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August 28, 2007
What political genius decided to have Bush announce Gonzales’ resignation at a podium surrealistically plopped in the middle of a huge, empty expanse?
You might as well have posed him next to a duck on crutches
August 18, 2007
Americans may need passports to board domestic flights or to
picnic in a national park next year if they live in one of the states
defying the federal Real ID Act.
So says the increasingly-ominously named Department of Homeland Security, according to CNN.
Personally, I prefer my totalitarianism to be unobtrusive.
August 13, 2007
Cracked.com has a slightly amusing review of 12 presidential candidates’ Web sites
August 11, 2007
Of course, this was before we unearthed the stockpiles of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons we found after we invaded. Otherwise, this war would have been a folly knowingly entered into.
Impeach Cheney first.
August 5, 2007
It occurred to me this morning that my interview of Kos take on new relevancy in light of the current O’Reilly bashing of Kos. [Tags: kos dailykos bill_oreilly ]
August 3, 2007
Why have we never seen a photo of George W. Bush as president without his shirt on?
In 2005, when Bush interviewed Judge J. Harvie Wikinson III as a possible nominee for the Supreme Court, not only did he ask him how much he exercised, but when the Judge said he ran 3.5 miles a day, Bush urged him to start doing some cross-training. [source]
The Washington Post casually refers to “Bush’s two-hour midday exercise sessions” [source].
He runs a 7 minute mile. At least he did when he became president. [source]
Laura says he exercises at least five days a week. [source]
Bush’s physician explained that Bush fainted while choking on a pretzel because his resting heart rate is 38-49 beats per minute. [source] A normal rate for an adult is 60-100. [source]
So, what is Bush hiding under his shirt (other than a mysterious rectangular piece of equipment)?
We saw President Clinton shirtless.
We saw President Reagan shirtless.
Why haven’t we seen President Bush shirtless?
Could it be because the American public isn’t ready for just how many crunches per day it takes for Bush to exorcise his inner demons?
Come, on W. We demand to see you shirtless! The public has a right to know!
Cheers for Sen. Dodd standing up manfully to Bill O’Reilly (= they yelled at each other), but he missed the point about O’Reilly’s complaint that DailyKos.com is full of hate. (Video) Dodd kept saying that O’Reilly was picking a few odious posts from over 500,000 visitors. It would have been more effective and more accurate to explain that DailyKos is a site where anyone can have a blog and say what they want. That the site is not centrally controlled is something that O’Reilly with his Big Media (and Big Bully) mindset seems to have trouble grasping. Dodd missed a chance to educate Poppa Bear.
Micah is live-blogging the YearlyKos over at the always-excellent TechPresident. [Tags: kos dailykos yearlykos chris_dodd bill_oreilly politics blogging]
August 2, 2007
I know nothing about patent reform. But Jim Moore knows a whole lot, and has lit Britt Blaser‘s torch. They claim that the Bush administration’s patent reform would skew in favor of large companies screwing small innovators (who may nevertheless have big ideas, of course).
All of this is over my head and beyond my ken, but when Jim and Britt sound an alarm, I believe there’s a fire. [Tags: patent jim_moore britt_blaser ]
August 1, 2007
I was confused about the anonymous bidding process chosen by the FCC as it auctions off our hope the 700mH spectrum. So, I asked Harold Feld, who kindly wrote back with the following explanation (used with permish, of course):
Anonymous bidding: Until now, the FCC has published at the end of each
round who bid what for every license. This is called an “open”
auction format. When the FCC created this format, it was thought that
maximizing the information available to bidders would maximize
efficiency of the auction and thus maximize revenue.After more than ten years of FCC auctions, it has become obvious that
the theory is completely, utterly and horribly wrong. What open
bidding does is allow parties to signal each other and to target new
entrants for attack. Through open bidding, the largest incumbents
exclude new entrants and divide the licenses among themselves cheaply.
The smaller players go along, because they survive by avoiding
direct conflict with the bigger players and also like to exclude new
entrants.Under anonymous bidding, the FCC only provides the amount of the
highest bid on each license at the end of the round. Thus, everyone
can see what bid they must beat, but they do not know who has bid on
the license. Nor can they see other bids besides the winning bids,
which can be used for signaling. This makes it much more difficult
for incumbents to rig the auction in their favor because they cannot
coordinate attacks on new entrants and they cannot enjoy the benefits
of a reputation for retaliation.Greg Rose has done two important studies on anonymous bidding. The
first was a ten year longitudinal study of FCC auctions for the Center
for American Progress (with Mark Lloyd). The other was two studies on
last summer’s AWS auction for New America Foundation.Here are links to the studies:
Initial post on anonymous bidding
Post with link to CAP study
Post with links to AWS studiesCombinatorial bidding, which the FCC approved for the 6 REAG licenses
in the “C” Block, is a way to minimize the “exposure risk” and
encourage people to bid more aggressively. Here’s the theory.
Suppose I want to build a national footprint, but I’m afraid I won’t
win all the licenses necessary. I am therefore afraid to bid at all,
because I may get stuck with licenses I don’t want and have to sell
them at a serious loss.With combinatorial (or “package”) bidding, I am only required to pay
for the licenses if I win the entire package. If I don’t win the
whole package, all my winning bids are rendered null and void. So I
can now bid agressively without fear and am encouraged to enter the
auction and try for a national footprint.The big potential new entrants, like Google and the DBS companies,
wanted package bidding. So did AT&T and Verizon. We at PISC
supported it because it encourages a national new entrant and doesn’t
make it that much easier for the incumbents, who are likely to win
anyway.
I rely on Harold’s blog, as well as his other writings, for help understanding the complexities of this stuff… [Tags: fcc harold_feld 700mh wifi ]
July 30, 2007
Elizabeth Edwards talked about Net Neutality, among many other things, at Blogher.
Jeez, do we need her in the White House!
Jennifer Pozner’s post
Video
John Edwards on the 700mH auction
JE YouTube on Net Neutrality
Me on E.E. and the Net
[Tags: elizabeth_edwards fcc net_neutrality john_edwards politics blogher ]
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