Dec/090
CA’s Legislature Again Plays Politics Instead Of Doing Its Job
Though not as important to Californians as things like, ya know, passing a budget, it seems that my boss at the CPUC, Commissioner Rachelle Chong, is getting the political run-around and may lose her job. Appointed to the FCC as a commissioner under President Clinton, and then to the CPUC by Governor Schwarzenegger, her job is in jeopardy not because of her record or performance, which has been consistent, rational and balanced, but because she's a Republican.
But it's whose bid the committee won't hear today that's set off a bit of a controversy.Aides for Senate President pro tem Darrell Steinberg said last week that the committee would not hold a hearing for PUC Commissioner Rachelle Chong. Without the green light from lawmakers, the Schwarzenegger appointee's time on the panel will come to an end later this month.
Chong, who was first confirmed to the post in 2007, has been criticized by consumer groups who say she votes at the bidding of the telecommunications industry.
Chong's supporters cried foul, saying the Senate should at least give her the consideration of a hearing. They also pointed to her voting record, which is identical to Peevey's.
Those complaints have continued, with groups representing the business and Asian-American communities sending letters in support of Chong.
This morning, representatives from several of those organizations are meeting with Steinberg's office to make their case. UPDATE 7:40 : The meeting with Steinberg's office was cancelled by the advocates, Steinberg's office said.
"They're really withholding fair due process of a very highly qualified person," said Filipino Progress board member Norm De Young, who was scheduled to attend the meeting. "Our expectation is that if we present a fair, unbiased representation of the [appointee], that [Steinberg] will do his best to be fair and earnest on her behalf. Our expectation is one of fairness."
I only worked for the Commissioner for a few months, but I can still say this about her: to her core, Commissioner Chong is an earnest, incredibly sharp, hard-working public servant.
She has a stellar record on items she's spearheaded before the Commission, and always has the best interests of the state at heart. I certainly didn't agree with all of her assumptions or opinions, but she is utterly consistent and works from a thoughtful, considered, informed base. An intense free market advocate, she's also passionate about helping minority groups, immigrants, the poor, and those in rural areas. Though she never needed to do so, I saw the Commissioner give up some time at home with her beloved twins in order to personally visit non-profits for the elderly and immigrant groups to make sure they were prepared for the Digital Television transition. Her pet project? Minimizing the digital divide by ensuring that universal high-speed Internet access is available to all. Though it's a little-known fact, only around 10% of the CPUC's work focuses on telecom regulation. Therefore, her other big interests are just as important as her telecom-related priorities: upgrading California's energy grid to increase it's efficiency as a smart grid, and expanding the state's use of renewable energy.
Sure, anti-corporate groups are never going to like her. That's fine. That's their job, and Commissioner Chong, as someone with a free market worldview is an easy and natural target. But her worldview shouldn't be any cause for holding up her confirmation hearing. Her record is spotless and her tireless leadership speaks for itself.
Get to it, Sacramento. Reconfirm Commissioner Rachelle Chong.
Dec/090
Surgery Or Metalwork?
My little brother had major surgery to repair his ankle a few weeks ago.
His bones never really grew properly in this area, so at age eight he underwent his first corrective operation. This latest was the ninth procedure on this foot.
This go round, his surgeon removed most of the assorted metal implanted in my brother's ankle (pins, staples, screws, broken screw bits, etc.). The surgeon then broke the foot and ankle in three places, inserted pins to hold everything together, stapled together the incisions, and sealed the whole thing in place with a cast.
Hopefully this will be the last surgery the kid will ever need on his ankle.
I've since taken him to get the visible metal removed, and he's asked me to document the process. He has all of the photos and while he hasn't shared many yet I've included a pic of hispre-staple-removal foot below the jump. (Not for the faint of heart). If he sends me more pics, I'll also add them here -- I know I took a great shot of his doctors yanking out the pins with a pair of pliers. Good times.
He's now staple and pin-free and has upgraded to a walking cast. A few more weeks and he'll even be off of crutches entirely. Happy holidays, indeed.
Dec/090
Ron Burgundy Goes To Iraq
A guy I grew up with is an Army MP stationed in Iraq. Here's what he posted as his Facebook status yesterday:
Walked into an Iraqi Police Headquarters this evening where they were all sitting there watching Anchorman. Strange.
Doesn't get much more surreal than that. It's the little things.
What really bakes my noodle now, though, is the trail of breadcrumbs and the use of modern communication which led up to this whole snapshot.
- A dispute over poorly-aligned, antiquated punch-card paper ballots in Florida created controversy over whether George W. Bush was our properly elected President in 2000.
- A bunch of Saudi fundamentalists, trained in remote, mountainous, largely illiterate areas of Afghanistan and Pakistan and armed with simple box cutters, stole jumbo jets -- small, fuel-filled flying towns -- and crashed them into mountain-sized buildings in Manhattan.
- The Towers collapsed, killing thousands of people whose days had been spent working on computers, communicating instantly with colleagues around the world and using the very latest technology to run America's financial sector.
- The summary justification for U.S. involvement in Iraq is based on questionable satellite images and photos from surveillance planes presented to the world by Colin Powell, in classic tv anchor style, as proof that Iraq's tyrant was building nukes and/or biological and chemical weapons.
- We went to war in Iraq, quickly freeing the Iraqi people from a tyrant's grip. Saddam, overthrown and on the run, is captured and later executed. That execution is illicitly recorded on a cell phone and posted on YouTube for the world to see.
- Using jury-rigged, hand made, improvised explosives, insurgents from around the world gather in Iraq to fight off the Americans and our Western allies.
- My friend, who I haven't seen since high school, joins the Army and finds his way to Iraq.
- There, he works with Iraqi citizens who themselves are working to create order and stability. He stops by their office, a police headquarters, and finds them watching Will Ferrell in Anchorman, a movie lampooning San Diego, America in the 1970s, the absurdity of America's recent misogynistic past, and local U.S. tv news generally and on-air personalities in particular. The Iraqi police certainly have no context for any of the subtle humor, though Ferrell in that 'stache and those classic seventies' outfits goes a long, long way.
- An Army MP goes back to his barrack, fires up his computer and logs on to Facebook, updating his status.
- As Facebook is what reconnected us, I'm able to glimpse his surreal day from the opposite side of the globe, mixed-in with updates about one friend's Christmas cookies and another friend's love of cheese melted on burgers.
The mind. It boggles.
Dec/090
Let Reason Guide Financial Reform
A centrist Democrat after extensive poll research and discussion with lobbyists.
Paul Krugman vents via today's op-ed in The New York Times:
When I first began writing for The Times, I was naïve about many things. But my biggest misconception was this: I actually believed that influential people could be moved by evidence, that they would change their views if events completely refuted their beliefs.
And to be fair, it does happen now and then. I’ve been highly critical of Alan Greenspan over the years (since long before it was fashionable), but give the former Fed chairman credit: he has admitted that he was wrong about the ability of financial markets to police themselves.
But he’s a rare case. Just how rare was demonstrated by what happened last Friday in the House of Representatives, when — with the meltdown caused by a runaway financial system still fresh in our minds, and the mass unemployment that meltdown caused still very much in evidence — every single Republican and 27 Democrats voted against a quite modest effort to rein in Wall Street excesses.
Krugman then goes on to tell a short, rational, fact-based story of U.S. financial history and the events leading up to last year's market crash. Well worth the full read.
Bottom line? In all arenas -- health care and financial reform, national security, education, whatever -- Republican's continue to spout their trademark brand of crazy rhetoric. It's the so-called centrist Democrats that I can't stand. The Republicans will say anything to tear down the Dems and get their party back into power. Simple power play. I get it. They believe in themselves and, collectively, in their party. The centrist Dems, on the other hand, claim to stand by values in line with the Democrats yet believe in nothing but getting themselves reelected, by any means necessary. At best they're mercenaries, at worst nihilists. And while that must be exhausting for them, they're ruining the future for the rest of us.
Dec/090
Behavioral Advertising Today, Privacy Issues Tomorrow?
"It appears incredibly benign," he said of the categorization that Google and Yahoo were doing. "It almost makes some people who worry about privacy look foolish, because it says, 'You like bicycles.'"
"What is not shown in this kind of thing, and possibly because Google doesn’t do this sort of thing — maybe because they don’t implement it yet — are the various kinds of psychographic, demographic activities that go on behind the screens."
Also interesting is the fact that both Yahoo and Google allow you to opt-out of categories that you've been sorted into via their ad algorithms (Not Slytherin. Not Slytherin. Not Slytherin).
I'd been to Google's new Dashboard before, but hadn't realized that, well, there's where you need to go to opt-out, if that's what you wish to do. To opt-out of Yahoo's categories, visit their Interest Manager (nice Orwellian ad-speak, no?).
via At F.T.C. Conference, Concerns About Advertising and Privacy - Media Decoder Blog - NYTimes.com (via Prof. Tuthill).
Dec/090
Public Transport: Melbourne Versus Sydney
My great friend Brett absolutely kills it in an op-ed on Sydney's lagging transportation system in today's Sydney Morning Herald. George Carlin and David Simon would both be proud.
Even Sydney's overwhelming successes, roads like the Eastern Distributor and M2 that remove thousands of cars from local streets, were met with fierce opposition when proposed.
It's our city's favourite sport - trying to stop progress.
The sad reality is that successive governments have been able to get away with failing to act because noisy action groups have put themselves before the common good. Too often the government has paid heed to them instead of the broader community interest.
Only in NSW are transport plans announced in the morning papers and killed by 9am the same day. Taken out by a combination of feckless ministers, furious talkback radio hosts, and everyone playing the great Sydney pastime of, "not in my backyard".
The looming transport blueprint will, hopefully, provide Sydneysiders the chance to grow up. They should look at what the plan contains and discuss it in a calm rational way rather than the default position of outrage that too often masquerades as policy debate in this city.
Building infrastructure to benefit the whole city will entail individual losers. It's a fact of life we need to accept. For too long on too many projects we've let the noisy minority stop progress for the silent majority. Until we have a government and a community prepared to deal with the difficult choices - and compromises - involved in all major infrastructure projects, it will be easier for governments of all persuasions to do nothing.
Unfortunately, while I'm waiting for the plan to be released, I feel like the starter of a car race: Sydneysiders start your whingeing.
via Stuck at a bus stop with nothing but NIMBYs in sight | Brett Gale.
Oct/090
Arnold Talks Some Smack
Schwarzenegger and DeVito. Such an unlikely pair that pretending they were Twins was the central joke for a whole movie. But both have mad comedy skills that have only grown over the years. DeVito shows off his genius every week in It's Only Sunny In Philadelphia. Arnold, despite being at constant political war with his legislature, also finds ways to have a little fun.
Earlier this year, he gave a metal sculpture of bull testicles to California’s Senate leader, but now, it seems as if he’s carrying his often-crass sense of humor over to his veto messages.Before we get into the latest mischief, some background: Earlier this month, the Republican governor crashed a San Francisco Democratic Party fund-raiser, where he was booed by Democrats still upset at the spending cuts he pushed this year. One attendee, Assemblyman Tom Ammiano, yelled “You lie!” at him, according to the San Francisco Chronicle. Then, Ammiano, a former standup comedian who is famous in San Francisco for his championing of liberal causes and gay rights, walked out on the speech, shouting a vulgarity.
Schwarzenegger has said he was unfazed by the incident.
Four days later, Assembly Bill 1176, which just happened to be sponsored by Ammiano, reached his desk. The bill would have expanded the financing powers of the Port of San Francisco. The state legislature didn’t have a problem with it; it cleared the Senate 40-0 and the Assembly 78-0.
Nonetheless, the former tough-talking “Terminator” star vetoed the bill, sending along a message [highlighted above].
Hilarious. Ammiano is generally well-intentioned, but Arnold won this round.
[Also see the SF Bay Guardian's coverage; image via wwtdd.]
Sep/090
$1 Million Per Year To Kill The Public Option
Yesterday, five Democratic United States Senators Max Baucus (D-Mont), Kent Conrad (D-ND), Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark), Bill Nelson (D-Fla) and Tom Carper (D-Del) voted against the a proposal to put a government administered public option in the health reform bill that will come out of the Senate Finance Committee.
Americans support the notion of a government administered health insurance plan by a margin of 65% to 26%. According to the same poll, people who identify themselves as Democrats favor the public option by a margin of 81% to 12%. That’s nearly 7 to 1 in favor of, yet the representatives of the Democrat party in the Senate Finance Committee only voted for the public option at a ratio of 8 to 5. Perhaps the most interesting number revealed by this poll is that Republican voters favor the public option 47% to 42%.
So why can’t the people’s representatives in Washington get behind the public option? Specifically, why can’t these five Democrats get behind it when 81% of people in their party want the option?
Look at the amount of money the health industry has pumped into these five Democrat’s coffers:
- Max Baucus got $7,734,102,
- Blanche Lincoln received $4,190,592,
- Ken Conrad took in $3,287,891,
- Bill Nelson was given $2,414,895
- Tom Carper accepted $1,592,380 from health industry interests.
If money is the reason these five Democrats rejected the public option, then it only took a little over 19 million dollars over 20 years to buy the five votes the health insurance industry needed to kill any meaningful reform to their industry.