Author: Tony

That’s very 2005.

I don’t think I’d brag quite so much if I’d lagged so far behind the market.

NBC Universal will join Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation Inc. to provide content — such as Fox’s “24” and NBC’s “Heroes” — for distribution beginning this summer on AOL, Yahoo, Microsoft Corp.’s MSN and News Corp.’s MySpace sites, the companies said today.

Also included in the new free, ad-supported service will be movies from Universal Pictures and News Corp.’s 20th Century Fox studios, such as “Borat” and “Little Miss Sunshine.”

“This is a game-changer for Internet video,” said News Corp. President Peter Chernin. “We’ll have access to just about the entire U.S. Internet audience at launch. And for the first time, consumers will get what they want — professionally produced video delivered on the sites where they live.”

What does it even mean to “have access to just about the entire U.S. Internet audience at launch”? YouTube has that same access, although it had to build a brand name that established media companies already possess. YouTube didn’t take long to overcome its disadvantage, so there’s obviously more to this product than just access.

If implemented correctly, I don’t see a reason for this to fail. Content is king. However, proper implementation (providing extensive user control) is a major assumption. Like the music industry sitting around for half a decade while peer-to-peer networks exploded, companies with video content will probably enact a plan based in fear (think extensive DRM) and arrogance.

I might be too old, though. I’ll stick with Netflix and DVR.

The article doesn’t mention constitutional principle.

I don’t know what to say about this assessment of Rudy Giuliani as a good presidential candidate for social conservatives.

The animating idea of the “gay rights” movement is every bit as ridiculous as the case for the right to “choose.” The left would have us believe that society has no grounds for its ancient disapproval of homosexuality. If society approves of heterosexual relationships that typically serve to create and sustain families it must also approve of homosexual relationships that typically do not serve that purpose. Those of us who approve of one and not the other are bigots in need of punishment and reeducation.

Nobody ever makes this argument. When clearly stated it is self-refuting nonsense.

Nevertheless, the left cheerfully assumes that all disapproval of homosexuality is bigotry. It goes on its merry way agitating for changes in law and society which would suppress every expression of this society’s distaste for homosexuality and eliminate every distinction between traditional marriage and other sexual relationships.

A proper fisking would take too long. Besides, the absurdity of this conspiracy theory claim should be apparent. My short attempt: government should treat every individual the same. Nothing more, nothing less.

Read the whole thing if you need a good laugh at paranoid someone can be.

Via Andrew Sullivan

Cable throws a strike. No, wait, it’s a ball.

I’m cautiously optimistic and peeved, even though I’ll probably get most of what I wanted from the beginning.

Cable television said it offered to match DirecTV’s deal for the “Extra Innings” package of out-of-market games, but Major League Baseball said the proposal fell short.
…

IN Demand, owned by affiliates of the companies that own the Time Warner, Comcast and Cox cable systems, said Wednesday it was agreeing to the terms and that its partners would carry The Baseball Channel when it launches in 2009 to at least the same number of subscribers who will get the channel on DirecTV.

Here’s why I’m cautious:

“The communication sent to our office today by iN Demand is not responsive to that offer,” [Bob DuPuy, baseball’s chief operating officer] said. “In spite of their public comments, the response falls short of nearly all of the material conditions (among them requirements for carriage of The Baseball Channel and their share of the rights fees for Extra Innings) set forth in the Major League Baseball offer made to them on March 9.”

DuPuy said the March 31 deadline to match remains.

At this point, with ten days to go, I don’t imagine this deal falling apart. Yay, me, since I tried to watch a game on my computer last night. The experience was as excruciating as I’d imagined. Three hours of television isn’t meant to be watched on a tiny screen. I’m not signing up for DirecTV, more because I don’t want to drill holes in my house than anything, so the status quo¹ would be excellent.

I’m peeved because this means that Bud Selig gets what he wanted all along, times two. That makes me angry. Sure, this can be seen as a shrewd move, but that’ll be nothing more than spin. Selig sold out his hardcore fans. He only relented when they complained, and probably then only because someone else in the Major League Baseball office interpreted the obvious signals of disgust. He shouldn’t be rewarded for that with many extra millions. He will be because I’m an addict. Still, it makes me ill.

Go Phillies.

¹ I know my cable company will have to raise prices to pay for this. I’m crazy enough about the Phillies that I have a higher threshold for the inevitable financial pain than I should.

Ability to Speak Does Not Validate the Opinion

Many people fought for the title of stupidest logic yesterday.

The proposed merger of the nation’s two satellite radio companies came under sharp criticism yesterday from the chairman of a Senate panel that monitors antitrust matters, who said consumers probably would suffer if the deal goes through.

“You’d be virtually unrivaled, unchallenged in this area,” said Sen. Herb Kohl (D-Wis.), chairman of the Judiciary subcommittee on antitrust, competition policy and consumer rights. “You’d have no competition — what a business!” he told Mel Karmazin, chief executive of Sirius Satellite Radio, at a two-hour hearing.

Right, and satellite radio subscriptions are price inelastic. Whatever the merged company wants to charge me, I’ll pay. I’m a sucker and an automaton. If the merged company offered a service to take over my financial well-being and make choices for me, I’d give up control in an instant. I am beholden to the power of Mel Karmizin.

That’s pretty bad, but this is like what I expect to say after a kick in the head.

Mary Quass, chief executive of NRG Media, a radio company in Iowa, said local AM and FM stations cannot match Sirius’s and XM’s ability to send scores of channels to every corner of the country. Listeners and advertisers might abandon local stations, she said, and “consumers will be the losers.”

If listeners abandon local radio stations, they, as those consumed, will choose to “lose”. This makes sense in what understanding of reality? The government needs to step in because I might make a decision to abandon local stations. I’m unable to know that I’d lose by doing this. Thanks, but I can make up my own mind. Local stations already lost me, anyway. There are only so many Yuk Yuk D-Double-E-Jays I can suffer, and I’ve already passed my lifetime limit.

Of course, a company like Clear Channel owns lots of local stations, all over the country. Somehow this seems like radio companies send “scores of channels to every corner of the country”. Ms. Quass’ objection surely has nothing to do with being CEO of a competing radio company.

Just for fun, I like this euphemism for central planning of the essential satellite radio product:

Gigi B. Sohn, president of the advocacy group Public Knowledge, urged the government to set price caps and other restrictions on the merger. “We believe that a properly conditioned merger would be in the public interest,” she said.

Baseball gloves are “properly conditioned”. Hair is “properly conditioned”. This is plain vanilla government regulation designed to give consumers what they “should” get and to protect specific donors constituents. No doubt the latter decides the former. Goverment knows best, after all.

Orwell would be dismayed but not surprised

No matter how many times it’s used, the euphemism fools no one:

Of course, [Khalid Sheikh Mohammed]’s credibility is a very big “if.” He might have lied in his confession about his role in the 1993 WTC bombing; he might have lied to his CIA captors (which itself would say something about the effectiveness of their aggressive interrogation); or, in selecting bits and pieces out of their full context, the CIA project officer may have accidentally mis-briefed the 9/11 Commission staff.

If nothing else, good writing demands using the word torture. Don’t put two words where one will prove sufficient suffice. Regardless, even the partisans know that we torture. Using code words doesn’t make it less offensive.

On not finishing the job

We all know Iraq is where we’re supposed to be focused. Without said focus, we want the terrorists to win. Got it. But the Bush administration should be ashamed for allowing Afghanistan to get back to this point:

Taliban militants have hacked off the ears and noses of three Afghan drivers captured helping American forces.

Obviously we can’t stop every attack like this, but it highlights how little commitment the administration has that it moved on before standing up a free, stable society in Afghanistan. Mission accomplished, heckuva job, Brownie, and all that.

Via Andrew Sullivan

Like gathering requirements for software design

This article addressing whether or not circumcision is required for conversion to Judaism contains two fascinating quotes. (Three actually, but I don’t want to rant on the third.)

Marlon Franklin, 37, recently underwent a brit milah. Born into a Catholic family in Venezuela, he directs commercials and promotions for Spanish-language television. This past year, he converted after participating in the University of Judaism’s introductory course given by Weinberg.

“The [brit milah] wasn’t bad at all,” Franklin said. “Dr. Sam Kunin explained everything, both before and during the procedure. I had local anesthesia, so I could see what was going on. It was excellent, no complications, no problems.”

Franklin said he was very conscious of the ancient, spiritual nature of the ritual, which made it “an awesome experience.”

I’ve argued this point in the past. We must consider that men who choose circumcision for themselves will find greater significance in the procedure, or ritual, if allowed to choose for themselves. When imposed, that possibility is lost. Any “awesome experience” for the circumcised is intellectual only. That makes no sense to me as an expression of faith. That, among many reasons, is why non-medically-indicated circumcision should never be forced on anyone.

The second quote is a bit less reassuring since it implies that something I’ve tackled before is more widespread than it should be.

“I don’t understand the fuss people make,” [Dr. Kunin] said. “In Africa now they’re circumcising thousands of adult men for AIDS prevention. If it were such a big deal, don’t you think word would get around and the men would stop doing it?”

It’s clear that Dr. Kunin doesn’t understand the fuss, for the fuss over circumcision isn’t about whether or not adult men should choose it. They have the right to decide whatever they want for their body. Instead of looking at the controversy as a whole, and how it applies to children, he used the pressure of past acceptance to dismiss valid opposition. That’s convenient but not intellectually fair given that boys will lose a healthy part of their anatomy to such poor logic.

I’ve come to expect everything but fairness in this debate.

Blunt-logic Thresholds in the Adult Brain

As I posted earlier this month, I’m not foolish enough to take news that clearly helps me and run with it on first appearance. Everything should be aired, but qualifiers are useful. Skepticism is the lifeblood of future wisdom since evidence can be fleeting after more than a glance. Being in the minority on an issue also means I have to be more careful. Some of what I believe in is too important to have my stance tossed aside because I touted incorrect data. But it should embarrass society that the intelligent stance must play conservative while mass opinion gets to push any sort of nonsense that wouldn’t pass a third-grader’s scrutiny if all facts were treated equally.

With that, I offer this study recently published in the British Journal of Urology.

OBJECTIVE
To map the fine-touch pressure thresholds of the adult penis in circumcised and uncircumcised men, and to compare the two populations.

SUBJECTS AND METHODS
Adult male volunteers with no history of penile pathology or diabetes were evaluated with a Semmes-Weinstein monofilament touch-test to map the fine-touch pressure thresholds of the penis. Circumcised and uncircumcised men were compared using mixed models for repeated data, controlling for age, type of underwear worn, time since last ejaculation, ethnicity, country of birth, and level of education.
…

CONCLUSIONS
The glans of the circumcised penis is less sensitive to fine touch than the glans of the uncircumcised penis. The transitional region from the external to the internal prepuce is the most sensitive region of the uncircumcised penis and more sensitive than the most sensitive region of the circumcised penis. Circumcision ablates the most sensitive parts of the penis.

By default this should be assumed true because circumcision is not medically indicated at birth. It is up to circumcision advocates to disprove this idea and the common sense behind it. It is no longer acceptable for people like me to have to protest that removing skin full of nerve endings causes a harm or that the owner of the skin is the only person qualified to voice an opinion on its removal.

I know wishful thinking won’t turn this truth into reality. Every new data point helps, no matter how obvious I know it to be.

How bad laws happen

Through harmless good intentions:

A bill currently before Parliament could have a devastating effect on motorcycling, as Frank Melling reports

We all know that well-intentioned actions can sometimes bring unintended results. But few events in motoring history would be as spectacular as the potential fall-out from The Off-Road Vehicles Registration Bill proposed by MP Graham Stringer (Labour, Manchester Blackley).

That Mr Stringer’s basic idea was harmless enough is beyond dispute. Annoyed by feckless youths irritating his constituents on mini-moto bikes, he felt that if all these tiny motorcycles had to carry number plates then the police could arrest the miscreants and the nuisance would stop.

The law would essentially criminalize ownership of any motorcycle not registered and licensed by the government, including race motorcycles and museum pieces that never see public roads. This is a brilliant example of careless legislating and unintended consequences, but the bigger point is obvious. We legislate things that are good, or “harmless enough beyond dispute”. Everyone says “well done” and moves on with life. Then we cry foul when the resulting impact to liberty is too great.

Careless governing may be less troublesome than malicious governing, but it’s still objectionable. Laws have consequences. This is why governments should be ruled by a constitution. List the powers of the government and what it can do. Leave everything else to the people who possess those rights. It’s not perfect, but it’s as close to perfect as mankind will ever get when implemented diligently. Freedom isn’t free.

Have free society’s really lost this much of their commitment to liberty?

Via Fark.