Author: Tony

I don’t know how serious this is.

If you need to break the oppressive chain blocking you from using someone else’s property on your own terms, resourceful individuals are working to make sure you can have whatever you want. Behold the WiFi Liberator:

Wifi Liberator is an open-source toolkit for a laptop computer that enables its user to “liberate” pay-per-use wireless networks and create a free, open node that anyone can connect to for Internet access. The project is presented as a challenge to existing corporate or “locked” private wireless nodes to encourage the proliferation of free networks and connectivity across the planet. The project was inspired by the ongoing “battle” between providers broadcasting wireless signals in public spaces, in particular: corporate entities, wireless community groups, individual users, and proponents of open networks. Like my Wifi-Hog project, the Wifi-Liberator critically examines the tensions between providers trying to profit from the increasingly minimal costs associated with setting up a public network and casual users who simply want to see the Internet transform into another “public utility” and become as ubiquitous and free as the air we breath. The project targets pay-per-use wireless networks as often found in airports, other public terminals, hotels, global-chain coffee shops, and other public waiting points.

I’ve traditionally recognized such liberation as theft.

It’s irrelevant how minimal the costs associated with setting up a public network happens to be. Price and value include more than just expense. Bandwidth supply is not unlimited at any one point. For users who have a critical need, however legitimate, they can have the access they need if they’ll pay the price. Casual users need not pay or use the service if they don’t like the price. If it’s not profitable because enough people won’t pay to cover those minimal cost, the business will adjust or die. As long as there’s a profitable model, someone will find it. That is how (closer to) free access should and will arrive.

Via Boing Boing

It makes a great spread for toast, too.

Via Kip comes the disturbing but unsurprising news that Texas Gov. Rick Perry signed¹ an executive order that has no coherent public policy justification:

By issuing an executive order, Perry apparently sidesteps opposition in the Legislature from conservatives and parents’ rights groups who fear such a requirement would condone premarital sex and interfere with the way parents raise their children.

Beginning in September 2008, girls entering the sixth grade — meaning, generally, girls ages 11 and 12 — will have to get Gardasil, Merck & Co.’s new vaccine against strains of the human papillomavirus, or HPV.
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“The HPV vaccine provides us with an incredible opportunity to effectively target and prevent cervical cancer,” Perry said in announcing the order.

“If there are diseases in our society that are going to cost us large amounts of money, it just makes good economic sense, not to mention the health and well-being of these individuals to have those vaccines available,” he said.

As Kip pointed out, becoming infected with HPV does not guarantee cervical cancer. All this will do for public health is prevent a few cases of HPV infection. His grandiose rhetoric to the contrary, Gov. Perry has done nothing quite as dramatic as he claims. Or rather, the dramatic result is not what he now claims.

Kip also pointed out that the key factor in this debate and whether it makes sense to make vaccination mandatory is that “HPV is not casually contagious.” There is no reason to mandate such an action. Boys are not going to enter the doors of George W. Bush Middle School, sneeze, and infect every any girls with HPV. This is over-reaction with no reasonable basis.

The obvious parallel, of course, is infant male circumcision, which has been justified because it appears to have an impact on HPV transmission. Whether or not that prevention is substantial is irrelevant. The core principle when making a permanent change to someone’s body is medical need. Medical need rarely exists in infant male circumcision; likewise, there is no medical need here to force such an action on young girls. There is no public health basis and a highly subjective personal health basis. Behavior can be taught, and like boys with the behavioral negatives that circumcision supposedly cures, some understanding of the individual affected should influence the decision.

This is naked rent-seeking for Merck poorly disguised as social engineering by Gov. Perry. He delivers millions of customers to Merck. What is he getting in return? Gov. Perry should be ashamed.

¹ Note the wonderful headline to the AP story: Texas Gov. orders anti-cancer vaccine. Gardasil is an anti-HPV vaccine. There is an important difference. Gov. Perry is not mandating an anti-cancer vaccine, no matter how well-intentioned he believes his action to be. It’s being sold with that exaggeration to make it more marketable. Unfortunately, there are individuals involved who can’t consent to such politically warm and fuzzy experimentation on their bodies.

Thank you, Janet and Justin.

I don’t need to see risqué commercials during the Super Bowl, nor do I much care about the halftime show. But I can only assume that Janet Jackson and Justin Timberlake are the root cause of this year’s debacle billed as commercials. My rough estimate is that, of the total aired, I viewed 50% talking animals, 40% violence, 8.7% CBS promos, 1% suicide, 0.2% GoDaddy breasts, and 0.1% funny/interesting. Wonderful. Next year, maybe a little creativity. Or just go ahead and give us 75% talking animals and 25% network promos.

I’m beginning to wonder if Mike judge knows something.

P.S. The amateur-created Doritos commercial, aired early in the game, was the only ad worth my time. The rest, particularly every ad from Chevy, stole time from my life that I will never retrieve.

P.P.S. Yep, I noticed the phallic homage from Prince during the halftime show. As I mentioned, normally I don’t care about the halftime show, but I watched last night because of Prince. I’m glad I did, because he’s always amazing. But the phallic silhouette was a subtle middle finger in the middle of an otherwise Disneyfied crapfest.

Promoting Ignorance

I seldom watch the evening news because everything it presents can be found in shorter, more productive (i.e., less sensational) formats on The Internets. Last night I stumbled on a segment on NBC where Brian Williams introduced the news that Exxon Mobil produced a record profit of $39.5 billion for 2006. Rather than taking the standard “windfall” profits route, Williams hit a different bit of stupidity. He set up the reporter to address this popular “outrage” by asking what incentive Exxon Mobil now has to find alternate energy sources. Ehhhhhhhhh.

I didn’t listen to the answer because, as he asked it, his implication lacked any notion of understanding or belief that Exxon Mobil might not drive its business into the ground seeking ever greater profits from oil. In the larger context of the economy, Exxon Mobil doesn’t have to perceive any incentive to find alternate energy. Perhaps Exxon Mobil doesn’t want to be in that business and believes that oil (and natural gas) will be around long enough that it can keep generating profits without alternate energy sources. I doubt its executives believe that, but it doesn’t owe anyone beyond its shareholders an obligation to adjust its business to market pressures. If alternate energy is potentially profitable, someone will pursue it. That someone will most likely include Exxon Mobil. This is not complicated.

Of course, the $20 billion or so that Exxon Mobil invested in exploration and research last year suggests that they’re at least working to find more oil, oil that we currently can’t reach or find. While not an alternate energy source, finding more oil delays the need for finding an alternate energy source. The scarcity and political ramifications that Williams probably thought he was asking about are a bit more complicated than one company generating a large¹ profit through its activities. If Williams wanted to make that point, he should’ve offered a monologue on how a $39.5 billion profit is socially irresponsible or some other pontification. He probably figured that Al Gore already has that covered, which left him free to continue his economically simple misunderstanding.

¹ I’ve made this point before, but it probably needs to be said again. In absolute dollars, $39.5 billion is impressive and mind-boggling. In the context of the expenses (and taxes) needed to create such a figure, a great deal of the luster wears off. As a percentage of total revenue, the net profit is only 10.45% (39,500/377,635). Many companies with a smaller absolute dollar profit have significantly higher profit ratios. To illustrate this point relative to Exxon Mobil, its revenue for the fourth quarter of 2006 decreased (pdf link) by more than $9 billion from the same quarter in 2005. Yet, it managed to keep net income mostly stable by lowering its costs. There’s obviously more thorough analysis needed to give that weight, but only politicians with a populist axe to grind would hammer its conservative results. Maybe I should hammer away at the “revenue” brought in by the U.S. government.

Does the classification matter?

The latest issue of Wired includes an article on the threat to soldiers wounded in Iraq from acinetobacter, “an opportunistic pathogen” they’re picking up along the evacuation chain from the battlefield. While reading the article, I stopped on an interesting question not related to the subject. First, the facts:

A homemade bomb exploded under a Humvee in Anbar province, Iraq, on August 21, 2004. The blast flipped the vehicle into the air, killing two US marines and wounding another – a soft-spoken 20-year-old named Jonathan Gadsden who was near the end of his second tour of duty. In previous wars, he would have died within hours. His skull and ribs were fractured, his neck was broken, his back was badly burned, and his stomach had been perforated by shrapnel and debris.

Unfortunately, Mr. Gadsden died from the undiagnosed infection that resulted from his wounds. It’s tragic, and the implication of uncontrollable infections is scary. The article is worth reading to get the full understanding. But this is what got me thinking:

[Gadsden’s mother Zeada] discovered that an autopsy was performed shortly after her son’s death. The coroner recorded the “manner of death” as “homicide (explosion during war operation)” but determined the actual cause of death to be a bacterial infection. The organism that killed Gadsden, called Nocardia, had clogged the blood vessels leading to his brain. But the acinetobacter had been steadily draining his vital resources when he could least afford it. For weeks, it had been flourishing in his body, undetected by the doctors at Haley, resisting a constant assault by the most potent antibiotics in the medical arsenal.

I stopped at “homicide (explosion during war operation)” because I’d never thought of how a military death would be classified. Thinking in these terms could open a can of worms that I’m not trying to open. I’m intellectually curious about this designation and uninterested in the political implications. I don’t imagine we’d find too many who would challenge “homicide (explosion during war operation” for a situation like the one that led to Mr. Gadsden’s death, but both sides think they’re the “good guys”. How would another army’s autopsy rule on the death of its soldiers? Would we question if it ruled the same manner of death, because that would imply that we’re murderers?

I don’t have any answers on what our response should be. I haven’t thought of it before, and I suspect most simply wouldn’t care. I don’t know that the distinction even matters for either side, but I found the question interesting.

A government takeover can’t be far behind.

This is only peripherally about the Major League Baseball Extra Innings package, although I will discuss that angle again. But I can’t let it pass when a politician so bravely steps in to assist in a way that highlights his previous hypocrisy. Consider:

A proposal to make Major League Baseball’s “Extra Innings” exclusive to DirecTV has drawn the ire of Sen. John Kerry.

The Massachusetts Democrat said he plans to raise the matter with the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission at a hearing Thursday.

“I am opposed to anything that deprives people of reasonable choices,” Kerry said in a statement. “In this day and age, consumers should have more choices _ not fewer. I’d like to know how this serves the public _ a deal that will force fans to subscribe to DirecTV in order to tune in to their favorite players. A Red Sox fan ought to be able to watch their team without having to switch to DirecTV.”

So many issues pop up, but it’ll probably make the most sense to first address the MLB decision in the context of Sen. Kerry’s remarks. MLB is stupid if it proceeds with this asinine marketing strategy, but it is free to hurt its business if it so chooses. It is not obligated to “serve the public” any more than Whole Foods is obligated to cater to vegans. That, of course, brings up the notion that consumers should have more choices. I view keeping cable as an Extra Innings choice as desirable because it specifically impacts me. But MLB should have the same range of choice to run its business in whatever way it believes will maximize its profits and its brand, even if that means running both into the ground. Sen. Kerry’s rhetoric will serve well the economic populism that pervades our public discussion, but it’s misguided.

With his statements, Sen. Kerry also managed to make a mockery of his stances on most economic issues and many personal choice issues. If Senator Kerry is in favor of people having reasonable choices, why isn’t he promoting Social Security reform, for example? I contribute, even though I’d prefer to put my money in personal investments controlled by me and backed up by actual assets. But I don’t have that choice. How does that serve the public? I’m sure I could walk through a point-by-point list of Sen. Kerry’s campaign issues and find many more examples where he’s been less than a champion for allowing people to have choices. (I have little doubt I can find multiple examples where Sen. Kerry believes that businesses should be limited, so I won’t challenge him there.)

Greater than all of this, though, is the simple fact that Chairman Kevin Martin and the FCC have no regulatory control over cable that would enable it to take action against Major League Baseball. Sen. Kerry should know this. I assume he does, but that doesn’t sell because then the government¹ isn’t there to come to the rescue.

¹ Major League Baseball should not have anti-trust exemption. There shouldn’t be anti-trust prosecution against MLB if it didn’t have the exemption, but that’s getting further into that issue than I’m interested. Since these are the rules we’re operating under, and MLB is happy to benefit from them, I won’t feel bad if/when Congress goes after the owners for this exclusive deal with DirecTV. Feed the snake enough and you will get bitten.

Maryland will probably try to force Wal-Mart to subsidize this.

Maryland is really stepping into stupidity with its foray into addressing the current politically desirable hot potato health insurance crisis. I’m not sure which is worse, Gov. Martin O’Malley’s plan, or the naked defectiveness of politicians from a plan in the General Assembly. Consider:

Gov. Martin O’Malley (D) will call for expanded coverage of the state’s 780,000 uninsured — one in seven residents — in his State of the State address today, aides said, highlighting a proposal that would bring more of the poorest residents into public programs and require private insurers to allow young adults to remain on their parents’ plans until age 25.

What kind of nonsense is that last new regulation, other than an outright admission that politicians love to coddle people into ignoring reality and the consequences of their own choices. At what point will parents be allowed to kick their children off of their policy? If it’s so desirable for insurers to include young adults on their parents’ insurance, wouldn’t they have already offered such policies? Might current burdensome regulations and perverse incentives be the reason why those under 25 “can’t” purchase affordable health insurance? Making those worse will help? At some point, maybe people can leave the care of their parents and go directly to the care of the state. No one ever has to make any tough choices for himself. Even if he wants to make those choices.

General Assembly leaders are offering more ambitious plans that would add a $1 tax on cigarettes to pay for covering tens of thousands of low-income workers and offer subsidies to small businesses that provide coverage. Many workers who can afford insurance but choose not to pay for it would have to buy it or face penalties.
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The governor opposes a tobacco tax increase, and even if lawmakers approve it, there is some sentiment to use the revenue to cover other needs. And despite the momentum in the Democrat-controlled legislature, initiatives of this magnitude often take more than a single session to sell.
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A $1-a-pack increase in the tobacco tax also is the centerpiece of an effort by the Maryland Citizens’ Health Initiative to expand health care access through Medicaid and drug treatment. Although other states have approved tobacco tax increases to pay for health care, Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller Jr. (D-Calvert) has expressed concern that if the tax acts as a deterrent to smoking, the revenue source could plummet.

If it might not work, why are Maryland’s elected officials so ready to implement it? Because it might work? And even if it works, the outcome might be bad? What? Politicians can’t control themselves, even when they allegedly have good intentions. They will botch the implementation of the noblest of plans. They should not be allowed anywhere near such an important, vital aspect of individual life.

Continuing to hide costs is not exposing them.

Robert Samuelson’s column about health care proposals in today’s Washington Post is interesting. I agree with the gist of what he says, but there are a few phrases that rub me wrong. They’ll be used to advance stupid(er) plans. For example:

For decades, Americans have treated health care as if it exists in a separate economic and political world: When people need care, they should get it; costs should remain out of sight.

Who defines need? In a health system with even minimal government involvement, the wrong person will influence need. That’s minor, I think, because his implication is clear enough to everyone but the most obtuse and/or ideological. But his follow-on, that costs should remain out of sight, is the problem now. Perpetuating that only changes the assumption that medical care should occur regardless of cost to essential medical care should occur regardless of cost. Again, if we can’t define need beyond a placeholder for a basic point, absent individual circumstances, we’re doomed to end up where we are after reforming the system.

The hard questions won’t sit still, because health care (now a sixth of the economy, up from one-eleventh in 1980) is too big to be hidden. Myths abound. Contrary to conventional wisdom, the doubling of premiums for employer-provided coverage doesn’t mean companies shifted a greater share of costs to workers. In both 1999 and 2006, premiums covered 27 percent of costs, says Paul Fronstin of the Employee Benefit Research Institute. It’s simply the rapid rise in total health spending that’s depressed workers’ take-home pay.

Unless we advocate a complete separation of employer and health insurance, using take-home pay as a measuring stick will create sub-optimal solutions within the confines of our already bungled system. And note the key word, depressed. That’s not an accident. People are “suffering,” so something must be done. If the share of costs from premiums is consistent, take-home pay lower than it would be without employer-paid insurance is merely a signal from the market that costs are escalating. To Mr. Samuelson’s earlier point, this should remain out of sight? Without the incentive to accept health insurance benefits as compensation, individuals would see the direct cost of their choices through greater expenditures, rather than “depressed take-home pay”. Presumably, they could then better define need based on their own situation.

Throwing a Hail Mary in the First Quarter

Texas Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst knows a lot and is proposing a plan clearly designed “for the children”. Evidence (and rights) be damned, of course.

Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst, a Republican, is proposing a sweeping mandatory random testing program in public schools for steroids and other performance-enhancing drugs.
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“It will save lives. That’s the whole purpose,” Dewhurst said. “I’m convinced steroid use in high schools is greater than people want to admit.”
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“You can’t put a price tag on a young person’s life,” Dewhurst said.

Thankfully Lt. Gov. Dewhurst is willing to admit it. And he has a plan. And money to solve this “problem,” thanks to Texas’ $14.3 billion budget surplus. It’s there, and the kids are “at risk”. That’s enough, with logic like this:

Dewhurst said schools should be willing to go along if the state pays the bill.

Oh, that solves it. The state will pay, not the schools or the taxpayers in the school districts who send the money to Austin. And it’s for the kids, so no sensible person could possibly oppose the expense.

That could be brilliant logic, if it weren’t so obviously stupid. The rest of the article is worth a read, just to comprehend the scare quotes and the “we’re not violating their rights” guarantees. There’s an argument there, I guess, because participating in school sports is voluntary, but the motivations expressed by those quoted are discouraging because they so resemble every other well-intentioned boondoggle that only gets more severe and expensive as it proves ineffective to the extent originally promised.

How important is cheaper bacon?

I don’t write much about vegan issues because there are only so many non-mainstream issues I can discuss before I give the impression that I’m ready to abandon society, live in a hut and forsake showering. Sometimes an issue worth mentioning hits the news.

The largest U.S. pork supplier, Virginia-based Smithfield Foods, said yesterday [01/24] that it will require its producers to phase out the practice of keeping pregnant pigs in “gestation crates” — metal and concrete cages that animal welfare advocates consider one of the most inhumane features of large-scale factory farming.

Activists hailed the decision as perhaps the most significant voluntary improvement ever made in animal welfare, but they said the stage had been set by the recent passage of two state initiatives that would ban the use of the crates.

That’s indeed overdue but significant. I accept that my dietary choices will remain the minority in my lifetime, barring some unanticipated development. But I’m still amazed that even a minimal shift like this has taken so long. Any basic awareness of the issue should reveal exactly how cruel this is. It seems only someone with a complete indifference to the suffering of farmed animals could deem cheaper meat more important than a small level of decency. Basically, I’d be curious to hear how this could be considered humane or defensible:

While they defended the use of the crates — which are so narrow that the animals cannot turn around and some have to lie uncomfortably on their chests — they said their own research had concluded they could be replaced by group pens without any long-term problems or cost increases.

Remember, these are pregnant pigs that cannot turn around and may be forced to lie on their chests. I’m not going to jump on the animal rights soapbox because I know most people see that as extreme. I don’t think it is, although I’ll grant that some activists take that to its extreme. But actions such as this don’t need to be motivated by any notion of rights for animals. Actions like this are about the humans who care for and consume these animals in a time when it isn’t necessary for survival. We don’t think it’s acceptable to mistreat “cute” animals like cats and dogs, so why is it acceptable to mistreat other animals? Because we decided they taste better? That can’t be enough.

For what it’s worth, I think the seriousness with which this will be undertaken and to which it will be adhered is explained by the implementation timeline of this decision. Smithfield expects all of its pig nurseries will be converted to group pens within 10 years. Many animals will suffer over the next decade.