Tech Policy

Al Jazeera has the best coverage...

It is perhaps befitting that the best news coverage of the crisis in Egypt (or for that matter Tunisia or Algeria) comes from another new agency in the region -- Al Jazeera is covering these events in a manner shows it's undisputed leadership in reporting important political events of our times, far ahead of any news source I have seen.

Ben Bernanke Blows my mind....

Ben Bernanke just blew my mind by saying that the success of QE2 can be measured by the 20% increase in the S&P since Fed announced its intention to launch the program! I'm sure that when QE2 ends in the summer, and the stock market is even more overvalued than it is now, Bernanke will launch QE3 to take the S&P towards its 2007 high! This will end badly.

Google your DNA for $999. 23andMe

23andMe will decode your DNA for $999. Spit in a cup, send it in, and a month later they send you a genetic profile in the mail. You'll learn, is your daddy really your daddy. Are you susptible to any terrible genetic diseases, do you have what it takes to be an Olympic sprinter or, even better...

Are you more closely related to European royalty or American outlawry? Use 23andMe's Ancestry tools to find out whether your maternal lineage links you more closely to Marie Antoinette or Jesse James. Your 23andMe account also connects you genetically to many other celebrities and historical figures, from Bono to Ben Franklin. Read more about 23andMe's celebrity features.

Mike Arrington brings up some good policy points.

..What if this information becomes public? What if I can’t get health care because of the results? Call me a luddite, but this is a whole new class of private information that previous generations didn’t have to deal with. Our laws are waaaaay behind the curve here when it comes to protecting us. ...

23andMe has strong security features in place to keep my information fairly secure. But there’s a big hole in the plan - what if I simply send in someone else’s spit? What if it’s someone I’m thinking about marrying? What if someone does that to me? There’s no way to stop people from spending $1,000 and getting a full genetic download of ME, in all my flawed glory.

Andrew Myer's is raising money to test his DNA with 23andme. And, he's going to be blogging the whole experience. 

This service is being run by  Anne Wojcicki, Google co-founder's Sergey Brin's wife. 

Update from Adam Smith

Adam is back!

Shocking police brutality at UCLA

On Wednesday 15th, University of California Police Department officers brutally assulted a student with a taser when the student failed to produce an ID. The name of the student is reported to be Mostafa Tabatabainejad. Daily Bruin report.

 

Cory Doctorow at Boing Boing is reporting that the Chancellor of the university is in effect supporting the police brutality.

More blog discussion of this on LA Observed, Martini Republic, and Sepia Mutiny.

Could this happen on your college campus?

NUTJOB

If you have a better word to describe Sen. Inhofe (R-OK), then please let me know. (via Think Progress)

Inhofe insists that he feels even stronger about taking on what he sees as the current hysteria about global warming than he did several years ago when he first uttered that now-famous hoax statement. In an interview, he heaped criticism on what he saw as the strategy used by those on the other side of the debate and offered a historical comparison.

  "It kind of reminds . . . I could use the Third Reich, the big lie," Inhofe said. "You say something over and over and over and over again, and people will believe it, and that's their strategy."

...While declining to watch either the Gore movie or the Brokaw documentary, the senator said he armed himself with the statements used in both.

"I know the text, and I know they are using old stuff that has been totally discredited," Inhofe said. "Everything on which they based their story, in terms of the facts, has been refuted scientifically."

... He dismisses even the suggestions that Americans could help by giving up big cars or using more energy-efficient light bulbs. "It is not going to make any difference," the senator said. "But if it makes them feel good, they can do it."

I am sorry for offending the people of Oklahoma. I do not disrepect them, but one has to ask: Why do you keep electing this man?

What really ails General Motors?

Last month Rick Wagoner, Chairman and CEO of General Motors (GM), wrote an opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal titled A Portrait of My Industry. I wondered if the title itself said something about the way GM runs it's business. What is good for GM isn't good enough for America these days. Wagoner said:

So what are the fundamental challenges facing American manufacturing? One is the spiraling cost of health care in the United States. Last year, GM spent $5.2 billion on health care for its U.S. employees, retirees and dependents--a staggering $1,525 for every car and truck we produced. And the figure is going up again this year. Foreign auto makers have just a fraction of these costs, because they have few, if any, U.S. retirees, and in their home countries their governments fund a much greater portion of employee and retiree health-care costs.

Some argue that we have no one but ourselves to blame for our disproportionately high health-care "legacy costs." That kind of observation reminds me of the saying that no good deed goes unpunished. That argument, while appealing to some, ignores the fact that American auto makers and other traditional manufacturing companies created a social contract with government and labor that raised America's standard of living and provided much of the economic growth of the 20th century. American manufacturers were once held up as good corporate citizens for providing these benefits. Today, we are maligned for our poor judgment in "giving away" such benefits 40 years ago.

(emphasis mine)

At the 2006 Automotive News World Congress, Steve Miller, CEO of the bankrupt Delphi, added to this line:

We tend to blame globalization for all our problems. I think there is a deeper issue. What is at stake here is the basic social contract in our traditional industries: steel, airlines, and autos.

 What these three industries had in common was a longstanding social contract, funded by employers, and worked out over the past half century. The unions in these industries were able to win major economic gains for their members, while their employers passed along the costs to customers. Elaborate defined benefit retirement programs were included in the mix. Back in the days when you worked for one employer till age 65 and then died at age 70, and when health care was unsophisticated and inexpensive, the social contract inherent in these programs seemed affordable.

Today, defined benefit retirement programs are undergoing major revision and replacement as industrial compensation policy. First off, the lack of portability of defined benefits forces people to stay with one employer, even though we have a much more mobile and flexible population these days. Second, the notion of having all your retirement eggs in one basket – your employer – is a concentration of risk that is proving to be inadvisable for many people in today’s fast moving economy. Finally, these programs have a way of toppling traditional large employers, and disrupting employees and retirees with limited flexibility to cope. You have to ask whether companies should be making open-ended promises to its workers for fifty years down the road.

(emphasis mine)
I wonder if I am the only one who thinks that what Wagoner and Miller are arguing for is universal health care in the US.

Dangerous press releases from MIT?

Perhaps the person who wrote the press release is to blame. I mean I like the optimism, but these kids have no idea what they are talking about. Gasoline powered vehicles will be with us for a long time to come, and will still be the MAIN transportation technology in 2015.

"Teens' belief that science and technology may hold the answers to our biggest societal challenges is encouraging," (Lemelson-MIT Program Director) Flemings added.

The Lemelson program believes in great inventions and innovations. I think that these are absolutely needed in critical areas, but please don't give me the old "technology will solve all our problems and absolve us from all our sins" line. Frankly, I am tired of listening to that. Technology changes are much needed but will not solve all out problems. If we are not ready to change our behavior and reign in our consumption, no amount of technological progress can help us. Sorry to disappoint, but it's time to stop drinking the "technology" kool-aid for all our problems.

Rove Implicated

America's Finest News Source has published a story that corfirms what we knew all along at TechPolicy. This is serious stuff, and I am deeply concerned by this top level involvement in a matter of grave concern for our society.

It begins with a knock at the door

Thanks Saheli for pointing out to the Photo essay at Time. The photos at Time have been taken from a bigger story Rocky Mountain News has been following for the past year. It's presentation titled Final Salute. There is a audio show that narrates the story behind the pictures, but watch the pictures separately as well. The backdrop is 2nd Lt. Jim Cathey's casket being unloaded from an airplane with passengers of the plane watching.

We need more such stories.

The essential thing is that people should carefully weight the price they must pay....

    ---Albert Camus in Neither Victims Nor Executioners