CNN reports that "Our Ted" has given up his "faux-filibuster" of the government-spending bill that defunds "Obamacare" after less than 22 hours. Given that the record for the longest filibuster in Senate history, 24 hours and 18 minutes, was delivered by Strom Thurmond when Thurmond was well into his 50s, one is left to wonder where the 42-year-old Cruz's stamina went. Perhaps too much green eggs and ham?
Winners never quit, and quitters never win. Just sayin'.
25 September 2013
20 September 2013
Hahahahaha!
It seems that "Our Ted" is making more friends on the Hill. Rep. Pete King (R-NY2) has called Cruz out for being "a fraud" who "will no longer have any influence in the Republican Party" following today's vote on a "must-pass" spending bill that includes a provision to defund "Obamacare."
The money quote, from CNN's article: "The congressman has said before that he can start ignoring the senator from Texas. He reiterated Friday that he hopes that's still the case." Because, you know, ranging the representative who represents part of Long Island, a district that favors Democratic candidates for national office by wider margins than it does Republican candidates*, against you is clearly the way to prosper one's future national political ambitions. Given that the State of New York, which is third in population, favors Democrats for national office, it becomes even more clear that Ted has really picked the right guy to piss off this time.
Of course, the deafening silence from Cruz's senior, the irrepressible John Cornyn, speaks further volumes of how Cruz is managing nothing so effectively as isolating and marginalizing himself, less than a year into his first (and only?) term. Given the Tea Party/Second-Amendment Republicans's recent fetish for recall votes as a means of "sending a message," one has to wonder whether a recall may spring up in Texas to bring Ted back home. There's still plenty of time . . .
Ted Cruz is going to wind up as friendless and alone as the other Republican firebrand from the Great White North whom he so freakishly resembles? Well, Duh!
*NY2 hasn't backed the Republican candidate for President since 1992, when George H.W. Bush took the district by the convincing margin of 40% - 40%.
The money quote, from CNN's article: "The congressman has said before that he can start ignoring the senator from Texas. He reiterated Friday that he hopes that's still the case." Because, you know, ranging the representative who represents part of Long Island, a district that favors Democratic candidates for national office by wider margins than it does Republican candidates*, against you is clearly the way to prosper one's future national political ambitions. Given that the State of New York, which is third in population, favors Democrats for national office, it becomes even more clear that Ted has really picked the right guy to piss off this time.
Of course, the deafening silence from Cruz's senior, the irrepressible John Cornyn, speaks further volumes of how Cruz is managing nothing so effectively as isolating and marginalizing himself, less than a year into his first (and only?) term. Given the Tea Party/Second-Amendment Republicans's recent fetish for recall votes as a means of "sending a message," one has to wonder whether a recall may spring up in Texas to bring Ted back home. There's still plenty of time . . .
Ted Cruz is going to wind up as friendless and alone as the other Republican firebrand from the Great White North whom he so freakishly resembles? Well, Duh!
*NY2 hasn't backed the Republican candidate for President since 1992, when George H.W. Bush took the district by the convincing margin of 40% - 40%.
19 September 2013
Of Ted and the Tea Party
It appears that Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) has been busy fighting fires, and mending fences, with the Tea Party. Is it just me, or has this guy just set a new record for beginning his re-election campaign, fully five years before Election Day 2018? Because, you know, a radical minority fringe that has - maybe - one more election cycle in which to have any relevance, much less influence, is precisely the wagon to which to hitch one's political star.
The article, from CNN, is here.
At any rate, we appear to have a new definition for "Republican": A guy who continues to pour gasoline on the fire, in the hope that some of it will turn into flame retardant.
Ted Cruz is eventually going to be consumed by the fire with which he has heretofore played so gleefully? Well, Duh!
The article, from CNN, is here.
At any rate, we appear to have a new definition for "Republican": A guy who continues to pour gasoline on the fire, in the hope that some of it will turn into flame retardant.
Ted Cruz is eventually going to be consumed by the fire with which he has heretofore played so gleefully? Well, Duh!
14 September 2013
Request for Assistance
Due to having lost my job due to my big mouth, I am facing a serious fiscal crisis. Living expenses march on while I am between jobs; with no financial cushion available, I am looking at having serious difficulty with paying rent & utilities, and getting my cell phone turned back on.
I have posted a campaign on Indiegogo, soliciting contributions to help meet basic living expenses. The campaign goal is $2,200, which will leave me, if I meet the goal, with a net $2,046 after Indiegogo's fee. The campaign is here.
I made a video to support my campaign:
Thanks, and God Bless you!
I have posted a campaign on Indiegogo, soliciting contributions to help meet basic living expenses. The campaign goal is $2,200, which will leave me, if I meet the goal, with a net $2,046 after Indiegogo's fee. The campaign is here.
I made a video to support my campaign:
Thanks, and God Bless you!
08 September 2013
Facebook is a Smarmy Nanny at Cross-Purposes to Itself?! Well, DUH!
My friend Kevin Hayden was recently suspended from Facebook for 12 hours, for posting a photo of what appeared to be a shemale/pre-op M2F transsexual, sans knickers, backlit in a sheer gown. Is that enough description? Is more really necessary, much less tasteful?
Just in case, the photo is here:
This got me to thinking about Facebook, its willingness to "police" its space, and the significance, from a business standpoint, of alienating the people upon whom an entrepreneur is counting to provide the stock-in-trade that makes the entrepreneur's business model make sense, much less function. The business ramifications will be better addressed on the sister blog, The Skeptical Entrepreneur. What I'm looking for here is the social aspect of Facebook banning its data sources - which are, after all, its primary monetizable product.
The first problem presented by Facebook's (effective) censoring of Kevin's post, as it is with any banning of a Facebook member by a "suitability" team that spontaneously, unilaterally and with neither notice, nor appeal bars members from entering and participating in the FB community, is one of credibility and propriety. Who asked FB to be the thought police? Who asked FB to establish "acceptable" "standards" of behavior? Who asked FB to become the conscience of the community?
The first answer would be, Mark Zuckerberg's prudence. Zuckerberg knew that if he was going to float FB on the capital market, he was going to have to institute corporate-governance policies that would reduce the risk of exposure of Facebook, Inc. to lawsuits by (parents of underage) "victims" of anti-social behavior conducted on Facebook. Lawsuits are inherently crapshoots; the most slam-dunk claim can be dismissed, and the most specious claim can lead to a bonanza payout, depending on the jury.
This is CYA corporate governance, but it reveals a larger societal problem, one that is hindering economic growth as much as excess production capacity and a scarcity of demand for labor. CYA corporate governance effectively turns over management of the enterprise from the owners/owner-appointed managers to the prospective customers. Given the fundamental tension between the firm and its customers, who both want to maximize the benefit they receive from each other, while minimizing the benefit that they give to each other, it is clear that allowing (potential) customers to dictate corporate policy, beyond a certain minimal degree of intervention, is a recipe for the business owner to wind up working, not for himself, but for his customers.
In that case, one wonders why Zuckerberg's agents, the "community standards team" at FB (or whatever they call themselves) would have banned Kevin. It seems counterintuitive - Zuckerberg & Co. work for Kevin, yet they are acting against the wishes of their actual boss (Kevin, not Zuckerberg). For discussion of the "actual boss"'s wishes, see discussion below.
The second specious answer would be the faulty notion, that first began to crop up during the intellectual-entrepreneurship boom of the mid-1990s, that corporate policies have the force of law; the corollary to that is that corporate managers have the right, capacity, and authority to shape society according to corporately-defined norms. This has long been a problem; it's one thing for corporations to demand that the State cater to its whims, either with the State's eager participation (the military-industrial complex), or reluctant participation (the fascist corporatist state, e.g., Italy from 1922 onward, Germany from 1934 onward). It is something else entirely when corporations begin to supplant the State, especially in terms of maintaining public order (one of the ways that the State asserts its authority), or in defining standards of public decency (a role that the State inherited from the Church as a concomitant of the secularization of society during the Enlightenment).
It is clear that the corporations and the State are different entities; as Mr. Chief Justice John Marshall observed in Dartmouth College v. Woodward, (17 U.S. 624, 636) that "A corporation is an artificial being, invisible, intangible, and existing only in contemplation of law." Since the State inherited the role of the King as the fons iustitiæ, the State precedes the corporation, both temporally and precedentially.
If one accepts the argument that the State precedes the corporation, then the State must be the creator of the corporation (assuming that the corporation is created, which I do). If the State is the creator of the corporation, then it is the limitor, and definer, of the faculties, functions, and capabilities of the corporation; a point made explicit by the U.S. Supreme Court in Ohio & Mississippi Railroad Co. v. Wheeler, 66 U.S. 1 Black 286 et seq. If the State limits and defines the faculties, functions, &c., of the corporation, then the corporation is subservient to the State, not the other way around. The corporation cannot exercise any of the powers of the State - maintenance of public order, and of general health and safety, regulation of behavior of its subjects (that is to say, its employees and agents), etc., unless those powers are specifically granted to the corporation by the State. The latter, being jealous of its prerogatives and obsessed with doing the one thing that the State does - namely, assert its power - is hardly going to delegate any of its police functions to its creature.
Absent a ruling from the Supreme Court on par, travesty-wise, with the ill-considered Citizens United ruling, there is no way for a corporation to masquerade as a State, or as a state-like (state lite?) entity. When corporations attempt to "punish," either their employees/agents or customers, they make a mockery of the State that created them, and fostered their development. Corporations don't belong in the discipline business. They belong in the selling-goods-and-services-profitably business. They should stick with their proper sphere of activity.
The groggy, but dogged reader will ask, by now, "What is the point of this discussion?" The point is that Facebook, in its self-imposed eagerness to impose a police-nanny state on its own constituents, is working at cross purposes to itself. By "protecting" its corporate reputation - by eliminating, or attempting to eliminate, as far as possible, the undefinable, only-imperfectly-quantifiable risk of civil litigation - Facebook undermines its core business function; namely, the aggregation of consumer data. As noted above, aggregated consumer data is Facebook's primary monetizable product.
By exiling Kevin, even for only 12 hours, for a post that putatively violates the terms of service, Facebook has denied itself the data stream of Kevin's posts, which in turn negatively impacts Facebook's revenue stream - no data, no revenue. While it is more likely than not, that the period of suspension came while Kevin was at work - thus, not generating a data stream in the first place - it would be (have been) the height of foolhardiness for Facebook to assume that a half-day suspension would occur when the user would not be actively posting. Such a "no harm, no foul" suspension would be a futile, impotent gesture, to say the least. The ramifications of such a shadow-boxing disciplinary regime might serve as the subject of another post; they need not be explored here.
The point is, that Facebook's effort to preserve its reputation and its business viability worked at cross purposes to itself. By cutting off one of its data streams (that is, one of its sources of raw material, to stretch a metaphor) in the interests of self-defined and self-imposed morality (the image is, at worst, of questionable decency; it is certainly not pornographic), Facebook's action served to harm its corporate interests, in the service of protecting Facebook's corporate reputation.
Thus, the smarmy police-nanny state that is Facebook worked at cross purposes to itself. A 21st-century American corporation working against its own self interest in its own self-interest? Well, Duh!
Kevin Hayden
Just in case, the photo is here:
This got me to thinking about Facebook, its willingness to "police" its space, and the significance, from a business standpoint, of alienating the people upon whom an entrepreneur is counting to provide the stock-in-trade that makes the entrepreneur's business model make sense, much less function. The business ramifications will be better addressed on the sister blog, The Skeptical Entrepreneur. What I'm looking for here is the social aspect of Facebook banning its data sources - which are, after all, its primary monetizable product.
The first problem presented by Facebook's (effective) censoring of Kevin's post, as it is with any banning of a Facebook member by a "suitability" team that spontaneously, unilaterally and with neither notice, nor appeal bars members from entering and participating in the FB community, is one of credibility and propriety. Who asked FB to be the thought police? Who asked FB to establish "acceptable" "standards" of behavior? Who asked FB to become the conscience of the community?
The first answer would be, Mark Zuckerberg's prudence. Zuckerberg knew that if he was going to float FB on the capital market, he was going to have to institute corporate-governance policies that would reduce the risk of exposure of Facebook, Inc. to lawsuits by (parents of underage) "victims" of anti-social behavior conducted on Facebook. Lawsuits are inherently crapshoots; the most slam-dunk claim can be dismissed, and the most specious claim can lead to a bonanza payout, depending on the jury.
This is CYA corporate governance, but it reveals a larger societal problem, one that is hindering economic growth as much as excess production capacity and a scarcity of demand for labor. CYA corporate governance effectively turns over management of the enterprise from the owners/owner-appointed managers to the prospective customers. Given the fundamental tension between the firm and its customers, who both want to maximize the benefit they receive from each other, while minimizing the benefit that they give to each other, it is clear that allowing (potential) customers to dictate corporate policy, beyond a certain minimal degree of intervention, is a recipe for the business owner to wind up working, not for himself, but for his customers.
In that case, one wonders why Zuckerberg's agents, the "community standards team" at FB (or whatever they call themselves) would have banned Kevin. It seems counterintuitive - Zuckerberg & Co. work for Kevin, yet they are acting against the wishes of their actual boss (Kevin, not Zuckerberg). For discussion of the "actual boss"'s wishes, see discussion below.
The second specious answer would be the faulty notion, that first began to crop up during the intellectual-entrepreneurship boom of the mid-1990s, that corporate policies have the force of law; the corollary to that is that corporate managers have the right, capacity, and authority to shape society according to corporately-defined norms. This has long been a problem; it's one thing for corporations to demand that the State cater to its whims, either with the State's eager participation (the military-industrial complex), or reluctant participation (the fascist corporatist state, e.g., Italy from 1922 onward, Germany from 1934 onward). It is something else entirely when corporations begin to supplant the State, especially in terms of maintaining public order (one of the ways that the State asserts its authority), or in defining standards of public decency (a role that the State inherited from the Church as a concomitant of the secularization of society during the Enlightenment).
It is clear that the corporations and the State are different entities; as Mr. Chief Justice John Marshall observed in Dartmouth College v. Woodward, (17 U.S. 624, 636) that "A corporation is an artificial being, invisible, intangible, and existing only in contemplation of law." Since the State inherited the role of the King as the fons iustitiæ, the State precedes the corporation, both temporally and precedentially.
If one accepts the argument that the State precedes the corporation, then the State must be the creator of the corporation (assuming that the corporation is created, which I do). If the State is the creator of the corporation, then it is the limitor, and definer, of the faculties, functions, and capabilities of the corporation; a point made explicit by the U.S. Supreme Court in Ohio & Mississippi Railroad Co. v. Wheeler, 66 U.S. 1 Black 286 et seq. If the State limits and defines the faculties, functions, &c., of the corporation, then the corporation is subservient to the State, not the other way around. The corporation cannot exercise any of the powers of the State - maintenance of public order, and of general health and safety, regulation of behavior of its subjects (that is to say, its employees and agents), etc., unless those powers are specifically granted to the corporation by the State. The latter, being jealous of its prerogatives and obsessed with doing the one thing that the State does - namely, assert its power - is hardly going to delegate any of its police functions to its creature.
Absent a ruling from the Supreme Court on par, travesty-wise, with the ill-considered Citizens United ruling, there is no way for a corporation to masquerade as a State, or as a state-like (state lite?) entity. When corporations attempt to "punish," either their employees/agents or customers, they make a mockery of the State that created them, and fostered their development. Corporations don't belong in the discipline business. They belong in the selling-goods-and-services-profitably business. They should stick with their proper sphere of activity.
The groggy, but dogged reader will ask, by now, "What is the point of this discussion?" The point is that Facebook, in its self-imposed eagerness to impose a police-nanny state on its own constituents, is working at cross purposes to itself. By "protecting" its corporate reputation - by eliminating, or attempting to eliminate, as far as possible, the undefinable, only-imperfectly-quantifiable risk of civil litigation - Facebook undermines its core business function; namely, the aggregation of consumer data. As noted above, aggregated consumer data is Facebook's primary monetizable product.
By exiling Kevin, even for only 12 hours, for a post that putatively violates the terms of service, Facebook has denied itself the data stream of Kevin's posts, which in turn negatively impacts Facebook's revenue stream - no data, no revenue. While it is more likely than not, that the period of suspension came while Kevin was at work - thus, not generating a data stream in the first place - it would be (have been) the height of foolhardiness for Facebook to assume that a half-day suspension would occur when the user would not be actively posting. Such a "no harm, no foul" suspension would be a futile, impotent gesture, to say the least. The ramifications of such a shadow-boxing disciplinary regime might serve as the subject of another post; they need not be explored here.
The point is, that Facebook's effort to preserve its reputation and its business viability worked at cross purposes to itself. By cutting off one of its data streams (that is, one of its sources of raw material, to stretch a metaphor) in the interests of self-defined and self-imposed morality (the image is, at worst, of questionable decency; it is certainly not pornographic), Facebook's action served to harm its corporate interests, in the service of protecting Facebook's corporate reputation.
Thus, the smarmy police-nanny state that is Facebook worked at cross purposes to itself. A 21st-century American corporation working against its own self interest in its own self-interest? Well, Duh!
Kevin Hayden
05 September 2013
". . . and to the Republic for Which It Stands . . ."
[We are glad to resume our too-long-suspended meditation upon the Pledge of Allegiance with this final fragment of work already written. This is where the drafting of the essay collection ended; it is the point where that essay cycle will pick up. - Ed.]
Contemplating the problem of the modern American republic, we can see clearly the dual response of our society to the ideals that we claim to hold dear. The fundamental Athenian notion of the republic was a form of governance in which the people ruled themselves. Our society explicitly refers to the ancient Attic model of the republic, but the practical realization of that ideal in contemporary governance is entirely a different creature.
Aaron Sorkin, creator of the television series “The West Wing,” explicitly put that idea in the mouth of one of his characters in one episode of the popular drama. America is not a republic, the character noted; it is a representative democracy. The distinction may be subtle, but it is worth noting.
When America was a young nation, with few relatively large cities and a highly dispersed population, the ancient Greek model of the republic was not only feasible, it was a practical necessity. Slow, inefficient communication and travel between local populations required a certain level of self-reliance; decrees and policies of the central government required days or weeks to disseminate to the people. Furthermore, a much-smaller population was more manageable in size, as far as allowing each citizen to have his say and be heard. The cacophonous babble of the citizenry still allowed individual voices to ring out.
Contemplating the problem of the modern American republic, we can see clearly the dual response of our society to the ideals that we claim to hold dear. The fundamental Athenian notion of the republic was a form of governance in which the people ruled themselves. Our society explicitly refers to the ancient Attic model of the republic, but the practical realization of that ideal in contemporary governance is entirely a different creature.
Aaron Sorkin, creator of the television series “The West Wing,” explicitly put that idea in the mouth of one of his characters in one episode of the popular drama. America is not a republic, the character noted; it is a representative democracy. The distinction may be subtle, but it is worth noting.
When America was a young nation, with few relatively large cities and a highly dispersed population, the ancient Greek model of the republic was not only feasible, it was a practical necessity. Slow, inefficient communication and travel between local populations required a certain level of self-reliance; decrees and policies of the central government required days or weeks to disseminate to the people. Furthermore, a much-smaller population was more manageable in size, as far as allowing each citizen to have his say and be heard. The cacophonous babble of the citizenry still allowed individual voices to ring out.
[We shall return. - Ed.]
22 March 2013
On the Separation of Powers
From Military.com comes word that Sen. Richard Burr (R-NC), Ranking Member of the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee has threatened to block funding for the headquarters operations of the Department of Veterans Affairs unless the Department provides the Committee with "the raw metrics the VA uses to create the monthly reports [on VA's efforts to clear its backlog of claims] the lawmakers currently are getting." Per Military.com's report, "The monthly reports the VA provides to the committee are not sufficient to determine what is happening, [Burr] said."
The solution? The Committee should do its own analysis. "'[T]he committee needs the performance metrics that you don't get on a monthly report in order to do oversight correctly,' [Burr asserted]." This is a Republican Senator, mind you. An uphold-the-Constitution sort of fellow. A respect-for-the-Founders's-intentions kind of guy.
Arguing against separation of powers.
Dear me. What should the interested observer think? Sen. Burr is proposing that the Legislature, or a part of it (indeed, only a part of a part of it) should take over administrative management of part of the Executive. The Legislature running the Executive. It has, from time to time in the United States's history, come to pass that the Legislature effectively runs the government, and the Executive has merely been the instrument of effecting the legislative will. The administrations of John Tyler, Rutherford B. Hayes, and Benjamin Harrison serve as cases in point.
Conversely, it has happened that the Legislature has been reduced, albeit willingly, to the means of enabling the executive will - FDR's First Hundred Days being the definitive example. Never, however, as far as I know, has the Legislature ever attempted so blatantly to take over an administrative function of an Executive Branch department.
Sen. Burr would do well to mind his constitutional principles. If he fails, or refuses to do so, his constituents need to hold him accountable for it in 2016.
The idea of the Legislature administering the Executive. Well, Duh!
The solution? The Committee should do its own analysis. "'[T]he committee needs the performance metrics that you don't get on a monthly report in order to do oversight correctly,' [Burr asserted]." This is a Republican Senator, mind you. An uphold-the-Constitution sort of fellow. A respect-for-the-Founders's-intentions kind of guy.
Arguing against separation of powers.
Dear me. What should the interested observer think? Sen. Burr is proposing that the Legislature, or a part of it (indeed, only a part of a part of it) should take over administrative management of part of the Executive. The Legislature running the Executive. It has, from time to time in the United States's history, come to pass that the Legislature effectively runs the government, and the Executive has merely been the instrument of effecting the legislative will. The administrations of John Tyler, Rutherford B. Hayes, and Benjamin Harrison serve as cases in point.
Conversely, it has happened that the Legislature has been reduced, albeit willingly, to the means of enabling the executive will - FDR's First Hundred Days being the definitive example. Never, however, as far as I know, has the Legislature ever attempted so blatantly to take over an administrative function of an Executive Branch department.
Sen. Burr would do well to mind his constitutional principles. If he fails, or refuses to do so, his constituents need to hold him accountable for it in 2016.
The idea of the Legislature administering the Executive. Well, Duh!
03 February 2013
China's Turn in the Indian Subcontinent
From the Associated Press comes word that China is poised to take control of the moribund port of Gwadar, on the Arabian Sea coast of Pakistan, as part of its ongoing campaign to expand its economic/commercial and, potentially, military influence westward.
Two thoughts:
1. It appears that the Pakistani failure, or refusal to complete the Gwadar road, and the consequent economic stifling of the port of Gwadar, provide a clue to the direction that the United States could take to deal with the potential of an obnoxiously-expansive PRC, if the situation in the Pacific/Indian ocean area comes to that. Whether the U.S. national security apparatus has eyes to see, is something that will be revealed in time.
2. It is, to my mind, an interesting throwback to the naval arms race of the end of the 19th/beginning of the 20th centuries, that a would-be imperial power is developing a string of ports along (one of) the strategic sea lanes that it proposes to dominate. One wonders if the Chinese are planning to stockpile coal . . . ?
Two thoughts:
1. It appears that the Pakistani failure, or refusal to complete the Gwadar road, and the consequent economic stifling of the port of Gwadar, provide a clue to the direction that the United States could take to deal with the potential of an obnoxiously-expansive PRC, if the situation in the Pacific/Indian ocean area comes to that. Whether the U.S. national security apparatus has eyes to see, is something that will be revealed in time.
2. It is, to my mind, an interesting throwback to the naval arms race of the end of the 19th/beginning of the 20th centuries, that a would-be imperial power is developing a string of ports along (one of) the strategic sea lanes that it proposes to dominate. One wonders if the Chinese are planning to stockpile coal . . . ?
23 January 2013
A One-Liner
If I was going to live today like it was my last day, I'd buy a big ol' bag of firecrackers, and re-play the Battle of New Orleans. Or, at least, the soundtrack.
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