How can you tell when society has hit rock bottom with no chance of climbing back out? Perhaps this could be an indicator that we’re close.

My friend, Robert Wilson, came by and got my canoe last night to keep it until I get moved and situated. He’s running a fishing log called Fishingmatters that also acts as an anchor for his fishing mailing list. I think I need to get my fly rod out again and my license renewed.

Hmmm, It appears that the State of Washington believes that their officers of the court are entitled to more privacy than the rest of their citizenry.

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BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF WASHINGTON:

     { NEW SECTION. } Sec. 1. A person or organization shall not,
with the intent to harm or intimidate, sell, trade, give, publish,
distribute, or otherwise release the residential address, residential
telephone number, birthdate, or social security number of any law
enforcement-related, corrections officer-related, or court-related
employee or volunteer, or someone with a similar name, and categorize
them as such, without the express written permission of the employee
or volunteer unless specifically exempted by law or court order.

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The bill goes on but more or less it is saying that while it will still be legal to print and publish names, addresses, phone numbers and other more personal but public information about the average Joe in Washington state, law enforcement officers’ personal but public information is protected.

It passed the state house and senate and is just waiting for the governor’s signature to become law. This is going to be interesting to see what constitutional arguments come out of this.

Shelley Powers tells us she’s being published by a non-tech publisher and also that she will be discontinuing her ‘blog while she searches for employment. Shelley, I’m really going to miss you but I understand the needs here. You have been the catalyst for a lot of conversations that needed to take place over the last few months that I’ve been reading your ‘blog. I can’t express how much I’m going to miss it. I’m not going to say I’m going to miss you because I hope this isn’t going to mean that your occassional comments disappear from mine and other’s ‘blogs.

Get yourself well, get yourself working and come back to us. Okay?

The fact that Unisys and Microsoft are about to launch anti-Unix ads isn’t all that interesting, I would expect nothing less from them, but this quote from the article is somewhat amusing:

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The same ad depicts a scene in which a computer user has painted himself into a corner with purple paint. Sun’s servers are manufactured in a shade of purple similar to that in the ad. Executives from Sun could not immediately respond to the campaign. Unisys said the paint color was a mere coincidence–it was suggested by a customer who happened to have some in the garage.

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If the color of the paint wasn’t an intentional reference to Sun then they need to find a new ad agency.

Have I ever mentioned that I really, really dig scottandrew.com? I like his ‘blog and I like his music. One other thing I really like is his take on the CBDTPA.

Well, I put my house on the market last night. The move is becoming more and more real every day. I know a lot of the people reading this are probably thinking, “so he’s moving, what’s the deal?” For a lot of people there isn’t a deal with that. With me I’m leaving a town that I’ve lived in for the past 45 out of 47 years of my life and moving to a town that I’ve recently said that I would never want to live in. The house I just put on the market is one that I just moved into 16 months ago because it was about as close as it gets to our dream house.

I guess I need to explain why we are moving. My wife is a claims manager for casualty claims with a national insurance company. The company has had a local claims office here in Chattanooga for the past twenty-five years. They are closing it. She was offered a position in the Atlanta area. My job doesn’t necessitate me living in Chattanooga as long as I’m within driving distance of my customers. The Atlanta area is within driving distance of my customers and living there actually offers my company some advantages in developing business in and around the Atlanta area.

By June I should be relocated. I’m waiting for school to be out for the summer before leaving. I have two sons that want to finish out the year here. The oldest will turn 18 in May and still has one more year of high school to complete. He says he’s staying. I guess the summer will tell. Signing those papers last night was hard.

I’ve got a couple of friends, Barry and Akrum. Barry is a Canadian Jew who has been living in the US for a number of years. Akrum is a Palestinian who immigrated to the US several years ago from Isreal to get his family away from the violence. Akrum is a restrauntuer running a pizza and deli place near the local university. He makes some wonderful middle-eastern meals. Akrum and Barry are very good friends. On occassion they discuss the politics of the Middle East.

Now Barry is supportive of Isreael but he will be the first to tell you that he is a Canadian, not an Israeli. Akrum is a supporter of the Palestinians and would like to see a Palestinian homeland but he also will acknowledge Israel’s right to exist and absolutely opposses terrorism.

I’ve learned a lot from these two. I’ve learned that two people can have passionate feelings about opposing views and still be great friends. I’ve learned that being pro-Israel doesn’t have to mean anti-Palestinian and that being pro-Palestinian doesn’t have to mean anti-Israeli. I’ve also learned that one can be a Jew and also appalled at some of the things that Israel has done. I’ve learned that one can be a Palestinian, disagree with Israel’s policies and still acknowledge the right of Israel to exist and denounce all violence toward her.

I wish more people could get to know Barry and Akrum.

Meryl, I agree with you that not every opinion is due respect. What I believe Shelley most likely meant was that we all respect each other’s right to have their opinion (or we should) regardless of how ridiculous that opinion might be.

I’ve just figured it out. Sen. Fritz Hollings (D-South Carolina) is the Anti-Christ. He’s the guy that just introduced the CBDTPA (Consumer Broadband and Digital Television Promotion Act) into the Senate. He wants to make the tech industry and their employees responsible for the entertainment industry’s continued success with an antiquated business model. Think I’m a little harsh with my “Anti-Christ” crack? I don’t think so. This bill is pure evil and Senator Hollings name is on it as the author. That makes him the author of pure evil.

“Justin,” you might say, “lay off the hyperbole.” It isn’t hyperbole. This bill, if it ever becomes law will cause you, the hardware designer, and you, the programmer, to include a prescribed method of copy protection on any piece of hardware of software that is capable of reproducing anything that could be copyrighted. Remeber that “Hello World” demo program you wrote it one line? Hunh, it just jumped to 50 lines to include the prescribed method of copy protection because someone copyrighted that phrase years ago.

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“The definition will cover just about anything that runs on your computer — except maybe the clock,” said Tom Bell, a professor at Chapman University School of Law who teaches intellectual property law.

Then Bell paused for a moment and reconsidered. “There’s a risk you could say it covers things like even a digital clock program on your computer,” he said.

According to the CBDTPA, any software with the ability to reproduce “copyrighted works” may not be sold in the United States after the Federal Communications Commission’s regulations take effect. Even programmers who distribute their code for free would be prohibited from releasing newer versions — unless the application included federally approved technology.

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There are both civil and criminal penalties you can face if you screw up and don’t abide by this law and they aren’t light penalties.

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Anyone violating the CBDTPA would be subject to statutory damages ranging from $200 to $25,000 per violation. An irked content owner would have a quiver of legal arrows to aim at a violator: Search warrants, impounding or destruction of equipment used in the illegal activity, plus attorney’s fees, reimbursement for lost profits and actual damages.

That’s not all. Anyone who ignores the CBDTPA’s prohibitions — and does it for “commercial advantage or private financial gain” — would face the same criminal penalties that once threatened the Russian hacker Sklyarov: up to a $500,000 fine and five years in prison.

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There is also some enforcement measures in the bill that I’ll reserve comment on, not because I’m currently without opinion but I’m sure as soon as you read the article you’ll have exactly the same “punched in the gut” reaction that I had to them. There are also export and import restrictions that will essentially firewall the US off from the rest of the world. Bye-bye world-wide collaboration on open source software.

Now, I’ve never been one to advocate anything but the high-road in political campaigns but this has upset me enough to wish to find evidence of Senator Hollings personally renting out storage space to Brent Marsh with full knowledge of what would be stored there. Senator Hollings must be defeated. Maybe someone can find the pictures of him actually in bed with the Mouse.

I saw this on Doc Searl’s weblog and as bad as I hate to say it, it makes a lot of sense. I don’t want to see the US turning into the world’s police force but we have and it looks like we are going to have to accept that role whether we like it or not. The only thing that really worries me about this is if we do as Thomas Friedman proposes then we are going to hear the term “empire builder” thrown at us from every camp that is looking to paint us in a negative light. Of course if we do nothing then we will be tagged as isolationists and bullies that throw our weight around and then leave without solving any problems.

After blogging the report that the copilot crashed the plane to get to a superior, now we are hearing that this wasn’t confirmed.

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Sources familiar with the investigation said U.S. officials were unable to conclusively corroborate one possible explanation — reports that El Batouty had just learned he was being demoted and could have crashed the plane for revenge.

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We really don’t need speculations like this right now. Do we?

Hmm, after doing a Google search it appears that the below entry may not be quite accurate. A number of the links that were reported removed by Google popped up in this search.

Xenu.net was removed from Google based on a DMCA notification from the cult of Scientology. It seems the xenu.net webmaster received a letter from Google explaining the matter. There are a number of specific links on the Xenu.net website that are at issue. I’m debating whether or not to list those links here.

For years I’ve been troubled by reports of Scientology’s handling of critics. From everything I’ve read, these folks are ruthless and not an organization I could ever cozy up to. If what has leaked out about them can be believed I just sit in wonder as to how they continue to amass followers. I have toyed with picking up a copy of Dianetics just to learn about the organization but then the stories I’ve heard about them are so fantastic that I’ve become disinclined to waste the time reading it.

Still I’m also disinclined to become a critic of theirs. First, because they really mean nothing to me but, second, because I’ve heard of their ruthless legal tactics and I’m really not in a situation to fight the good fight against such a well prepared and well funded opponent. I still wonder, though, why do people fall for their BS?

Remember a couple of years ago when everyone was up in arms over the “Digital Divide?” Well, it seems their worries were for naught. A couple of points of note in the Executive Summary of the report are:

• The rate of growth of Internet use in the United States is currently two million new Internet users per month.
• More than half of the nation is now online. In September 2001, 143 million Americans (about 54 percent of the population) were using the Internet — an increase of 26 million in 13 months. In September 2001, 174 million people (or 66 percent of the population) in the United States used computers.

The report goes on to tell that this growth in usage spans all income levels. It appears that we could possibly have looked back at the growth of television to have predicted this outcome. In the beginning technology is always going to be adopted by the rich first but as the technology matures and the economy of scale kicks in important technologies become available to all groups that desire it.