NEWS -- Dubya does Dubai

It's not often I say this. Maybe it's because I went to the dentist Wednesday, and the laughing gas somehow took effect before I got there and still hasn't warn off yet. However, I think I agree with President Bush on this one.

I first heard about the stink over the deal, which would transfer a contract to operate ports in New Orleans, Miami, Baltimore, Philadelphia, and the New York area (including ports in New Jersey) from British company P&O to United Arab Emirates-based Dubai Ports World, about a week ago. My first impression was that Congress was making a stink over a favored foreign company selling out to a less-favored one. As time went on, I learned that Dubai Ports World is owned by the government of Dubai and that the deal was hatched in comparative secrecy, both of which made me much more skeptical of the deal. Thinking about the subject further, though, there's one key issue at stake: property rights.

OK. The property in question is a government contract being sold by a foreign corporation to a company owned by the government of Dubai. Property rights issues such as this give free-market-loving libertarians headaches.

That said, let's reduce the issue to it's simplest. If P&O has the legal right to transfer these contracts--this hasn't been clearly established since we don't know the exact terms of the contracts or what promises may have been made in the negotiations (and those terms, spelled out in lengthy legalese, are quite possibly not available to the public for any number of reasons anyway)--then the government subsequently objecting to a legitimate transfer would mean the various port authorities in question, in effect, defrauded their contractor. I will assume that all rights and obligations in P&O's contract are transferable as is or with minimal renegotiation--that is a big assumption, but I can't imagine how a deal like this takeover could happen were it not true.

There are security issues at stake, granted. It's possible that al Qaeda could slip a sleeper agent into a sensitive position with Dubai Ports World. That's a risk with any operator, though. On specifics, the concerns strike me as vague at best. A New York Post editorial read on the Sean Hannity show on Wednesday, Feb. 22, for example, cites six reasons. Those reasons are:

[1] * The UAE — and, specifically, Dubai — has been a breeding ground for terrorism.

[2] * Its banking system — considered the commercial center of the Arab world — provided most of the cash for the 9/11 hijackers.

[3] * It continues to stonewall the U.S. Treasury Department's efforts to track al Qaeda's bank accounts.

[4] * Some of the operational planning for 9/11 took place inside the UAE.

[5] * It exchanged ambassadors with the Taliban when the latter subjugated Afghanistan.

[6] * And it trans-shipped [sic] weapons to Iran.

(The points were not numbered in the original. I have added those for clarity.)

Point 1 is simply too vague for consideration. Point 2 is also a tough one to consider--does this mean the money just passed through their hands? Did private entities in the U.A.E. fund al Qaeda? The implication is that the government of the U.A.E. did, or at least turned its back on such behavior, but this is also a vague and unsupported implication only. If the banking system is as central and important as this point claims--an assertion that is consistent with what I know about the U.A.E. from elsewhere--then it's possible the money passed through their hands only because they were a middleman handling lots of money, most of it for routine and innocent transactions. Point 6 is also meaningless--the very word "transshipped" means they did not originate the cargo--it simply passed through their country. Either they did not inquire into cargo destined for another country, or they knew there were weapons in the shipment, but did not intercept cargo they felt they had no right to seize. (Also, remember where Dubai is--at the mouth of the Persian Gulf, they're quite likely to transship many tons of cargo destined for Iran, Iraq, and every other country touching the Gulf.)

When I heard Point 3 on the radio, my first comment was, "Two words: banking privacy. Some people still value it." The fact that they won't roll over and eviscerate their domestic bank privacy laws is, so far, one of the best things I've heard about them.

Point 4 is a concern--but it doesn't mean the government sanctioned the planning. As I recall official accounts, the September 11 terrorists did some of their operational planning in Florida, but no one has suggested that Florida companies should be excluded from the management of the port of Miami for that reason.

Point 5 is the biggest concern. I cannot refute that they may have diplomatically recognized the Taliban. I can't evaluate the fact in isolation, however, and it is not fully consistent with what else I believe about the U.A.E.. The most I can conclude is that if the fact is true, it is either a stain on their record or it is something they did for reasons I can't fathom.

Beyond those points, many of the arguments against the deal focus primarily on the fact that the company is an "Arab" or a "Muslim" company. This is the most supremely irrelevant of arguments--it is racism and race-baiting hidden behind the illusuion of being concerned for national security. I know, I know--al Qaeda claims to be Islamic. Just like the Ku Klux Klan claims to be Christian. As this story has been presented so far, the references to Dubai Ports World being an "Arab Company" or a "Muslim Company" have generally been presented in a vacuum. Without any more solid connections, I take it to be meaningless racism. Imagine for a moment the ports were being taken over by a Japanese company, and use the appropriate adjectives. Now imagine they were being taken over by New Yorkers, and repeat the exercise. As you can see from that, to a great degree, the fear about the port deal is racism and bigotry. To a lesser degree, it's a general anti-globalism/anti-outsourcing backlash. The bottom line, though, is that it's a red herring--and a very ugly one at that.

Yes, there are security concerns. Whoever unloads the ships has the chance to steal cargo or help smugglers. I'm not convinced Dubai Ports World is a greater security risk than any other company in this regard. It is important to remember that Dubai Ports World is ONLY responsible for unloading the ships--the U. S. Customs Service and the U. S. Coast Guard are now and will continue to be responsible for port security. This doesn't mean security at ports could be described as good--the Department of Homeland Security runs both agencies and has also done such wonderful things as tell us to use duct tape to protect against poison gas attacks, run the TSA who so effectively screen airline passengers, and organize the federal end of the response to Hurricane Katrina. With a track record like that, one should doubt whether they can do anything right. The point is, however, that this inadequate agency doesn't handle port security because P&O unloads ships at some ports, and shifting the operation to Dubai Ports World will change NOTHING in this regard. Dubai Ports World can't fix what they're not able to change; no private contractor could.

One point that made me skeptical of the deal was the secrecy. I wouldn't necessarily dismiss the possibility of some corruption behind the deal, although the connections John Snow has with both the administration and Dubai Ports World seem vague to me. Even so, if there is corruption, it's still possible the Bush administration is doing the right thing for the wrong reasons. That may not be the full reason for the secrecy, however. Considering how the proverbial fecal mater has impacted the oscillating wind machine, I'm not sure those who wanted to keep the deal on the QT didn't have a point. I'm also not completely certain this was a deliberate attempt at secrecy--apparently, the president himself didn't now about the deal until recently, either, in which case, the "secrecy" was really nothing more than a blasé attitude to a prosaic deal. The main reason, however, may have been something buried deep in a Houston Chronicle article on the subject:

"The conditions over the sale were detailed in U.S. documents marked 'confidential.' Such records are regularly guarded as trade secrets, and it is highly unusual for them to be made public."

If this sort of deal sounds creepy for its secrecy, remember that the public demand to know every aspect of the deal is to Dubai Ports World analogous to demanding that Coca-Cola disclose every aspect of its contract to buy sugar.

No one else has voiced the argument that makes me wonder about the deal: is Dubai Ports World socialistic? I don't think it's proper for a government to be running port. Which government--be it the federal or a state government here, or a any foreign government--doesn't matter. Which port--be it Miami, Port Newark, or Hong Kong, doesn't matter. Properly, that is a function appropriate to a private entity--not the government. However, in the case of Dubai Ports World, this is a concern of the people of Dubai.

The main problems regarding government control of what should be private enterprise are the inefficiency that usually plagues socialism, and the unusual nature of government as an institution with powers denied to other organizations. In the case of the former, Dubai Ports World, functioning as a private contractor--even thought they're government-owned--will be held to the standards of their contract. Regarding the latter, the government of Dubai has negligible power here. (They could use diplomatic couriers to transmit company papers in a way that other companies couldn't, but the real mischief comes from things like a cozy relationship with the police or special immunity from certain lawsuits--these are things that Dubai Ports World would lack in this country.) In short, their nature as a foreign government works in favor of the deal on this point--they lack governmental power here.

Of course, there are many often-ignored points in favor of the deal. The first is that this is a chance to get a better contract. I'm hesitant to endorse using this deal as an excuse to force re-negotiation, since that would be going back on the original deal, also, and therefore wrong. Endorse it or not, though, this may be already be a moot point--apparently the negotiations are done, the terms have been modified somewhat, and critics are complaining that Bush hasn't asked for everything he could have. Now that congress is screaming and the deal is being reconsidered, who knows what's going to happen to THAT agreement.

Whether or not the deal is renegotiated, efficient operation of the ports is desirable. P&O offered, theoretically, the best available deal. (In practice, the contract could have been the result of corruption. If that is the case, it's a total crapshoot whether the next deal would be better or worse.) Starting with the best deal available, and renegotiating it in our favor, Dubai Ports World is likely the most efficient operator for the ports. If the deal is killed, then the port authorities will have to go back to the negotiating table, with at least one efficient competitor taken out of the equation (and probably more than one--it's likely a number of other foreign companies wouldn't even bid for such a contract in the aftermath--fearing bad publicity in perusing a deal they can't get). In such a case, the new port deal would likely be considerably worse than the current deal. For example, P&O might be contractually obligated to repair damage to the Port of New Orleans from Katrina and damage to the Port of Miami from Wilma. Dubai Ports World would likely inherit those obligations in the deal. If this deal is nixed, I have a hard time imagining a new company would assume those obligations--leaving the Federal or local governments holding the bag.

What if Dubai Ports World doesn't perform? Of course, as Thomas Knapp pointed out in his blog, if a private contractor misbehaves and the result is a terrorist attack, then the worst that is likely to happen is the contract will be cancelled. If Dubai Ports World misbehaves that way, our government may cancel the city of Dubai. Even if the government didn't take such drastic action (which would be unjustified, since the people of Dubai would be largely innocent in all likelihood), as Ivan Eland pointed out in his column, the guilt by association that has smeared Dubai Ports World so far would likely mean they'd lose more business than a non-Arab company as a result of a breach.

Regardless of how we'd treat Dubai and the U.A.E. if something went wrong, it is still important to consider how we're treating them now. Bush and his allies seem to be right to point out that the U.A.E. is pretty close to what we want the Middle East to be--that is, comparatively free and open, and willing to help us fight al Qaeda. This can be very hard to measure, and I don't always believe them when they say such-and-such a country is a trustworthy friend or deadly enemy: I don't think Pakistan or Saudi Arabia are as trustworthy as the administration seems to think they are, and I didn't think Ba'athist Iraq was, tyrannical as Hussein's regime was, the imminent and deadly threat they were portrayed to be in 2002 and 2003. All that said, I'm inclined to think the U.A.E. is the real deal--if only because some of the positive talk about the country was from BEFORE the port deal. (I'm thinking most specifically of National Geographic Channel's show Megastructures, the episode, "Impossible Islands"--which focuses on the building of a major resort in Dubai. The show will be rebroadcast on March 7, 2006, at 9 PM Eastern and again at midnight/9PM Pacific.) I'm also inclined to think well of Dubai and the U.A.E. because even some of the criticism of them claims Dubai is an important transportation and banking hub--while the status as a transportation hub could be an accident of geography, their clout in the banking community at least suggests that Dubai is relatively free for the region. Is the U.A.E. a perfect country? If I thought they were perfect, or even vastly better, I'd probably be writing this from Dubai. They're not. The U.S. isn't perfect either. However, imperfect doesn't mean horrible. What about the charges that they support terrorism? On that point, Senator McCain (another politician I'm loathe to agree with or quote as support) maintained, in his interview on This Week with George Stephanopoulos on Sunday, Feb. 26, that the situation there has improved since the September 11 attacks.

If the U.A.E. is doing what we want--it's only fair that they should benefit from such co-operation. This deal is one of the benefits they would reap from their relationship with us. Is it really a wise policy to deny such benefits to a country that is behaving the way we want out of vague fears about the region they're in? If we reject the U.A.E. as an ally, I wonder if they might not turn to Iran for support.

As for the company, getting beyond the fact that they're owned by the government, most of what I've heard about them is good. Certainly, Dubai Ports World seems to be reasonable in their behavior--even going so far as to lodge no objections to a 45-day security review of the deal.

All of that said, however, the most important consideration in my mind is property rights. The port authorities in question made a deal in good faith. If they didn't want the contract to be transferred without review on their part, they should have spelled that out in the original contract. At this point, we're not talking about stopping the deal, we're talking about rescinding it. None of the vague talk about security comes close to trumping those concerns in my mind.

I must admit, I can't claim to be an expert on Dubai or the U.A.E.. I'd heard some positive talk about the country before this whole stink erupted. Since the controversy, I've seen a lot of news accounts. Depending on which you believe, they're either the worst hotbed of terrorism since Taliban-controlled Afghanistan, or freer than a typical Bible-belt state. I tend to think the latter is somewhat closer to the truth--since it's more consistent with what I'd heard about them before the port deal gave people an incentive to skew the reporting. However, being a train buff, I do know a little bit about ports. In all the talk about this deal everyone seems to agree that the deal covers operations at six major ports. This is a simple fact to check, and is incorrect: the ports of northern New Jersey are governed by a common authority as those of New York City. When Port Elizabeth and Port Newark in NJ and the port facilities of New York City all get counted as two cities, even thought they're all under the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey (and, in effect, one port), one has to wonder whether anyone out there knows what they're talking about when it comes to this deal.

NEWS - Chinese Google--why I think the controversy won't die

I'm sure you've heard by now that Google is censoring results on its Chinese Google.cn website. The latest incarnation of the story apparently is circulating because there's a moderately arcane problem with their licenses there.

Full disclosure time--I'm being paid by Google. In theory, eventually. (As of this writing, Google AdSense says I've earned eight cents. I've not yet seen a dime--in any sense of the cliche.) Probably the bigger consideration is the fact that Google, through Blogger.com, hosts this blog. Still, I've felt free to speak my mind on Google before, and in this case, I do feel Google deserves some defense. The fact of the matter, though, is I like Google--I found their search engine and news features to be extremely useful long before I decided to keep a blog.

No, I don't think they're right to censor the results on the Chinese website at that country's government's order. I am opposed to censorship--and Google is supporting such a policy through their action. Ultimately, though, they have every right to decide what information to display on their search results, and what not to--the reasons why they omit some results may be inconsistent with their mission or otherwise bad reasons, but they can still choose to do so. The Chinese government is wrong to try to force their hand, but Google should be free to comply or to refuse to operate there--the latter decision being in conflict with their mandate as a company to do right by their investors.

However, listening to the coverage, you would think Google is, just by complying with the Chinese law, of comparable malevolence with Dark Lord of the Sith Darth Sidous, al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, or Satan himself!

As Justin Raimondo pointed out in his column, Google tells users of the Chinese website when the results are censored. This both alerts and reminds people in China about censorship of certain topics, and tells them when their search requires braving the "Great Firewall of China" and using the American-based, Chinese-language version of Google, and when the results are complete without that sometimes cumbersome step (a tactic suggested by Washington Post columnnist Sebastian Mallaby). Then there's Google's point that some information is better than none. It's easy to say, "yes, but you're caving to censorship," but it is also undeniable that some information is better than none.

However, what finally drove me to defend Google is that I'm suspicious as to why the furor is directed at Google. Perhaps it's simply that they're an easy target--they're arguably the best search engine on the net, and their motto is "don't be evil." That doesn't explain it to me. While their censorship seems to be more restrictive than Yahoo's and MSN's, in principle--if not total effect--it's no worse than their competitors'. In any case, their action is certainly no worse than Yahoo's decision to actively help the Chinese government find a dissident who subsequently wound up in prison. Nor is it worse than Cisco actively helping the Chinese government set-up the "Great Firewall of China"--the very hardware that makes access to the uncensored U.S. site slow and unreliable to begin with.

At the risk of seeming to delve into conspiracy-theory territory, I tend to think the reason why they've gotten all the bad press is their recent decision to fight the U.S. government's demand for a week's worth of search data. First, people smelled hypocrisy. It looked like--and to some extent, was--an example of a U.S. company showing greater deference to a foreign government than to our own. As a practical matter, Google could fight the U.S. government's inappropriate action--they're backed-up by our own Constitution, but if they tried to fight China's outrageous demands, they'd no doubt be told by the Chinese government to "go fly a kite." Second, at least two of the search engines that caved to the U.S. government's demands--AOL and MSN--are both not only competitors of Google, but are also owned by companies that have major stakes in news-outlets: AOL's parent company Time Warner also owns Time Magazine and CNN, and Microsoft, owner of MSN, holds a stake in MSNBC; this story might have offered them a chance to counter bad press they got for not fighting the government's grossly unconstitutional subpoena by making the company that stood up to it look bad otherwise. Finally, the government doesn't like to be told "no"--and when Google did just that, I can imagine someone in Washington decided that they needed to be punished--even if for something else. Of course, if the Feds get upset about anything, that makes it news.

The sad thing about the whole spectacle is that I tend to believe Google is a much nobler company than its competitors. This, of course, is a hard to measure, highly subjective, and all too subject to change, but it's my impression nonetheless. Yet it's the one getting skewered in the press--from my perspective, because the fact that they're generally better makes them inconsistent--as though that's worse than being more consistently bad.

I don't think Google should censor its results. However, when I entered the phrase "Tiananmen Square Massacre" (in English, as a phrase) on Google.cn, the first hit was a page, apparently hosted in China, that featured the famous AP/Jeff Widener photo of the man blocking the tank column after the massacre. Proposed U.S. legislation that would shut down the U.S.-owned website designed to deliver that picture to the Chinese people won't make the world a better place, even if Google is wrong to censor their website.

NET - Without a friend in the world!?!?

OK. I know it's because I've done zilch about my myspace profile to this point. (I got it mainly to facilitate looking at a friend's pictures--I'm still deciding what, if anything, I will do with it.) Still, I think it's harsh of them to tell me "You have 0 friends."

NEWS - Loose lips sink budgets

The Navy has suspended flight operations on the USS John F. Kennedy. Everything I've heard about the ship makes me think it's in comparatively poor shape, and Congress basically demanded that the Navy not mothball the ship as the Navy had wanted, so all that said, their willingness to take this step is not totally unexpected.

I was hesitant to comment on this story, since I'm not an expert on the military. Also, I'm not sure the Navy isn't trying to circumvent orders of the civilian government it's supposed to obey, although with Senator Warner's bill to reduce the carrier fleet to 11 ships, the law and therefore their orders may soon change on this matter.

In any event, I was struck by the tone of Rep. Ander Crenshaw's comments on the radio, echoed in other press coverage. He sounded petulant when he insisted the Navy repair the ship. I detected no concern for the sailors' well-being. I heard no concern that repairs he was demanding might not be the best way for the Navy to spend the taxpayers' money. In several stories I've read and heard on the subject, neither he nor Florida's Senators Nelson and Martinez seem to have made any acknowledgement that circumstances may have changed and their decision should be reconsidered. Crenshaw came across on the radio and in printed quotes sounding like a spoiled brat whose toy was taken away. He seems to feel he earned us this pork and wants to keep it, and safety of our sailors, military needs of the country as a whole, and any consideration of possibly better uses for the money are all secondary concerns to him.

One more example of Congress at its worst. The sad thing is, by keeping a ship for the local benefit at the expense of national defense, he'll spin it as a good deed come re-election time.

JOKE -- Total Ellipse

Using an archaic form of the singular version of ellipsis can produce a conic effect...

JOKE - If Cheney does this to his friends, what does he do to his enemies?

They say the VP was aiming for a quail. Are we sure he wasn't gunning for Dan Quayle?

(Dan Quayle jokes--it's enough to make you nostalgic.)

NEWS - Gonzales defends the undefendable

On Monday, Attorney General Gonzales defended Bush's "domestic spying program" before the Senate Judiciary Committee. The administration, for the most part, won't talk about the program, beyond claiming that it only covers international calls by al Qaeda agents. How do we know this is so? Well, apparently, we can take the administration's word for it.

Forgive me, but that simply isn't good enough.

The Fourth Amendment is abundantly clear when it says, "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated." A phone wiretap is a form of search--therefore, if it's in this country, it requires a warrant, supported by probable cause established by sworn testimony. Even if the Commander-in-Chief clause (Article II, section 2) allowed some type of warrantless searches (doubtful at best), the Fourth Amendment, being subsequent to this clause, would limit the power. There is no exception for wartime in the Fourth Amendment--if the authors of the Constitution had intended such an exception, they would have put one in (as they did with the Third Amendment and the Article I, section 9 Habeas Corpus clause). If a Federal law authorized the wiretaps, then the law is invalid because it is unconstitutional.

Gonzales cited as precedents the phone and telegraph wiretapping done by Lincoln, Wilson, and F.D.R.. I find it interesting he would choose those three presidents to mention, since they're the three (in that order) who I'd pick as the worst presidents--all three had notorious histories for violating the Constitution and expanding Federal power, and the fact they didn't get the impeachments they richly deserved doesn't persuade me of Bush's virtue.

The Carter administration, addressing the need to monitor Soviet spies discreetly while at the same time ensuring that secret wiretaps weren't abused, set up the FISA courts. The FISA courts have rejected only four warrants out of almost 19,000 applications*. If Bush can't get a warrant to tap the phones of the few "known al Qaeda agents" he wants to monitor from such an accommodating court, one has to wonder why. The FISA court proceedings are secret--so the terrorists wouldn't know about it. The FISA court rules allow the warrant to be issued up to three days after the wiretap is in place--so the idea that the proceedings would impede emergency monitoring goes out the window. These are fairly weak protections, but they are protections in that there is judicial review--the warrant needs approval of someone outside the Executive Branch.

I also find it interesting to note that Bush, in a speech he gave on Thursday about thwarted attacks, offered no evidence that the wiretap program is doing anything positive. Two thoughts that come to my mind from the accounts I've read of the speech bear consideration. First, when Bush says, "If someone from al-Qaeda is calling you, we'd like to know why," I would wonder how many times they order take-out or dial the wrong number, that is, how many innocent people might get caught up in this wiretapping. That's why judicial review is important--the courts should have a chance to say, "no--you don't have any proof that this person did anything wrong." Second, I note he called the target of the attack by the wrong name--making me question his grasp of the facts in general. Anyone can make mistakes, of course. If I made a mistake here, an alert reader is free to correct me. If the administration makes a mistake with its wiretaps and subsequent arrests, who'll correct them?

Among all legal entities, governments have unique powers. The only thing that keeps that power in check is respect for the rights of the citizens. Any violation--even a trivial violation, and even violations against people who have no respect for rights themselves--should be taken seriously because officials who ignore the rights of their those they're supposed to protect set dangerous precedents. It is with some irony I ask the question I'm about to ask--irony, because, similar questions are usually asked by statists of those who value their freedom--or at least their privacy--without any justification. However, while individuals should not have to answer for themselves, the government and its agents, due to its unique nature among human associations, should have to answer for itself, and its agents should have to answer for themselves. Therefore, I ask: Mr. Bush--if the "domestic spying" program is as innocent as you claim, then what have you got to hide?




* (Wikipedia says some sources claim five rejected warrants. I remember U. S. Attorney Jim Letton, during a lecture about the PATRIOT Act given at the 2005 Mensa Annual Gathering, saying there had been only four rejections--so I chose to go with that figure.)

LANG - Anyone here speak Yiddish?

Does anyone reading this know the correct spelling for "fitschimmled?"

In my blog entry last night, I referred to a schedule possibly being "messed up." When I was writing that entry, I had originally planned on using what I thought was a synonym for that term--but one that I can't recall ever seen in writing, only hearing.

I tried Googling several spellings, tried looking it up on the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, and tried looking up an online Yiddish dictionary. (And then another. And another after that.) A nice trip down a linguistic memory lane from living near New York, and hearing all the good Yiddishisms that find their way into your lexicon if you live in that part of the country, but other than that, nada. Zilch.

I decided to ask my dad at lunch today about the word--he thought it might be two words, and that the second word might be "related to 'shlemiel.'" Worth a shot. Back to the Yiddish dictionaries and Google. Maybe "fitschimmled" might be "feh shlemiel," which, as far as I can determine, would mean "disgusting idiot." However, I can't find any evidence that "feh shlemiel" is used as a phrase in typical use--or that it's gramatticaly correct Yiddish. Nor can I find any evidence for its use as a verb in English. I'm also convinced the word I'd heard in the past had a "t" sound in it. So I don't think I've found what I was looking for.

Oy Gevalt--it's enough to make one meshugina.

RR - Kingsley Ave. work done.

I was eating lunch at Grumpy's when I got a clear indication that the trackwork I mentioned last night is complete, or at least not disrupting train service anymore: a long manifest freight passed through.
Now, a new mystery: the first 20-or-so cars (with one exception) were hopper cars painted in what looked like Penn Central green. Whose cars are these? Where are they going? Curious trainwatchers want to know--if I find out, you'll read it here.

JOKE - Don't tell me to chill

Weather or not you agree with me, I think the current cold snap is uncool.

RR - Rock train after midnight

The southbound Yelvington Rock train passed through Orange Park about 20 minutes ago. I can't remember seeing it any time other than in the morning--but it may not be a schedule change. The trackwork/crossing repairs going on at Kingsley Ave. looked like they required a service interruption, and that may have messed up the train times.

NEWS - I have reservations about Congress

A low-key news story circulating around says Representatives Jesse Jackson Jr. and Cynthia McKinney tried to steal Senators' seats at the State of the Union address.

You've gotta love it. Here are two members of Congress--two people who participate in making laws we have to obey, and they can't even understand a concept as simple as reserved seating.

LIFE - Niña in Palatka

When I learned a replica of Columbus' Niña was docked in Palatka for the week, I had to check it out. It tours around the U.S. and the Caribbean--if it stops by near you, it's worth a look. (I don't know if there's a replica of the Pinta out there. There's a Santa Maria in--of course--Columbus, Ohio. Of course, being replicas, there could be more than one of any or all of them.)

Whatever else, good or bad, you can say about Columbus, he had guts. That's a small ship to cross an ocean of unknown width.

NEWS - Jane Austen in supermarkets and airports.

A Reuters Oddly Enough news story says Headline publishers are coming out with a "Classic Romances" series of Jane Austen's novels. According to the item, the publisher's fiction editor is unhappy with how other editions present Austen "in a very dry and academic way." They're trying to mass-market them to compete with more modern fare.

Someone finally gets it! The great works of creative literature--plays, novels, and poems--weren't written to plague students, they were written to be enjoyed.

TV - Super Bowl ads

On the whole, I thought the commercials this year were a disappointment. Looking at the webpage about Super Bowl ads, I have zero recollection of several of the ads there. Some ads, like Overstock.com's, Burger King's, and the five-blade razor were ho-hum. (Some time ago, I saw a comedy clip somewhere of a 20-blade razor. It must have been before they started making four-blade models, since those made me think of that skit, also.)

The first ad that sticks out in my mind was a Sierra Mist ad where TSA agents confiscate an air passenger's soda--it just annoyed me.

The Bud Light "Magic Fridge" commercial was funny. That was one of the best.

The FedEx "caveman" commercial was well done on a technical standpoint, but it just didn't resonate with me. I don't care that it has been getting a lot of praise elsewhere--it just didn't grab me.

The Aleve commercial with Leonard Nimoy was decent--I don't think it was as funny as the advertiser thought, though. Still, as a moderate Trekkie with gout, it appealed to me.

The one immediately following that--"Don't judge too quickly" with the doctors was amusing--but I didn't catch who it was for. If you don't know who the commercial was for right after it--that means it wasn't too effective. (The second Ameriquest commercial clarified who the first one was for, but I think the company name is really too low-key in that series.)

My dad and I agreed that our favorite commercial to that point in the game was the "horses-playing-football streaker" ad--an assessment I'd agree with. That was another highlight.

Someone should tell the The Dove Self-Esteem Fund that not everyone has bought a digital or HDTV yet, and it's kinda annoying to only have half a sentence appear on the screen. Ditto for the Michelob Light Amber beer and Ameriquest.

I liked the "I won't tell if you won't" with the young Clydesdale. That was a nice commercial--and a funny one, too. If I had to pick a best commercial from this year, that would get the nod from me. My dad is also in agreement on this commercial being the best. Too bad neither of us touch beer.

I also liked the Honda "mudflap" commercial (the one where the silver "naked" lady and Yosemite Sam go off together in the truck). I've heard no one else talking about that one--but that was one of the better commercials. Probably my favorite after the three Bud / Bud Light commercials I liked.

As a final aside, the highlight of the geriatric rockers' (so dubbed by my mom) performance was the comment about "Satisfaction," "This one, we could have done at Super Bowl I." I like much of the Stones' music, but the show was lousy. It just fell flat.

NET - The Delaware Dilemma

The other night, I was watching "American Experience: John and Abigail Adams," and something in the show prompted me to look up the "Treaty of Paris" that ended the American Revolution. (John Adams was one of the American delegates.) I found a version on a website run by the University of Oklahoma College of Law. What I saw shocked me--the text of Article 1 read,

"His Brittanic Majesty acknowledges the said United States, viz., New Hampshire, Massachusetts Bay, Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia, to be free sovereign and independent states, that he treats with them as such, and for himself, his heirs, and successors, relinquishes all claims to the government, propriety, and territorial rights of the same and every part thereof."

Thinking I had stumbled on a nice piece of trivia, I decided to double check. After all, this could be a simple editing mistake on the website and not the real treaty. The website I stumbled on next was The Avalon Project at Yale Law School. It also omitted Delaware.

I decided this might be an interesting post for my blog, so I wanted to see what others had written on the subject--I Googled the terms "Treaty of Paris," 1783, and Delaware, and found a version of the treaty that does mention Delaware. They even cite their source for the text. Still, I didn't know who ran Earlyamerica.com, and perhaps a well-meaning editor corrected a mistake that should have gotten a "[sic]" instead. So I kept looking. The next one that appeared to be the treaty itself was in Bartleby.com -- a website I remembered using back when I was in college. Age doesn't make one more or less likely to be correct, but on the Internet, having been around for 10+ years makes one ancient! Further--they claimed they got it from the Harvard Classics, and we have a nice, bound set of those. I checked the book--it, too, said "Delaware," right on page 186.

The next site that had the text of the treaty was Historycentral.com--another website I'd never heard of run by who knows who. They, too, mentioned Delaware--but their text was suspect, because it lacked the opening paragraphs. (OK--who can blame them? They drone on for 400+ words, tell us where Adams, Franklin, and Jay each were a "minister plenipotentiary," and could be quite adequately summed up by "We all agreed to end the war, so....")

You can begin to see the dilemma. Here I have two reasonably reliable websites that show the text one way, and one very reliable website and its source book, plus two more of less certain provenance, that show a different text.

Even knowing that anyone can make changes there, I looked up the Wikipedia article about the treaty, and their copy of the text. The result was some interesting trivia about Vermont and another copy ignoring Delaware.

My libertarian leanings make me loathe to trust the government, but this is a treaty, and therefore an agreement made by the government--so I'd think they'd know the right version. I tried looking up copies of the treaty in the .gov top-level domain. The first I found was a Library of Congress webpage that mentions Delaware. The second was the rather cryptic "Ourdocuments.gov" page that doesn't mention Delaware--but that cites the Avalon Project as their source, meaning they just got it from another place I'd covered. The former page also has a link to other Library of Congress webpages with "the original document from the Journals of the Continental Congress ..."--and a page that I take to be a scanned image from the page of a book containing the same. Both mention Delaware.

The moral of the story is that you should be careful who you believe on the Internet. I have no way of knowing which is right. I strongly suspect the actual treaty mentioned Delaware--I find it astonishing that John Adams, Ben Franklin, and John Jay could ALL fail to notice that glaring of a mistake. (I don't mean to impeach the British commissioner David Hartley--though I wouldn't expect him to be as familiar with American geography as our representatives.) The point is this: both versions could be taken as reputable: both have at least one source from the U.S. Government, an association with an Ivy League University (although the Harvard Classics weren't published by Harvard University--they were published by P.F. Collier and Son), and another unrelated private source backing them up. This is not a small issue--this is THE sentence where the British Government legally acknowledged that the United States was an independent country. Nor should it be a particularly hard fact to check, if you have the right resources--I would think the notes from the talks would be extant, and could be checked. What did the British ratify? What did Congress pass? I can only lament and conclude that these questions that, though they should be simple, have become difficult to answer because some professionals repeated others' mistakes and used less diligence than I did for a humble blog entry.

JOKE - Driving tip for the day

Try not to hit any pedestrians--no matter how pedestrian they seem.

TV - Drum machine

I was watching "The War That Made America" this morning (an interesting program in its own right). After the program, there was a short subject that was from "Animusic." The film was an animated movie of a machine that played the drums--along with the music the machine played. Neither "cute" nor "funny" are quite the right word--it simply made me smile.

BLOG - Adding ads is better than being a blockhead

I've decided to add a HIST code for items about history. I'm also killing the GEN code--it's redundant with MISC. I've been making fewer changes to the dreaded code--but I'm still tinkering.

However, the real news is the addition of ads.
Before anyone calls me a hypocrite for violating my own Rule 2, I will state that I am not against advertising. I am against other people using my blog (or more accurately, my blog's comment forums) for their free advertising. In my links sidebar, I put in plugs for friends' blogs and books written by family members.
Google's AdSense program is offered by Blogger.com. The first thing I needed to do was read through the terms and conditions--a ponderous document of 4600+ words of legalese that, like so many standard agreements, could probably boil down to "we want to be able to do anything we see fit, including demanding you to behave as we like." In particular, the terms prohibit ads on "...any Web site that contains any pornographic, hate-related, violent, or illegal content..." and they reiterate the policies page where they prohibit pages with ads from displaying content including " Violence, racial intolerance, or advocate against any individual, group, or organization" or "Pornography, adult, or mature content." Taken one way, that could mean I have to be immature, and that I can't complaine about (i.e., "advocate against"), say, Bush or the Republican Party.
Still, I hope that common sense prevails. I won't be muzzled, and if they don't feel comfortable sending ads my way, the worst they can do is cancel the ads and not pay me. (OK--the worst they can do is find some way to shut down my blog. In which case, it'll just rise like a phoenix somewhere else.)
Also, I am encouraged by Google's recent stand against the government's inane, insane, and unconstitutional request for a week's worth of search records. I'm also encouraged that elements of section 10 at least seem to protect me as much as they protect them.
More importantly, I'm also forced to come to this conclusion: Samuel Johnson once said, "No man but a blockhead ever wrote, except for money." I've had an online project that was just for a hobby. That convinced me he's right. These ads are the only way I can see to get paid for this blog. What good is advocating capitalism if you can't make money doing it?

BLOG - The code didn't last a day.

I have changed the code already. A comment about the changes to DirecTV's channel line-up, comments that I suspect I'll have about the Super Bowl ads, and who-knows-what I'll have to say later on about The Science Channel's latest offering, was enough to convince me to create a TV code. Since TV can handle TV criticism, and READ can handle books, CRIT is gone, and FILM will cover the movies.

Also, I decided to replace POL with PHY--since I figured I might have broader musings on theology and philosophy beyond politics. Political thoughts will still have homes in PHY and NEWS--depending on which seems more appropriate.

Now, all I need to do is make these changes. Blogger.com seems to be offline at this moment, so I'm writing this offline. If you're reading this, however, then that has obviously changed.

RR - It always happens

I got back from dinner tonight, and heard a train whistle as soon as I got out of the car. This seems to happen every night. I actually want to have to wait for the train so I can watch it!

TV - DirecTV looses a channel and gains a bad package

Flipping through the channels last night, I noticed that TCT -- another religious channel -- replaced PBS You. I was a little sad about that, since the religious channels don't appeal to me, and I kept thinking I'd take one of the PBS You telecourses one of these days. Of course, since I never watched PBS You--I, who actually like the intellectual stuff on TV--that didn't bode well for it. Indeed, since the channel seems to have croaked completely, I'm left with the conclusion that something is better than nothing.

It was while trying to look up stories / press releases about the change, I also stumbled the more interesting development: a couple of copies of a press release about DirecTV's new "Family Package," including a discussion of it on a message board. The list includes a half dozen channels I watch regularly (National Geographic Channel, RFD TV, The Science Channel, The Weather Channel, Link TV, CNN Headline News) and more than thirty channels rarely or never watch, but doesn't include at least two of my favorite channels--The History Channel and History International. For $35/month, the plan looks like a bad deal to me.
I'm skeptical about what strikes me as a widespread push for "family packages" and/or "a la carte" programming. The cable and satellite industry wants to keep going as it has, and the religious right and broadcast industry want to regulate cable and satellite channels (for quite different reasons). I don't know if this really cruddy package DirecTV has come up with is really an attempt to appease groups that I don't think can be appeased, or if it's a deliberate attempt by DirecTV to "prove" people don't want "family packages." All I know is I'm keeping my TV package as it is.

NEWS - Mine, all mines!

West Virginia governor Joe Manchin, called for, "...the [coal] industry to cease production activities immediately and go into a mine safety stand-down."
I will grant there may be mine safety issues--I don't know enough about the subject to know just how bad the problems may be, putting aside the recent spate of mine accidents. My impression is, the recent streak aside, that safety is better than what you might expect in an inherently dangerous job, than it was in the past in this country, and than it is in other parts of the world.
That said, it can't hurt to review safety procedures, technology, and standards.
However, I oppose the complete shut-down demanded. Coal represents about a quarter of U.S. energy consumption and more than a quarter of our energy exports. West Virginia is the second-biggest producer. Think about what Katrina-related disruptions did to the oil industry, and ask yourself if we really need to do this to the coal industry this winter.

NEWS - No, I didn't plan to catch the State of the Union address

I didn't watch the State of the Union address on TV. I knew the president probably wasn't going to say anything I really wanted to hear, little or nothing I needed to know, and little or nothing important.

Nonetheless, I heard part of it in the car coming home from dinner. I tuned in to his annual grandstanding when President Bush asked for the line-item veto. My gut instinct is to oppose this--the all-or-nothing nature of the veto is a way to force the president's hand regarding laws he doesn't like--for good or bad. Last year's provision prohibiting torture, attached to a defense spending bill to insure its passage, comes to mind as an example of a good law that would have been vetoed that way. His argument was that it would help him combat pork. Since he has never vetoed any bill, and has increased non-defense discretionary spending by 18% in the first two years of his administration alone I am forced to question his commitment to fighting pork.

Next, he said, "We must also confront the larger challenge of mandatory spending, or entitlements." That's chutzpah! Bush--with his party controlling Congress, couldn't pass his weak and moderate partial privatization of Social Security. He did passed his Medicare prescription drug benefit. In this year's address, he reaffirmed three major entitlement programs: public education ("Tonight I propose to train 70,000 high school teachers..."), Medicare, and Medicaid ("Our government has a responsibility to provide health care for the poor and the elderly..."). Bush is part of the problem of the rising cost of entitlements--a big part.

Then, he went on to talk about international trade and immigration. "Keeping America competitive requires us to open more markets for all that Americans make and grow." is a statement I agree with--though I was forced to wonder if Bush acknowledges how the Golden Rule and basic fairness apply to that statement--we must also open our markets to foreign products. "Keeping America competitive requires an immigration system that upholds our laws, reflects our values, and serves the interests of our economy. " I agree. To me, however, that would be free and open immigration. His subsequent demands for harsher enforcement and a "...guest worker program that rejects amnesty..." are contrary to what I regard as the free, just, and rational policy that would be in line with what we had in the past and need for the future. So we have two examples of wishy-washy and meanignless "I love America" types of statements leading into bad ideas.

By the time I got home, Bush was getting to his, "America is addicted to oil" demands. Again, I will grant that we need to decrease our dependence on imported oil, in favor of increased use of nuclear power and coal for electricity, and decreasing demand for gasoline through more fuel-efficient vehicles, and hydrogen, ethanol, and biodiesel as alternate sources for motor fuel. However, stating the obvious long after it needed to be said and then proposing more government spending--of a type I'd describe as corporate welfare--is not going to make me a supporter of his "Advanced Energy Initiative."

I got out of the car convinced by what I heard. Not convinced of anything Bush advocated, but rather, convinced my expectations of the State of the Union were correct and that I should strive harder to ignore such future addresses.

CAT - This is confusing!

A friend of mine who often housesits for us is staying over tonight because his house is undergoing major renovations.
It amused me to see the cats' total confusion--usually, when he stays over, it's when my dad and I are out of town. He's here, but we're still in the house--they don't get that at all.

BLOG - The Blog Reborn, or, Look Before You Leap

OK. It is time to rethink a couple things about the blog.

First of all--the code (or, as I imagine it will be dubbed if I don't get it perfect immediately, "the dreaded code"). The day after I posted the first entry, I realized I'd be writing posts on numerous different topics, and that they won't all appeal to the same audiences. (I know, I violated writer's Rule 1: Know your audience. Hence the opening paragraph.) I hope the code will save my readers time so they don't have to read posts that wouldn't be of interest to them.
Currently, I have seventeen different codes (ugly system already):

• BLOG - Stuff related to this blog itself
• CAT - Cute cat moments
• CRIT - Criticism (movies, books, whatever)
• FWD - Good, forwarded e-mails
• GEN - General
• JOKE - Original jokes / puns
• LANG - Language and etymology observations
• LIFE - Stuff going on in my life
• MISC - Miscellaneous
• NET - Things I found online
• NEWS - Comments on / analysis of news stories
• POEM - A poem
• POL - Political commentary
• READ - Something interesting I read
• RR - Trainwatching observations / railroad stuff
• TRAV - Travelogues / things done on the road
• TRIV - Trivia

This may not be the final list. I may (ugh!) add more codes if I see a need. I may also kill codes if I have some I rarely or never use. This is an experiment in progress.
(If you're wondering why I ignored my blog for nine months, I decided I needed this code the day after my first post--but I thought it would take about four hours to make all the changes I needed to do on the page--so I kept putting it on the back burner.)

Second, I have to impose three rules. I suppose these rules were always in effect, but three out of four comments on my first post violate the second rule, so I suppose I should say this explicitly. This is MY blog. My blog, my soapbox. I accept comments--comments can be useful. I'm not perfect--I make mistakes--comments point them out for me. Comments in and of themselves can be interesting. They may even reveal fans of mine. However,
Rule 1: Comments may not be offensive. If your comment strikes me as being needlessly vulgar, bigoted, or if it's abusive to me or another reader/commenter, it will go bye-bye. Included in this category are comments that openly advocate any philosophy I consider evil (such as communism, Nazism, militant religious fundamentalism) in a manner irrelevant to the topic at hand and/or apparently not playing Devil's advocate.
Rule 2: Comments can't be free advertising. If you want to hawk fake Viagra, your dating site, or shares of the stock CRUDQ, you aren't going to do it here.
Rule 3: If I can't understand your comment, whether it's because it's in a foreign language I don't understand or a bad imitation of English, it will go.
You, of course, have every right to express thoughts that violate these rules elsewhere--however, comments in my blog reflect on me, and I reserve the right to remove comments I don't approve of on my sole discretion. If you want to say it after I delete it, please get your own blog.

Well, I hope I haven't ticked off all my readers. On to the blogging.