February 25, 2007 :: Second Good Snow of the Year

 

My house on Feb 25, 2007 after the second good snow of the year in DC.

February 17, 2007 :: The Recriminations are starting

When the US does what it wants, disregarding any semblance of international law, diplomacy, or international legal procedures, other countries look to the US's behaviour which sets a global scene as a precedent for their own behavior.

So, when the US holds international prisoners from their own country on "charges" that no one can know, contest, or have legal counsel, other countries know that they can do the same.

For example here's a case in Italy where
CIA agents face abduction trial where,

A Milan judge has ordered 26 US citizens, most of them believed to be CIA agents to stand trial on charges of the 2003 abduction of an Egyptian imam... It is expected to be the first criminal trial over "renditions", one of the most controversial aspects of the Bush administration's "war on terror" The trial will be the biggest ever of US intelligence agents in an allied country, although they will almost certainly be tried in absentia.

Not good.

February 15, 2007 :: Lawsuit by EU News against Google

This article on the European Union lawsuit against Google makes some very important points.

Generally, websites are made of web pages or articles, and articles are meant to be read. To be able to read a website or article, a web user must be able to somehow find the page or article. This is where a user either browses a web site for its articles (such as a listing of articles like a chronological list or a collection of articles like a newspaper's "front page"), searches for articles (using a word or date searching function on the website that houses the articles -- "search articles"), or uses an indexing website like a news index or search engine. Google is such an indexing search engine.

For a website to make money, there are two main models that most sites follow: advertising and subscription. Advertising models usually involve showing the user commercial links which feeds money back to the listing website. Subscription modles usually involve either charging for access or as is typical in the news websites, charging for archived articles published some time ago, often over a week or so. Both models require web users to visit the site. The more web users to visit the site, the more money the web site will make. [ Having run several of these sites myself, I can assure you of the next fact's accuracy, even on a small scale ] From a marketing, planning, and budgeting standpoint, it is almost a mathmatical certainty that a certain percentage of web users will contribute to the revenue of the site in some way. This is almost a mathmatical certainty.

The central claim in this lawsuit against google was that it violated the news sites' copyrights by showing the news articles' title and first sentence when directing web users to the news sites' articles. The news sites, as plaintiffs, alleged that they desired (and currently desire) absolutely NO web traffic from google.

This makes no sense at all, as the more traffic they get from google, the more money they make. The article above makes the allegation that the only explanation for this lawsuit is that the european equivalent of google (as though it could possibly be anywhere as ubiquitous as google) is attempting to fill a void that can be created by a legally decreed absence of google in europe. Apparently, that may now be a possibility, as the news agencies succeeded in winning the lawsuit forcing google to cease listing their websites' articles in google's search results.

My personal favorite quote from the above article is this:

But since most news organizations actually request (or beg) that Google include them in the news-search function, [a string of similar lawsuits against Google] seems unlikely to happen -- and odd that this lawsuit took place in the first place. . . . If I was a shareholder in any of these publications, I would be asking the executives exactly why they want fewer readers and no links from Google. Is it some new business model?

These news sites are not secret sites espousing radical, terrorist plots or distributing illegal copies of software. These sites are in the business of selling news. Why don't they want people to find their product? This is extremely unusal.

February 14, 2007 :: Holly's and My first Valentine's Day Together

Holly bought me a model:


I and sketched it:

February 10, 2007 :: The Perception of Reality in Our World

Here's a good one: the comedy channel, trying to market one of their cartoons, placed "live" versions of their cartoon characters around boston -- large, led lit characters hanging from bridges, poles, signs, etc. Citizens thought they were bombs. Holy moly! They claimed that the lit faces looked "angry"



The ensuing panic from some citizens claiming that they must be bombs drew the police to an immediate, emergency response and blew up at least one of them to see if they were, in fact, terrorist bombs. Turns out to have only snared traffic for a few hours.

Attack of the Mooninites!

Crazy world we live in, huh? Even crazier is that the guy who thought this up or approved it or something quit over this. Reminds me of the assistant/deputy director of some federal department (or was it a top city official somewhere?) who was asked to resign over his correct usage of the word "niggardly" when referring to their apportioning of funds in the budget. Ah-ha! It was an aide for mayor of D.C. (Mayer was Anothony Williams and aide/speaker was David Howard). Turns out, a black member of the mayor's staff, incorrectly thinking that the word "niggardly" was a racial slur, lodged a formal complaint causing howard to resign.

Wikipedia: David Howard incident

niggardly - adj.
1 : grudgingly mean about spending or granting
2 : provided in meanly limited supply

January 24, 2007 :: Snow, Cold Weather, and Grades

Bella going for a walk in the snow covered roads of D.C.

It finally winter here in D.C. and the snow is still on the ground from Sunday night's 1-2 inches of snow. It was very pretty out.

I've gotten all but one of my grades from law school, and when complete, I'll post a summary (maybe). If you know me, you probably already know that I've done pretty well.

One change this semester: I've had two of my casebooks bound by section to allow me to carry less tonnage in my pack. My criminal procedure book was 1600 pages and now is in 300-600 page sections which are, clearly, around one third of the weight of the book as a whole. Turns out that the binding alone is 6 ounces or so. My torts casebook before binding was 5 pounds 2 ounces. Now, each section is a little over one pound, or two pounds max for the largest section. So, for a day that I have either of those classes, or any day I'm reading those subjects, I have at least three to four pounds less to carry. Imaging carrying your books for a semester then finding that not only can you put down the equivalent weight of one half-gallon of milk, but also reading gets easier with a spiral binding that can be folded back on itself, suitable for "easy-chair" reading instead of "table-only" reading. Nice. :)

Christmas lunch desert