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Monday, July 14, 2003
Loose beginnings 
| | The modern-day limited-government movement has been co-opted. The conservatives have failed in their effort to shrink the size of government. There has not been, nor will there soon be, a conservative revolution in Washington. Party control of the federal government has changed, but the inexorable growth in the size and scope of government has continued unabated. The liberal arguments for limited government in personal affairs and foreign military adventurism were never seriously considered as part of this revolution. |
| | Since the change of the political party in charge has not made a difference, who¹s really in charge? If the particular party in power makes little difference, whose policy is it that permits expanded government programs, increased spending, huge deficits, nation building and the pervasive invasion of our privacy, with fewer Fourth Amendment protections than ever before? |
| | Someone is responsible, and it¹s important that those of us who love liberty, and resent big-brother government, identify the philosophic supporters who have the most to say about the direction our country is going. If they¹re wrong — and I believe they are — we need to show it, alert the American people, and offer a more positive approach to government. |
| | Thanks to Mike for the pointer. |
| | The Internet might soon be the last place where open dialogue occurs. One of the most dangerous things that has happened in the past few years is the deregulation of media ownership rules that began in 1996. Michael Powell and the Bush FCC are continuing that assault today (see the June 2nd ruling). |
| | The danger of relaxing media ownership rules became clear to me when I saw what happened with the Dixie Chicks. But there¹s an even bigger danger in the future, on the Internet. The FCC recently ruled that cable and phone based broadband providers be classified as information rather than telecommunications services. This is the first step in a process that could allow Internet providers to arbitrarily limit the content that users can access. The phone and cable industries could have the power to discriminate against content that they don¹t control or -- even worse -- simply don¹t like. |
Wake up and smell the business model
| | Doc was talking about the construction business. He points out that we use construction industry metaphors all the time when we talk about building computer systems. That's an interesting perspective and meshes with Tim's comments. Doc talked about driving through some industrial area somewhere and noticing business after business with huge lots full of pipes, structural steel, and the like. These things are commodities and businesses that sell them make good money (albeit not with the kind of margins that Microsoft and Oracle have promised their shareholders). Moreover, the construction industry is large, profitable, and honorable business. Doc thinks this is a model for where the software industry is headed. I agree. |
| | The construction industry is about service. While we typically don't thing of construction being part of the service economy, I think that view concentrates too much on the things and not enough on the construction itself. |
BBOD
| | My bank, Washington Mutual, recently held a check from a Canadian source for six weeks. |
| | Now I'm trying to do some online banking and getting this error: |
| | Microsoft VBScript runtime error '800a000d' |
| | Chuq is having similar problems. Worse, it sounds. At least I didn't spend a lot of time on the phone. All I had to do was scrounge up a box with Internet Explorer and pretend I lived in the All-Microsoft world of WAMU. Too bad that a fine radio station (the only FM station I ever regularly listened to from both New Jersey (far northern Sussex County, almost all the way to upstate New York) and North Carolina (just North of Chapel Hill) has call letters that are also the acronym for an annoying bank. |
Signs
| | We sneer at people who update their blogs daily. We don't care. We're about quality and to hell with dailyness. Unless things change. Unless I actually get it together and buy a new computer for our Mystery Island House and so not have to trudge next door to Ed and Darci's house to use their computer and so slow down on my entire life. I'll get it together any minute. That and a new cell phone. And the rain gutter on the Willow Glen House that I haven't finished. And the Nick Danger for July fourth I haven't written yet. And the trip to Mystery Island only a week away. I've got to make a list. By my standards, we're a big success on this blog. |
Loverolling
| | Chris Locke has caged RageBoy long enough to report that Ann Craig is going in for surgery this morning for melanoma: |
| | Please join me in pulling for her. Whatever you do in the face of death, please do now for her. It will make a difference. Ann gave me her permission to post this. She thanks you for the all the love and kindness in your hearts. |
Oversights
| | As the kid and I sat down in the rocker last night (actually about two hours ago), a perfect July Moon rose over the Santa Monicas. (That's it, above.) Not much later, the Hubble Space Telescope traced an arc across Scorpio in the Southeast, barely missing the red giant Antares along the way. All this is laid out very nicely at Heavens Above. I'd link directly to the page, but it's behind a login wall (access is free). Still, extremely worth checking out. |
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