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Category: Policy Page 8 of 35

White House on Flickr, Under a CC Attribution License

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On May 5, 2009

In Policy, Politics

You’ve got to admit that that’s kind of compelling.

Huh.  Actually, in the writing of this post, I realize that the White House is trying to extend terms that are inconsistent with the terms of the CC license it’s labeled its photos with:

These official White House photographs are being made available for publication by news organizations and/or for personal use printing by the subject(s) of the photographs. The photographs may not be used in materials, advertisements, products, or promotions that in any way suggest approval or endorsement of the President, the First Family, or the White House.

In fact, each photo is labeled with the Creative Commons Attiribution license, which provides simply:

You are free:

* to Share — to copy, distribute and transmit the work
* to Remix — to adapt the work

Under the following conditions:

You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work).

It strikes me that the terms listed by the White House on its Flickr stream attempt to restrict commercial use of the photos, but the CC license which it chooses to govern the photos don’t make any such restriction.

Photo: Official White House Photo by Chuck Kennedy

I Must Count You

By

On May 4, 2009

In Policy, Society, Tech

If you read the title in the voice of Drago, you will better appreciate my intent in linking this note about the pathetic tech underlying the upcoming US census.  I saw one of these poor souls standing outside my house and staring intently at her PDA.  I thought, at the time, that she must be having some sort of technical difficulty. Turns out that that is just par for the course.

Don’t Ask, Just Do It

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On April 17, 2009

In Policy, Politics

Obama needs to get honest about this, and quickly:

Yesterday, Defense Secretary Robert Gates poured more cold water on the idea that Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell will be repealed anytime soon. “If we do it,” Gates said, “it’s very important that we do it right, and very carefully.”

[ . . . ]

Back in January, of course, Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs said, in no uncertain terms, that the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell would be repealed. But the administration’s been slowly walking that back ever since.

Do It

By

On April 16, 2009

In Policy, Travel

transitmap-575

The Ron Paul Navy

By

On April 15, 2009

In Policy, Politics

Ron Paul is back to his old self:

Ron Paul is now suggesting what he, I guess, thinks is a libertarian solution to the growing piracy problem. Have Congress get into the idea of issuing “letters of marque and reprisal,” which as Paul notes is actually a power expressly granted in the US constitution.

What a maroon.

Time for a Better Cuba Policy

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On April 13, 2009

In Law, Policy, Politics, Travel

Sounds like Obama’s going to take some steps in the right direction with respect to the US’s policy on Cuba:

At today’s daily White House briefing, White House Spokesman Robert Gibbs will announce that the administration will lift travel, remittance, mail and business restrictions relating to the Communist nation of Cuba.

The changes will allow unlimited visits to family members on the island as well as unlimited remittances — the cash recent immigrants to the U.S. send to relatives back home. President Bush imposed stricter restrictions on both in 2004.

Well past time for this.

Update: Steve Clemons gets at what almost immediately bothered me about this policy change.  First, opening up travel only to Cuban-Americans is a necessary, but insufficient step, towards a better Cuba.  Second, creating a right (in this case, to travel to Cuba) based on ethnic origin (especially when it is not aimed at correcting a situation related to it)?  A really poor idea.

The Shield of Incompetence

By

On April 4, 2009

In Policy, Society, Tech, UK

Rob Beschizza on why Britons care about Google Street View, but not the jillion CCTV cameras in the country:

The thing that amazes me about my homeland isn’t its willingness to live under state surveillance, but the way we freak out whenever anyone else uses cameras in public. “I was determined to make a stand,” said one local, who helped block a Google Street View car from heading into a Buckinghamshire village.

My dad, who lives just an hour away from Broughton, suggests that the key to understanding this apparent paradox is in the amused contempt that many Britons have for politics. It’s not that they’re sheep: they just think that no matter what powers are given to the police, freedom is guaranteed by the fundamental incompetence of British police. We trust the authorities because the authorities are too stupid and useless to harm us.

There’s a certain truth to that, and not just in Britain.  But surveillance tech is improving, and the delta between its effectiveness and the incompetence of its operators is narrowing.

Think AIG’s Bonuses Were Bad? Read This.

By

On April 3, 2009

In Policy, Politics

Megan Slack, over at Alternet, reports on what appears to be an important story that has yet to be picked up by bigger news organizations:

Dennis Kucinich sent out a round of letters to top Treasury officials Monday morning, questioning how much they knew about bonuses paid to Merrill Lynch executives that totaled $3.62 billion, nearly 22 times the total bonuses paid to AIG executives. The payouts made up more that 36 percent of the TARP funds the financial institution received from the Federal government. [emphasis supplied]

Kucinich points out that unlike AIG, the bonuses were not locked in by preexisting contracts and were performance bonuses, as opposed to retention bonuses.

From Rep. Kucinich’s letter:

The Merrill bonuses were 22 times larger than those paid by AIG ($3,620 million versus $165 million). They were also very large relative to the TARP monies allocated to Merrill. The Merrill bonuses were the equivalent of 36.2% of TARP monies Treasury allocated to Merrill and awarded to BOA after their merger. The bonuses, awarded mostly as cash, were made only to top management at Merrill. To be eligible for the bonuses, Merrill employees had to have a salary of at least $300,000 and attained the title of Vice President or higher.

The Merrill bonuses were determined by Merrill’s Compensation Committee at its meeting of December 8, 2008, shortly after BOA shareholders approved the merger but before financial results for the Fourth Quarter had been determined. This appears to be a departure from normal company practice, since the type of bonus Merrill awarded was a performance bonus that, according to company policy, was supposed to reflect all four quarters of performance and was paid in January or later. In this case, however, the bonuses were awarded in December before Fourth Quarter performance had been determined.

Why aren’t we seeing more on this?

Washcycle on the Bicycle Commuter Choice Act Benefits

By

On March 31, 2009

In Cycling, DC, Policy, Virginia

Washcycle (as usual) has the info you need. This time it’s about the recently issued IRS guidance on the benefits allowed under the Bicycle Commuter Choice Act.  Check it out and send it along to your HR people.  I can’t help but think that it was a poorly drafted bit of legislation, though.  Because really, could this have been intentional?

The bicycle commuter act passed last year excluded bike commuter benefits from an employee’s taxable pay, up to $20 a month. However, if you receive the $20 bicycle commuter benefit, you can not receive any other transportation benefit such as commuter highway vehicle, transit pass, or qualified parking benefits in that same month. This is different than with transit and parking. If you want to, you can take the $230 transit benefit AND $230 in parking. But for cyclists, you can either have $20 for biking or up to $430 for using transit and driving (sigh).

The US Financial Industry

By

On March 29, 2009

In Policy, Society

Around September, when this mess was getting some play in the public eye, I used to joke that it wouldn’t be such a bad thing if the financial industry just blew up.  That we could rebuild something much better from the pieces than what we had with the present whole.  I still say that.  I’m not so sure I’m joking all that much anymore.  Two graphs, from a story in the Atlantic:

financial industry compprofit graph

The numbers at the bottom are 10 year terms, starting in 1948.  And yes, that uptick starts around 1980.  From the article, titled The Quiet Coup, by former IMF chief economist Simon Johnson, is summarized:

The crash has laid bare many unpleasant truths about the United States. One of the most alarming, says a former chief economist of the International Monetary Fund, is that the finance industry has effectively captured our government—a state of affairs that more typically describes emerging markets, and is at the center of many emerging-market crises. If the IMF’s staff could speak freely about the U.S., it would tell us what it tells all countries in this situation: recovery will fail unless we break the financial oligarchy that is blocking essential reform.

Break it.  Blow it up.  Let’s just have a plan for putting it back together beforehand, yes?  And one more suggestion: don’t leave that plan to the people who put us here in the first place.  (Of course, that’s the even bigger joke, right there – yes, there’s a problem, but who’s going to fix it?  Not the people in power now.  This is the hand that fed (and clothed, and housed, and . . .).)

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