potter movie or book launches, showing almost $900,000 in sales for Harry Potter-licensed goods the week of the 11/5/02 movie premiere of “Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets” and $650,000 in sales the week of the 11/18/05 movie premiere of “Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire”.

Candy products licensed from the Harry Potter series can be a little unconventional. Some favorites include: Cockroach Clusters, Jelly Slugs, Ice Mice, Chocolate Frogs, Fizzing Whizbees, and of course Bertie Bott’s Jelly Beans, including ear wax and dirt flavors.

Mmmmm! Ear wax and dirt! "Unconventional" is the least of it.

On a related topic, Doug Mataconis deflates some of the mythology surrounding the (non-economic) impact Harry Potter has had on youth reading habits. The hope was fun while it lasted.

Front-Page Ron

For a so-called "second tier" (or sometimes, more derisively, "third tier") candidate, Representative Ron Paul of Texas gets some pretty good publicity, as well as serious attention, with regard to his quest for the 2008 GOP presidential nomination.

Take Saturday's Washington Post, which put Ron Paul on the front page -- admittedly below the fold, but next to a big story about how the Jefferson Memorial may be sinking into Washington's primordial ooze, which is open to much symbolic interpretation in itself -- that highlights his campaign's dominance of the Internet:

Rep. Ron Paul is more popular on Facebook than Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.). He's got more friends on MySpace than former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney. His MeetUp groups, with 11,924 members in 279 cities, are the biggest in the Republican field. And his official YouTube videos, including clips of his three debate appearances, have been viewed nearly 1.1 million times -- more than those of any other candidate, Republican or Democrat, except Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.).

The article, by Jose Antonio Vargas, summarizes Dr. Paul's political philosophy as succinctly as possible:

An obstetrician and gynecologist, Paul is known as "Dr. No" in the House of Representatives. No to big government. No to the Internal Revenue Service. No to the federal ban on same-sex marriage.

"I'm for the individual," Paul said. "I'm not for the government."

Vargas quotes political insiders about the meaning of Dr. Paul's ascendancy in cyberspace:

"At first I was skeptical of his increasing online presence, thinking that it's probably just a small cadre of dedicated Ron Paul fans," said Matt Lewis, a blogger and director of operations at Townhall, a popular conservative site. "But if you think about it, the number one issue in the country today is Iraq. If you're a conservative who supports the president's war, you have nine candidates to choose from. But if you're a conservative who believes that going into Iraq was a mistake, Ron Paul is the only game in town."

Added Terry Jeffrey, the syndicated newspaper columnist who ran Patrick J. Buchanan's failed White House bid in 1996: "On domestic issues like spending and taxation and the role of government, Ron Paul is saying exactly what traditional conservatives have historically thought, and he's pointing out that the Bush administration has walked away from these principles. That's a very attractive argument."

One has to read to the last paragraph of the piece, however, to discover why Ron Paul's support on the Internet is so vociferous and dedicated. One supporter is offered as an example, referring back to the "attractive argument" noted by Terence Jeffrey:

Especially to someone such as Brad Porter, who obsessively writes about Paul on his blog, subscribes to Paul's YouTube channel and attended a Ron Paul MeetUp event in Pittsburgh last week.

The 28-year-old Carnegie Mellon student donated $50 to Paul's coffers after the first debate, and an additional $50 after the third debate.

"For a poor college student, that's a lot," said Porter, a lifelong Republican. "But I'm not supporting him because I think he could get the nomination. I'm supporting him because I think he can influence the national conversation about what the role of government is, how much power should government have over our lives, how much liberty should we give up for security. These are important issues, and frankly, no one's thinking about them as seriously and sincerely as Ron Paul."

In the long run, changing the national conversation is much more important than winning a given election. Just ask anyone who worked on Barry Goldwater's 1964 campaign.