technology

Republican candidates don't get the internet at all, it seems:

Conservative bloggers associated with the “Save the Debate” petition seem to be unconvinced that Republican candidates have really grasped the significance of the YouTube debate. George Ajjan, writing in New Jersey’s Herald News, takes Republicans to task for their failure to understand basic aspects of the political internet:

The comments of those skeptical about the YouTube debates sadly exemplify many of the traditional and stereotypical shortcomings of Republicans. The GOP has got to shatter the image of country-club elitism that plagues the party. Giuliani’s campaign prioritizing fundraising over a one-day commitment to appear before millions of viewers and answer tough questions directly from the electorate is deplorable and plays right into that regrettable typecast….

As far as YouTube itself goes, the issue is not that national Republicans don’t want to use new technologies. Both Giuliani and Romney have invested heavily in their online efforts and have specifically touted their embrace of YouTube as a campaigning medium. But their behavior seems to indicate the belief that the internet is a switch they can turn on and off, depending upon whether they’re in the mood to communicate. But the internet is always “on,” although it’s not always “on your terms.”

Until our party truly grasps that, we will continue to alienate voters and activists, especially young people for whom the internet is not “new,” but an integral part of their political upbringing.

The Republicans don’t have a technology problem, per se. They have an arrogance problem, and it’s spilling over into their online outreach efforts. Coming at a time when polls show young voters abandoning the GOP en masse, this bodes ill for the elephants.

The Right Field.

This is more than just arrogance, though. The internet is a medium that lends itself to free speech, egalitarian values (at least as far as right to ones own opinion goes), empowering the people.

The internet might have made sense in the old Republican party of Barry Goldwater, but it is really nothing but a threat to (or at best only a tool to be exploited by) modern day neo-Republicans who have ditched libertarian values in favor of big government as big brother.

In other words, it is not modern Republican arrogance that puts them at odds with the internet, but rather modern Republican culture that is diametrically opposed to a medium that gives us peasants a way of talking back at them ... and talking amongst ourselves.

Can the neo-Republicans and their vision of authoritarian government keeping the people in line succeed in the internet age? I doubt it. The party is already fraying and showing serious signs of breaking. They are going to have to reinvent themselves or destroy the internet to preserve their privilege.

Apparently Representative Tom Lantos supports the nuclear cooperation deal President Bush signed into law on the 18th, but stated that Bush can't just cut out the parts of the bill he doesn't like.

In a public ceremony on December 18th, President Bush signed the "Henry Hyde United States-India Peaceful Atomic Energy Cooperation Act," permitting the US to export fuel to India's civilian nuclear energy program and broadly cooperate with the South Asian country in the nuclear sphere. Based on a variety of concerns that the deal would help India's nuclear weapons program or result in transfer of technology to states like Iran, Congress attached a wide range of conditions to the bill, requiring the president to certify that India was not taking actions that negatively affected US foreign policy goals.

But hours after the public ceremony, the White House issued a "presidential signing statement" which undercut nine substantive sections of the legislation, calling them advisory.

Rep. Tom Lantos (D-CA), the Democrat who will take over as chairman of the House International Relations Committee next month, has told RAW STORY that the president's claim in the signing statement that the bill's provisions are advisory has no standing. "It's very clear what the legislation requires," Lantos said, "and the president may not like it, but it's there."

This could be a blow to the King George ethos prevalent in the White House these days.

Devoted wingnuts will almost certainly attack Lantos and other Democrats for this, but one can safely assume they wouldn't want a Democratic President dodging items of passed laws he or she doesn't like, either. In the end, it's probably better to have presidents obey and enforce the law rather than flaunt it for their own convenience.

I can hear the right-wing murmurs of "of course not!" After all, men have rights!

That's what the European Court for Human Rights ruled, too:

Natallie Evans, 35, from Wiltshire, made an emotional plea to her former fiancé to change his mind and let her use the embryos, which cannot be implanted without his consent [under British law].

Ms Evans was receiving fertility treatment in October 2001 when doctors discovered pre-cancerous cells on her ovaries. She immediately underwent a course of IVF, which produced six embryos fertilised by the sperm of her fiancé, Howard Johnston, before having her ovaries removed to head off the disease.

The next year, however, the couple split and Mr Johnston wrote to the fertility clinic asking it to destroy the stored embryos.

Natalie Bennett, whose post on this is where I saw this story, ponders:

Two judges dissented from the ruling, which makes an appeal to the absolute final court, the Grand Chamber, where it would be heard by 17 judges.

It is what you call a really tough one. A man surely has a right not to have children without consent, so I guess in the end while I have to feel for Evans, he should not be forced into parenthood.

And the suggestion of a "right to parenthood" suggested by the dissenting judge worries me. If there were such a thing, just how far would a society have to go to make it happen?

Well, in the United States, not very far ... when it comes to women. For the right-wing fad here in the United States is to force women who've become pregnant by any means to become parents (or at least give their lives in the endeavor).

Note that in either case there is a fertilized egg -- an embryo in the British case -- so it's not simply a matter of choice before the fact. We're talking about choice after the fertilization. The only difference is that Howard Johnston would not even have to provide of his body to make the baby happen, while women in South Dakota and many other states -- and the whole country, if the forced pregnancy advocates have their druthers -- would have to give of their blood, their energy, their time, their health, their ability to work, their employability, perhaps their lives to fulfill the forced parenthood mandated by the State.

Interesting that, for men, just the possibility of their genes -- which are considered their property -- living beyond their control is enough to preclude any State requirement that the men be forced into that situation, while with women, the genetic property view does not apply, and what's more, the fact that perpetuating the 9-month life-creation process must take place within their own bodies also is not enough to preclude forced pregnancy.

Two different continents. Two different sets of laws. Two different genders. Two different outcomes.

So to sum up:

1. Men have rights not to be forced into parenthood.
2. Women have no such right.

Any questions?

People are buy women's eggs. The price ain't cheap. If you are tall, with sterling SAT scores, Ivy League, and without a family history of genetically related diseases, your egg can command $50,000.

A man with similar attributes can expect to sell his sperm for $1200.

Certainly the man does not carry the resulting embryo, but with modern technology, neither does the woman. The fertilized egg can be planted into another woman's womb ... at the proper moment in her cycle ... and there is about a one in five chance that it will "take."

Egg cost more because they are more difficult to "harvest." There are risk to the health of the female donor. The procedure may mean she can never have children and some women are opting to have eggs set aside for their own use when the harvesting takes place.

Science fiction?

No this is happening today.

The developments in science are outflanking the political discourse which is getting stale. Harvard Business School Professor Debora Spar writes about the prices of sperm and eggs in her new book, "The Baby Business," ISBN 1-59139-620-4. She observes that contraception has made it possible to have sex without pregnancy, but today we can have pregnancy without sex.

Fundamentalists, among others, do not want school to teach students about sex, yet is this science something that can be taught to high school seniors in their biology class?

In the face of these changes, are the State legislatures even in step with the 21st century? With some 400,000 fertilized human eggs in various laboratories, what does this do to the belief that an fertilized egg has a "right to life." 400,000 "people" is the population of Alaska - enough people to earn a seat in the US House of Representatives.

Can selling an egg (or sperm) be prevented? Should it be prevented?

People who don't want to be pregnant are told they "must be." Many of those who can't get pregnant, want to be. They want to joy of carrying the child. Some who cannot carry the child will pay another woman to carry a child that is not genetically hers in any one - the most startling case being one where a woman of color (Filipina) carried a white couple's baby.

Is this what the folks in South Dakota, and elsewhere, are considering as they grind out anti-choice legislation. Who controls when, how, and if we breed?

Is seems the market forces have already shown themselves and international boarders are easy enough to cross.

We are on the edge of a tidal wave of bio-evolution.

I hope to be blogging more about Spar's book (I'm about half way through) and hope others, as well, may want to discuss the issues that it raises.

FRED DE SAM LAZARO: Citing what they see as a more receptive or antiabortion high court, lawmakers easily approved a sweeping ban on the procedure, one that declares that life begins at conception.

South Dakota's law makes it a crime for a doctor to perform an abortion unless the mother's life is endangered. There are no exceptions for cases in which a mother's health may be threatened or cases in which the pregnancy results from rape or incest.

On the March 3, 2006, broadcast of The News Hour with Jim Lehrer we saw past the benign rhetoric about how the Supreme Court is going to stay impartial and the new Justices are not coming to the Supreme Court to grind an ax.

South Dakota has passed legislation that discriminates in favor of an embryo over the rights of a woman to control her own body.

Reproductive technology marches on. It is possible to place a fertilized egg of one woman into the womb of another woman. This is not surrogacy where the man impregnates another woman. This is the transfer of a fertilized egg of one women into that of another.

Currently, there are Third World women, and women of poverty in this nation, who are hiring out their wombs to people of means (often of different ethnicity) so that the hiring couple can have a baby that is biologically "theirs." The egg and sperm of the hiring couple are joined, and the embryo is implanted into another woman who has agreed to carry the fetus through labor. If a woman who has donated her womb has a change of heart, under South Dakota law she cannot get out of the services she has contracted to fulfill - nor does she (or so it seems) have any real legal standing once she delivers the baby.

This is not science fiction. This is the state of affairs today, and we are going down the slippery slope where the state begins to assert eminent domain over the womb.

Stay tuned. This is going to get a whole lot worse before we get away from people who are more interested in the rights of an embryo than a woman.

This is just amazing: Bush is on videotape, being briefed before Katrina.

Video showing President George W Bush being warned on the eve of Hurricane Katrina that the storm could breach New Orleans' flood defences has emerged.

The footage, obtained by the Associated Press, also shows Mr Bush being told of the risk to evacuees in the Superdome.

It appears to contradict Mr Bush's statement four days after Katrina hit, when he said: "I don't think anyone anticipated the breach of the levees."

Of course, Bush being caught in yet another lie is hardly news.

The footage does the president no favours, the BBC's Justin Webb reports from Washington.

It shows plainly worried officials telling Mr Bush very clearly before the storm hit that it could breach New Orleans' flood barriers.

In the past, the president has said nobody anticipated a breach but the video shows Michael Brown, the top emergency response official who has since resigned, saying the storm would be "a bad one, a big one".

"We're going to need everything that we can possibly muster, not only in this state and in the region, but the nation, to respond to this event," Mr Brown says.

He also gives a strong, clear warning that evacuees in the Superdome in New Orleans could not be given proper assistance.

And what is the Bush Administration's response? Typically, they try to pooh-pooh the whole thing.

New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin, shown the footage for the first time at a press conference, told Reuters he was "shocked" by what it revealed.

"It surprises me that if there was that kind of awareness, why was the response so slow?" he asked.

But Homeland Security spokesman Russ Knocke said most transcripts of discussions had already been made available to congressional investigators examining the response to Katrina.

"There's nothing new or insightful on these tapes," he said.

Yeah, Bush has lied to the American people. That's not news. Bush knew of the dangers to New Orleans, and opted to go party instead. That's not news.

Lauren at the Center for Internet and Society notes:

Then I realized after watching the BBC piece that the technology used to perform the video briefing (while Bush was vacationing in Texas and Nat’l weather service people were getting worried in DC) also created a record of the briefing. It may have been a secure connection, but since nobody bothered to store the file securely, or encrypt it, a whistleblower (?) was able to leak it to the press.

I’m guessing they will not make this mistake again. But it is a great example of how in today’s world, few communications are ephemeral. Technology that enables new forms of communications— like video conferencing— also creates new records of communications that can be rebroadcast to parties the speakers never intended. Maybe this experience will make the Bush administration more sympathetic to privacy concerns?

I think that when it comes to governmental officials' being held to accountability, they're quite vigorous in defending "privacy." It's when it comes to the rest of us peasants that privacy is either a "quaint, old-fashioned notion" or a "tool for terrorists."

I expect much stonewalling and bluster on this one.

[My Blogrolling account has lapsed. A new technology blogroll is to come.]

[My Blogrolling account has lapsed. A new internet-related blogroll is to come.]

A definite "no" comes from the fashion agency slides, who gave fashion model and blogging tech aficionado Anina an ultimatum:

either quit doing the technology stuff, or leave the agency. they say that fashion and technology do not go together.

they say,that i can not do both things and that i must choose to either be a model, or do the tech stuff. they say i will not find an agency in paris who will accept for me to do the both. and so i have been thinking deeply about what i am to be doing.

modeling makes me money, tech does not. i love tech, why should i have to give it up.

Why indeed? mobilejones, who is blogging on the new BlogHer community website, writes:

Anina's story isn't unique. Many employers are concerned about their employees blogging, and as a result, some people blog anonymously.

The concerns of the modeling agency aren't clear, but it does raise what is likely to continue to be a tough choice for employees. When an employer dictates your activities outside of work, what recourse do you have?

My question is what this agency is afraid of. Nicole on cruel to be kind ponders this:

I find it hard to believe that an agency - which is living from what their models bring as business to them and lives from the fact that her models get more famous - would threaten as an ultimatum "just" because of she is a bit geeky. There is a second side of the story I would love to hear. Then again, yes they may be just as stupid as that.

Back on BlogHer, trishaokubo notes that Anina's management company has backed her in this conflict:

It brightens my heart to hear that WOMEN Management has stepped up to the plate to support Anina. I don't mean to get on a soapbox here, but this is a great example of the kind of support that we're looking to foster amongst ourselves here at BlogHer.

Anina, who was at the BlogHer Conference last year, writes about her support and reveals, perhaps, why the Fashion Powers That Be may not appreciate her blogging:

i would never suggest, with my 360fashion project, or anything that i do, to work without an agency. it's too risky. you risk not getting paid, being mistreated, lied to, and whole host of things that as a little independent contractor can happen to you. my 360fashion project is not to REPLACE the need for agents, otherwise i wouldnt have ps-models in there. it is only to say that as there is less money happening in the fashion industry, on non-monetary collaborations, the 360fashion system can facilitate the interaction.

i dont see the problem of two people even, agreeing to work together, and then calling their agents to arrange the paperwork (i do think however, then the agent should take less commission). more proactive and independent fashion professionals i think would be happy to work this way, as they could arrange their own projects, work, and such. maybe that is what the industry fears when we speak about new ways to collaborate and communicate. for me, it gives then a doubled effort to get work, i am making my connections on one side and the agency making connections for me on the other side--it's a win win situation if everyone is on the same team. possession is ego.

so my mother agency explained to me from the french agency side, what happened to my couture show booking (that's why this whole situation happened--because i flew back for a job, that i understood to be a job, that was cancelled, and then no one informed me). a lot of press showed up to film me, and when i was not there, they were very pissed off. when the french agency said that i spoke directly to the client (the thing that made them so angry), my mother agency vouched for my professionalism and did not buy their story.

Today Anina is not modeling, but she is working ... showing Swiss TV how to blog.

Update 29 May 2006:

The last sentence, now crossed out, apparently was a bit ambiguous. The "today" referred to that particular day of the post, but some people, apparently, were reading it as meaning that Anina no longer models at all. I regret that anyone got that impression from my imprecise writing.

Anina corrects:

hi media girl,

in this post it says i am not modeling and this is not correct info. i am modeling. i have lots of agencies and even a new agent in paris.

http://mediagirl.org/node/1098

thanks for the correction!
great article and breakdown of the situation.
best,
anina
www.anina.net

So far, Google has refused.

DoJ search requests: Google said no; Yahoo, AOL, MSN yes.

Update: Earlier today, I asked a Justice Department spokesperson which search engines other than Google received requests to provide search records. The answer: Yahoo, AOL, and MSN were also asked to supply search records information, and all complied. Google did not, and that is why the DoJ asked a federal judge on Wednesday to order the company to do so.

Of course, the Justice Department would not associate any information it gathers with personally identifiable data. (Of course!) So you porn-loving boys can go on doing what you're doing ... as long as you support the war.