Bloomberg’s 16 ounce enforcement shows ignorance about measurements
By: Neil Stevens (Diary) | March 11th at 11:00 AM |
New York City’s ban on select beverages larger than 16 ounces struck many of us as a progressive nanny state running its due course. It was a senseless blow to liberty, expanding government in a pointless way, that also happened to affect less-wealthy New Yorkers disproportionately.
But as the city now turns toward enforcement of the ban, new developments in city government point to a disturbing revelation: New York City’s health department knows nothing about science, about testing, or about how to use calibrated instrumentation to make accurate measurements in restaurants.
In expanding the nanny state, Mike Bloomberg reveals New Yorkers probably aren’t very safe under its growing umbrella.
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Tech at Night: As usual, Republicans are right and Democrats have an alternate agenda in the Senate
By: Neil Stevens (Diary) | March 9th at 02:30 AM |
A lot of conservatives seem to be getting behind a Hatch-Rubio bill to increase immigration for skilled individuals. No wonder Harry Reid wants to block it for partisan reasons. Have to put politics over anything else. Can’t let Republicans do a good thing.
Though I think the Senate priorities are pretty messed up. Jay Rockefeller is talking about workforce standards in the context of cybersecurity legislation. Talk about using any excuse to grow government. At least guys like John Thune recognize the need for the government and private business to work together against foreign Internet threats.
I mean, we can’t rely solely on NSA doing its best to do the right thing on its own.
Read More »Tags:
AT&T,
Barack Obama,
Cybersecurity,
Harry Reid,
Immigration,
Jay Rockefeller,
Jim Thune,
Marco Rubio,
MetroPCS,
Net Neutrality,
NSA,
Orrin Hatch,
T-Mobile,
Tech at Night,
Unlocking
Tech at Night: Sacco, Vanzetti, and Aaron Swartz were all guilty. It’s time to break up the Bitcoin ring.
By: Neil Stevens (Diary) | March 6th at 11:30 PM |
So even as Eric Holder is pushing back against the Weekend at Bernies-ification of Aaron Swartz, the man who committed premeditated crimes (as the puppet on the strings of the callous Larry Lessig, perhaps?), was caught, and was getting prosecuted for his high-profile sabotage of one of America’s leading academic institutions. It’s rare that you’ll see writers at RedState agree with that guy, but Moe is pushing back against the excesses of the Swartz defenders as well, and I pretty much agree with Moe.
Guys, if you want to push an anarchic anti-copyright agenda, do so on its own merits, as Joe Karaganis does. Don’t use the corpse of a suicide to do so.
There is room for IP reform in America, with excesses like the Sonny Bono act in the picture, and odd situations where Frito Lay can use patent and trade dress, two distinct concepts, to attack the same competitor. But the Swartz fan club is as auto-discrediting as the Sacco and Vanzetti crowd ended up being.
Read More »Tags:
aaron swartz,
Anarchy,
Barack Obama,
Bitcoin,
copyright,
Cybersecurity,
Eric Holder,
Google,
larry lessig,
Patent,
Pirate Bay,
Tech at Night,
Tor,
Trade Dress
Tech at Night: Cybersecurity Executive Order needs buy in?
By: Neil Stevens (Diary) | March 5th at 12:30 AM |
An interesting development in the President’s Cybersecurity order: his people are going hat in hand looking for industry buy-in. Perhaps they fear actual legislation?
Of course, when it comes to industry and the administration, their relationships can’t always be as cozy as Google’s with the President’s men, including the FTC Chairman. Google really is the caricature of Halliburton that existed in the minds of the radicals.
Microsoft is beginning to realize their ad campaign is failing because nobody cares about privacy, it appears.
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Tech at Night: Bradley Manning confesses. Kim Dotcom whines like a stuck pig. Don’t let Pandora be a regulatory Solyndra.
By: Neil Stevens (Diary) | March 2nd at 12:00 AM |
Is it still a likely coincidence when all these stories at once come out pushing this topic of spending money to give schoolkids access to the dangerous, adult Internet? Or is somebody funding this drive?
Manning confessies to being a spy and a traitor. I wish we could just force choke him.
Bad news: New Zealand is arming manatees. Seriously though, if Kim Dotcom wants to fight his prosecution, he should turn himself in, instead of continuing his crimes in New Zealand.
Read More »Tags:
Barack Obama,
Bob Goodlatte,
bradley manning,
China,
CISPA,
Cybersecurity,
Darrell Issa,
Google,
IRFA,
Kim Dotcom,
New Zealand,
Pandora,
Ron Johnson,
Tech at Night
Tech at Night: Light regulation brings fierce telecom innovation. Make Pandora pay their own way. Reform all IP.
By: Neil Stevens (Diary) | February 28th at 01:00 AM |
So Republicans checked up on the Broadband Stimulus, yet another pork barrel spending project by the President, Nancy Pelosi, and Harry Reid: Surprise! It was a wasteful failure, like the rest of the jobless stimulus.
IP reform: I’m not optimistic of copyright reform soon, though it is a populist thing the TEA party could do against Hollywood and the joint efforts of big government and big business. But implementing loser pays against only patent trolls would be nice. But don’t forget that trademarks are completely out of hand, too.
Read More »Tags:
AT&T,
Bitcoin,
copyright,
IP Revolution,
Money Laundering,
New Zealand,
Norway,
Pandora,
Patent,
Pirate Bay,
Spain,
stimulus,
Tech at Night,
Trademark
Tech at Night: How to fight Chinese Cybersecurity threats? Democrats promoting the Regulatory-Industrial Complex
By: Neil Stevens (Diary) | February 26th at 12:00 AM |
The evidence mounts that we need to respond to Chinese attacks on American industry. But what do we do about it when we have few tools short of military attack? Hit them back in kind, I would think.
Of course, Seton Motley says Barack Obama is attacking our Internet access with his illegal, overreaching regulations. Remember: the courts have already pointed out his NLRB efforts have been flat out illegal, and the FCC’s Net Neutrality efforts have also been overturned once before.
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Tech at Night, er, Sunday Morning: Stop blaming the victim and pass sensible cybersecurity legislation. Free Press not for a free press.
By: Neil Stevens (Diary) | February 24th at 12:00 PM |
I can’t agree with Jerry Brito on cybersecurity legisiation. That the President did the wrong thing, the wrong way, doesn’t mean we don’t need the right thing done the right way. It’s time we stopped playing blame the victim.
How about more Free Press? Mike Wendy thinks they need to man up, a fair point. Instead of trying to silence opponents, debate. Then Jonathan Lee makes another great point: Free Press trying to silent AT&T isn’t exactly advocacy for a free press, is it?
Read More »Tags:
Anonymous,
Barack Obama,
Censorship,
Cybersecurity,
Democrats,
Executive Order,
Free Press,
Google,
Halliburton,
Illinois,
RIAA,
Tech at Night
Tech at Night: The President’s order is published. Wifi Spectrum coming.
By: Neil Stevens (Diary) | February 21st at 03:30 AM |
I took President’s day off. I know, terrible, right? Well let’s try to catch up.
So the President’s Cybersecurity order has been published. EO 13636. Part of it relates to information sharing. Interesting that even as he does that, he opposes actual regulation to share information. CISPA would be an actual law though, but the President cares not for the Constitution.
Oh, but he’s also going to use diplomacy as cybersecurity. Yeah, that’ll work.
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Tech at Night: The bullies at Free Press can’t even keep their stories straight.
By: Neil Stevens (Diary) | February 16th at 12:15 AM |
Ah, Free Press. One of my early favorite tech topics at RedState. One of the more visible George Soros-funded fronts, along with Public Knowledge. I have to say my early hits have been somewhat successful too, when Free Press completely gave up on Save the Internet as a fake left-right thing, instead fully integrating it with the Free Press extremist brand. Remember when they could fool solid groups like Gun Owners of America with their dishonest rhetoric?
I mean, they do still have language up that says “Organizations as diverse as the Christian Coalition for America, Moveon.org, the ACLU and the American Library Association have joined in support of Net Neutrality.” But, what? MoveOn, ACLU, and ALA are ‘diverse?’ Get real. Christian Coalition is the only right-wing fig leaf they have left, and Christian Coalition isn’t exactly known as a small-government group, nor a tech policy leader. Come on. I won, they lost. Net Neutrality was exposed as a single-party, left-wing effort, like so many others of the extremist Obama regulators. Time to… Move On.
Read More »Tags:
Ajit Pai,
AT&T,
FCC,
Federal Research Public Access Act,
Free Press,
George Soros,
Georgia. South Carolina,
Google,
IIA,
Internet,
Internet Sales Tax,
IP Revolution,
John Cornyn,
Julius Genachowski,
Kevin Yoder,
Marsha Blackburn,
Mike Doyle,
MPAA,
Net Neutrality,
Open Society Institute,
Privacy,
Public Knowledge,
Regulatory-Industrial Complex,
Socialized Internet,
Tech at Night
Tech at Night: Thailand succeeding, Anonymous failing, Ben Howe asking a fair question about Google
By: Neil Stevens (Diary) | February 14th at 03:30 AM |
I’m constantly pointing out how New Zealand is making it itself into a bit of an anti-American legal haven, but they’re not the only ones who have a history of that. Thailand has had issues, so many that the government had to declare a Year of IP Protection, with renewed enforcement to go with it. And as it turns out, they have a long way to go, but even US industry groups recognize the progress. That’s good to see.
I imagine they don’t harbor fugitives like Kim Dotcom, either. Who may or may not drink 10 liters of Coke every day, then blame the eeevil Americans for the consequences.
Read More »Tags:
Anonymous,
Barack Obama,
CISPA,
copyright,
Cybersecurity,
Google,
IRFA,
Kim Dotcom,
Mitt Romney,
New Zealand,
Pandora,
Privacy,
Tech at Night,
Thailand
Tech at Night: Ronulans and Bronys get wronged. No, really. Also, Dems wrong on Cybersecurity again.
By: Neil Stevens (Diary) | February 12th at 01:00 AM |
The UN’s WIPO is an established, but controversial, arbiter of Internet domain name/trademark disputes. So I find it absolutely hilarious that Ron Paul is using it to go after his own supporters. This is even sillier than Hasbro shutting down My Little Pony: Fighting is Magic, the game that raised thousands of dollars for cancer research.
Just because we have the right to do something, it doesn’t mean that it is right to do that thing. Sometimes exerting your rights to their fullest extent just isn’t the right thing to do, and some sort of solution should be found that’s win-win. Especially when we’re raising money for cancer, as in the case of MLP: Fighting is Magic in the Evo contest.
Read More »Tags:
aaron swartz,
Barack Obama,
Cybersecurity,
Hasbro,
My Little Pony,
My Little Pony: Fighting is Magic,
Ron Paul,
Tech at Night,
Telecommunications Act,
UN,
WIPO
Tech at Night: If people cared about privacy they already wouldn’t be using Gmail.
By: Neil Stevens (Diary) | February 9th at 01:30 AM |
Been a while since we started with some Google. Taking fire from two directions right now: I’ve pointed out that we need to watch them to see if they end up as politically even handed as they now claim to be. Microsoft is also after them by attempting to discredit their privacy policies.
Here’s the problem though. Microsoft’s ad campaign assumes people actually care about privacy. They don’t. Their actions in the marketplace indicate otherwise. That’s the real reason people don’t care about long privacy policies. Which is also why the only net effect of a California simplified privacy policy rule, would be to drive job creators out of the state.
Read More »
Whose side is Google on? We’re going to find out this year.
By: Neil Stevens (Diary) | February 7th at 03:00 PM |
A few years ago, Google was deeply in bed with the left wing activists like Moveon.org and Free Press pushing for Internet regulation. When Obama was elected, Google got even more deeply embedded with both the left and the government. At this point, Republicans began paying more attention to Google and Google realized it had a political problem.
So, after years of lining up with the left to demand more government regulation of the internet, Google changed course. (“Google cozies up to the GOP”) Google promoted their Republican lobbyists, hired Republican consultants, sucked up to conservative organizations and even hired a squishy Republican, Susan Molinari (R-MSNBC) to run their DC office.
But if they were playing footsie with Republicans, Google was still sleeping with the Democrats.
Read More »
Tech at Night: The DMCA balance is delicate. Deflating the Fed attack hype. No, Google’s ad service isn’t racist.
By: Neil Stevens (Diary) | February 7th at 03:00 AM |
The anti-copyright crusaders are going to try to use this latest DMCA horror story as a reason to eliminate DMCA. I disagree. Of all the DMCA uses that go on in this country, most of them fly under the radar. How many are correct? Probably most. Will mistakes happen? Yup. Are copyright holders overzealous? Yup. Is this reason not to strengthen the system? Yup. But it’s not reason to repeal it. It’s a tradeoff and a compromise.
Of course, the real motive of DMCA critics is to open the Internet to mass copyright infringement on free services like Wordpress.com, Youtube, and others. These are the same people who think abusers should be able to to onto MIT’s network and abuse MIT’s JSTOR access to commit mass, premeditated copyright infringement, and then blame MIT, JSTOR, and the government for the crime.
Read More »Tags:
Anonymous,
Barack Obama,
CISPA,
copyright,
Cybersecurity,
dmca,
FCC,
Google,
Greg Walden,
Internet,
Tech at Night
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