Little Billy Gates Benefited From Not Having a PC

I can't help commenting on this, particularly the title, from the LA Times:

Little Billy Gates Benefited From Not Having a PC: "We're raising a generation of computer and computer game addicts who are doomed to fail in school, not because the system is obsolete but simply because it's a lot more fun, and a lot easier, to hang out on the computer than it is to read 'A Tale of Two Cities.'

If Gates had been brought up in this kind of environment, what are the chances he'd have had the focus and creativity to build a company like Microsoft?"

My memory is that while Gates didn't have a PC, he did have access to his school' s minicomputer. There's a bit of truth in the article, Gates benefited by being on the borders when a new ecological niche was opened in the economy (like the land rush when Oklahoma was opened to settlement, or the oil rush when John D. Rockefeller set up his trust). To the extent that PC's and the Net are a more mature technology, there will be fewer opportunities in that field. But obsessive people will find ways to build things and access to the world's knowledge has got to help, not hurt, in finding what to build.

The New York Review of Books: The Flawed Report on Dan Rather

Not having studied the report, I shouldn't comment on this review from The New York Review of Books: The Flawed Report on Dan Rather:

"The report concluded that CBS failed to hire appropriate experts to clearly verify its statements and did not establish a 'chain of custody' for the documents. CBS, according to the report, rushed to judgment on the basis of inadequate evidence, did not promptly acknowledge flaws in its program, and broadcast a false and misleading report.

CBS did rush to make inadequately verified allegations public and it was slow in responding to criticism. The report's conclusions on the other points are not, however, persuasive. Surprisingly, the panel was unable to conclude whether the documents are forgeries or not. If the documents are not forgeries, what is the reason for the report?"

What bothers me is that there's no recognition that the documents are obvious fakes. The report may not be able to prove it, given the origin of the documents is fuzzy, but the overwhelming weight of evidence cries "fake".

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R.I.P. "Information Superhighway"

According to the NY Times, In Land of Lexicons, Having the Last Word, the information superhighway is no more:

"The downside of the new ease with which citations can be found, Ms. McKean said, is that words sometimes enter the dictionary too quickly. 'We occasionally take words out,' she said. 'We thought they were working, and they just ended up not.' She cited the term 'information superhighway,' which was removed from the new edition of the O.A.D.[Oxford American Dictionary], explaining, 'People aren't using it as much, and if they are, they're using it in a jokey way.'"

Issue: why do metaphors fade; why did "information superhighway" die? IMO the term has too many syllables, "net" and "web" are shorter terms. Ease of use is always vital. It was also used in the context of a vast construction project. That may have been true back in 1999, when every roadside in Reston was being cabled with fiber, but no longer. Finally "superhighway" is also, at least to an aging driver who never enjoyed the interstates, a slightly intimidating term, while that's not my experience of the web.

The web is no longer strange and frightening. We don't worry these days so much about people developing anti-social tendencies on the web; we see too many blogs trying for the biggest audience possible.

In Defense of Grandstanding--Schiavo

Congress is busily engaged in inserting itself into the Karen Schiavo case. Is this political grandstanding? Of course, but that's what politicians do. Pointing with pride and viewing with alarm, taking forthright stands on the side of the angels and courageously attacking the evils of the world.

I believe Oscar Wilde said something like: "hypocrisy is the lip service that vice pays to virtue". IMHO there's something like that going on here. Our leaders strut and pose and thereby reassert our shared values. ("Our shared" is loosely used: the values of the vast majority, the knee-jerk reactions of those who are not leisured retired bureaucrats or those who get paid to think and opine.) But as a good liberal I hasten to find the exculpatory facts for those I might otherwise criticize. It is, after all, to those in the grandstand to whom our leaders are appealing. And "grand" stand implies a vast audience, although those who have watched basketball and mourned for the days of purity might be brought to admit that playground athletes grandstand for each other. It's the old Darwinian sexual selection, each putative leader posing as the bigger defender of morality, as having the bigger ....

If one can't gain consolation by the image of members of Congress comparing their members, I can think that every day spent on political grandstanding represents one less day available for these clowns to work on issues like liberty and equity, fairness and justice.

Sol Linowitz

I prefer the Post obit of Sol Linowitz to the NYTimes. I never knew the man, but his death triggers these thoughts:

1 Egotistically, in 1964, with its endowment bulging from Kodak and Xerox stock, the University of Rochester was aspiring to become great. Unfortunately, their greatest grad student (me) busted out, an omen of what was to happen with Kodak and Xerox.

2. Clark Clifford in his memoir talked about one paper, absolutely vital in post war policy making, (may have been the Truman Doctrine speech) being walked around because there was only one copy. The Xerox machine and then client-server e-mail, like the IBM Profs that Ollie North ran afoul of, had a great impact on the operation of bureaucracy, both good and bad. (In Taubman's biography of Khrushchev, he observes that the USSR was run by a literal handful of man. I'd add, if he did not, run with carbon paper and no Xerox machines. The Xerox also must change the role of archivists and then historians (not that I'd know)--in the old days you could rely on an official record carbon copy, after Xerox such reliance is dubious.

3. What, if anything, should be the penalty for being wrong on great historical issues? I think it's clear that Carter and Linowitz were right on the Canal, Reagan and the right wing were wrong. (During the Clinton administration the wing nuts were still raising the spector of Hutchison Whampoa operating the Canal. Of course, then they were accusing Clinton of treason for allowing computer exports to China; I haven't seen anything in the Washington Times criticizing the approval of sales of IBM PC operation to China.) The problem is that inevitably one ignores the beam in one's own eye in glee over the mistakes of others.

4. The anecdote about Elihu Root shows the openness of the power elite. Root was a player in TR's time, his protege was Henry Stimson who was a player into FDR's cabinet, his legacy passed on to the Bundy's, McGeorge and William in the Best and Brightest.

Cuts in Farm Programs--Budget Resolution

Here is the order to the Senate Agriculture committee to cut spending (from the Budget reconciliation Joint Resolution). Note it's not specific how and Sen. Chambliss has been quoted as saying he'll spread the cuts across programs. That might tie back to something that Kevin Drum in Washington Monthly cited a while back--since food stamps are under the committee, they might be cut.

: "(1) COMMITTEE ON AGRICULTURE, NUTRITION, AND FORESTRY- The Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry shall report changes in laws within its jurisdiction sufficient to reduce outlays by $171,000,000 in fiscal year 2006, and $2,814,000,000 for the period of fiscal years 2006 through 2010."

Should Government Do Propaganda/Education? (revised)

When David Bernstein, libertarian, on the Volokh Conspiracy and Richard Cohen, liberal, on the Washington Post agree, thoughtful people have to pay attention:

Bernstein opines :

"equally troubling in a somewhat different way are p.r. campaigns by government agencies that seek to build support for those agencies' 'missions.' Subsidizing, say, a pro-drug war point of view through a government p.r. campaign (hardly a partisan issue, as the overwhelming majority of both Republican and Democratic politicians favor it) is the economic equivalent of taxing the anti-drug war point of view. Americans wouldn't tolerate the latter, and we shouldn't tolerate the government using our tax money to encourage us to give it even more of our money (and freedom), meanwhile drowning out other voices with a tidal wave of statist shilling. I'm not even fond of the idea of the government using its money to, say, discourage drug use, as this is still an untoward interference in the marketplace of ideas, subject to all sorts of abuse (such as the 'food pyramid' dictated for years by agricultural interest groups). But it strikes me that that sort of government noodging is a less dangerous animal than the government using money allocated to implement programs to propagandize in favor of those programs."

Cohen says:

"Take, for instance, the government's smarmy practice of preparing video news releases and packaging them as actual television news. The New York Times recently detailed how government agencies prepare admiring reports on what they are doing and then send them off to local TV stations, which use them, sometimes pretending the reports are their own. Only a fool would expect the TV industry -- especially local TV news -- to grow up and embrace professional standards, but the government is a different story. It's ours. We fund it. It should not be using our money to propagandize us. "

My comments:

• If the purpose of government is to solve problems (per Pres. Bush), sometimes the solution is government education. USDA was formed to help farmers farm better, a mission which evolved into the Cooperative Extension Service. During the Dust Bowl days, the old Soil Conservation Service (now Natural Resources Conservation Service) was created to educate farmers in conservation. Closer to home, VDOT (Virginia Department of Transportation) is running ads urging sanity in driving.
  
• Many programs can be implemented only if the public is educated--for example if Bush's personal accounts ever get enacted, there will be a vast education effort.
  
• Can one draw the line between "propaganda" which is wrong and "education", between building support for the mission and fulfilling the mission? Bernstein's comments on anti-drug ads and the nutrition pyramid show it's more difficult than one might imagine. One man's propaganda is another's education.
  
• Advertising like the US Army's "Be all that you can be" has the effect of promoting the Army, while disregarding the feelings of the pacifists among us (not that many people care about the Amish and the Quakers). Not to mention that it grates on the nerves of at least one former draftee.
  
• We, the American people, don't know what we want. When Rep. Waxman asked GAO to look at the conflicting laws, it said that the Office of National Drug Control Policy didn't violate the law by preparing video news releases, it violated the law because the identification of the source was only on the case, not within the body of the release. OMB and the Justice Department seem to say ONDCP was okay.
  

Lost in much of the controversy is the press release. Press releases, both corporate and government, have always been written so a lazy reporter/editor could set the content in type and go. (I've a vague memory of some memoir or novel about the Army where the protagonist spent his time filling out blank releases saying "Pvt. Joe Blow, of Podunk, successfully completed basic training at the U.S.Army's Fort Dix. He is now a trained killer...." Anyone remember it?) There's little difference between a printed release and a video release. GAO says a statement at the end of the release is sufficient to make it legal, but that's very easily edited out.

I agree with GAO that the identification should be in the video, but this is a tempest in a teapod. The real fault lies with the news media. The government may have entrapped them into bad journalism, but I've no pity.

Geospatial (GIS)

GIS is important, but gets no ink. It's one place where our federalist governmental structure and generally weak government do us no favors. Many governments at all levels, as well as many private enterprises, are doing GIS. The result is much duplication of effort, anathema to a lazy bureaucrat, and waste of taxpayer money, anathema to a skinflint conservative. It wouldn't be so bad if GIS were a once and done effort. The worst part of the problem is that geographical data change. Whether its changes in administrative boundaries, changes in land (rivers change courses, earthquakes change elevations and locations), changes in ownership, even changes in biology. If each change has got to be updated to multiple GIS's, some won't get changed, so their data won't be as accurate as it's supposed to be, and others will get changed inconsistently.

Stay tuned for more harangues.

See this GAO report on the problems in the Bush administrations. See here for the government portal.

Should Media Accept Government Propaganda

The New York Times Editorial page puts blame on the stations who used the government video news releases without identifying them as from the government:

"If using pretend news is one of the ways these stations have chosen to save money, it's a false economy. If it represents a political decision to support President Bush, it will eventually backfire. This kind of practice cheapens the real commodity that television stations have to sell during their news hours: their credibility."

See the related post on the controversy.

The Legislative Cycle--Payment Limitation-S 385

I screwed up. I'd been looking on Thomas for action on Bush's payment limitation proposals. Somehow I missed. Senate 385, which Senator Grassley introduced on Feb. 15.

Bill Summary & Status: "A bill to amend the Food Security Act of 1985 to restore integrity to and strengthen payment limitation rules for commodity payments and benefits. "

I haven't digested it yet. Nor have I checked the House side.