02 May 2007 Blog Home : All May 2007 Posts : Permalink
02 May 2007 Blog Home : All May 2007 Posts : Permalink
When asked his favorite novel in an interview shown yesterday on the Fox News Channel, Mitt Romney pointed to �Battlefield Earth,� a novel by L. Ron Hubbard, the founder of Scientology. That book was turned into a film by John Travolta, a Scientologist.
A spokesman said later it was one of Mr. Romney�s favorite novels.
�I�m not in favor of his religion by any means,� Mr. Romney, a Mormon, said. �But he wrote a book called �Battlefield Earth� that was a very fun science-fiction book.� Asked about his favorite book, Mr. Romney cited the Bible.
Romney is quoted as saying it's "a very fun science-fiction book," but mining, banking, coffins... Hard to tell from that summary what the fun is (unless it's the sheer childishness of it all).
As it happens the story is a classic coming of age adventure story. The hero defeats the villains, gets the girl and almost everyone lives happily ever after. It addresses almost no serious topics and the "science" in it ranges from poor to laughably wrong so to that extent it is childish, but it is far from alone in that - Harry Potter, to pick a book totally not at random, is much the same and we don't denigrate people for liking HP. In fact in its simplistic way it may have a few messages that have relevance in today's world such as the ineffectiveness of international bodies, the power of bankers and the way that power vacuums get filled. So while I'd not read it looking for a message I don't think it is quite mindless escapism and I definitely agree with Mr. Romney that it is a "a very fun science-fiction book".02 May 2007 Blog Home : All May 2007 Posts : Permalink
02 May 2007 Blog Home : All May 2007 Posts : Permalink
03 May 2007 Blog Home : All May 2007 Posts : Permalink
04 May 2007 Blog Home : All May 2007 Posts : Permalink
04 May 2007 Blog Home : All May 2007 Posts : Permalink
INTERNET I; Designed to survive a nuclear war; survived 9/11, Katrina, numerous other diasasters.
Internet II: Taken out by a homeless man with a cigarette.
The snark is misleading and is rather like saying "tanker fire destroy interstate system, railways manage fine" when referring to this incident. The story doesn't explicitly mention it but it seems clear that, as with the SF bridge oil tanker fire I linked to, a major route was taken out because of the fire but that the rest of the network functioned just fine. I have no doubt that traffic between NY and Boston on Internet2 went via somewhere else (DC, Cleveland and Bufffalo probably according to this map) in the interim, just as traffic across the Bay Bridge between SF and Oakland was rerouted via San Mateo or somewhere. There is, however one difference between the Internet2 and the Interstate system: unlike the SF bridge which is going to take years to repair, the Internet2 service was restored in about 4 hours.04 May 2007 Blog Home : All May 2007 Posts : Permalink
05 May 2007 Blog Home : All May 2007 Posts : Permalink
"Choosing Nicolas Sarkozy would be a dangerous choice," Royal told RTL radio.
"It is my responsibility today to alert people to the risk of (his) candidature with regards to the violence and brutality that would be unleashed in the country (if he won)," she said.
Pressed on whether there would actually be violence, Royal said: "I think so, I think so," referring specifically to France's volatile suburbs hit by widespread rioting in 2005.
Big Lizards worries that this could be something similar to the Mexican election where Manuel Lopez Obrador refused to accept the result. Even if there are riots I think he's wrong that Sego will use them or their threat to claim that the election is invalid for two reasons.Calina, the son of immigrants from Senegal, voiced the concern of many here: "There are going to be riots if Sarkozy is elected.[...]
"Tony Essono, 32, an unemployed economist whose parents emigrated from Cameroon before he was born, said that despite years of anger and discrimination, people in La Courneuve were willing to put their faith in the ballot box "because they understand they can change something" by voting. But, he added, "if Sarkozy is elected, it means we haven't been heard, and we'll trash everything."
So, will the suburbs explode in violence again? Possibly, but probably any riot will be little more than the usual weekend fun and games. It is worth recalling that we've already had the riot at the Gare du Nord this year and that every night cars are torched in suburbs all over France so any "explosion of anger" is likely to be more in the eyes of the beholder than anywhere else.[Some residents] believe[s] the violence is a result of poor education, high unemployment, inadequate housing and low-paying jobs. Sarkozy, with his promises of tax cuts and free-market reforms, "wants the rich to be richer and the poor to work harder"
If Sarko is able to use the riots as a way to push through these reforms without too many protests from the usual left wing nut cases then the riots will have been a good thing. There is no doubt that those who object to his ideas do indeed think that they will just make the rich richer and the poor work harder, but given that France, and particulalry the poor French banlieues, have a huge unemployment rate making the poor work hard could be as simple as making the unemployed work. This would of course drastically cut unemployment and be something that everyone agrees would be a good idea, even though many of them reject the welfare reform and "macjob" approach to doing so.05 May 2007 Blog Home : All May 2007 Posts : Permalink
The AACS LA has missed the lesson of DeCSS: the Internet holds no secrets. While one might sympathize with their predicament, the larger lesson to be learned here is that security based on secrets is truly no more secure than any other form of security. Once that secret is out, it's game over. The more you try to stop that secret from spreading, the more likely it is to spread. The more coveted that secret is, the worse it gets.
When "DVD Jon" was targeted for his involvement of DeCSS, geeks around the world rallied around him and the idea of DeCSS. If the AACS isn't careful, they'll simply make another generation of hero out of a problem they created. What makes it even more deplorable this time is that it's now 2007, and the writing is on the wall: DRM is a failed idea, and a waste of time and money.
I have some sympathy for people who make a mistake once. I have zero sympathy for people who make the exact same mistake a second time. The DeCSS saga showed that any DRM security has a problem, everyone has to be able to decrypt the stuff so every reader has to have the key in there somewhere. Given that, why would anyone think that a more complex kind of security scheme would fare any better?Books that come up most often are either scanned and OCRd paper copies, or cracks of DRM-locked ebooks. If you look at the posters' activities in terms of proving status within a gift economy this makes sense; OCRing a book or cracking DRM takes time and effort, and is a demonstration of putting effort into something — it's a high value activity. Whereas posting something you grabbed off Baen's library of for-free books, or paid $5 for is just stupid — it's like turning up to a a wine and cheese evening your friends are running on a "bring a bottle" basis with a bottle of Buckfast or Mad Dog 20/20. It's cheesy, tasteless, and looks cheap, and that's how the ebook pirate elite will view you.
In other words the more fiendish the DRM the greater the status that results from being able to provide a cracked copy of it. I can't see any reason why the whole AACS scheme will not be vulnerable to it and a certain amount of evidence (from the cracker's own words) that this is exactly how the crackers see it - an intellectual challenge more than anything else.06 May 2007 Blog Home : All May 2007 Posts : Permalink
Despite all the warnings of imminent havoc from Ségolène Royal, his run-off opponent, and the left, the French have given a solid mandate to Sarko the Hungarian immigrant's son to apply the radical medicine that he has been prescribing for the country's ills.
According to early estimates, Sarko has won 54 percent of the vote and Royal 46 percent with a very high turnout of about 85 percent. When word of the exit polls arrived, cheering erupted among Sarkozy's supporters, gathered in a concert hall where he is to make a victory speech
Police are out in force around Paris and the big cities in case of rioting by poor immigrant youths upset at the victory of the man they hold responsible for their ills. Bus-loads of riot police are assembled near the Place de la Concorde, at the foot of the Champs Elysées where a stage is being erected for Sarkozy's victory celebration. Johnny Hallyday, the national rock idol for over four decades has come from his Swiss tax exile to appear alongside Sarko and their mates.
54:46 is not the overwhelming mandate we might have wanted but it is certainly clear enough that no one is going to seriously contest the result as being stolen or whatever. And with an 85% turnout we don't even have to worry about people claiming that the apathy vote won.07 May 2007 Blog Home : All May 2007 Posts : Permalink
07 May 2007 Blog Home : All May 2007 Posts : Permalink
I don’t credit [racial or genetic basis for intelligence] theories because I have studied them extensively. I didn’t want to lengthen my post by discussing it, but I minored in Anthropology (with a major in Math) at college, and during my senior year I wrote a term paper in Physical Anthropology on race and intelligence, concentrating on the works of Arthur Jensen.
In my paper I wrote that the question of a racial component for intelligence was not fully answered, but that the evidence did not warrant Professor Jensen’s conclusions.
Not long after I wrote my paper, honest discussion on such topics within the academy was shut down completely.
So when I said, “I do not credit any of the theories,” I was maintaining that the evidence does not support the hypothesis. I have not seen any additional evidence in the intervening 35 years to change that conclusion.
Of course, in the intervening 35 years, the reigning orthodoxy has forbidden the gathering of more evidence. That’s why the topic is still open.
The Baron is unfortunately mostly correct, however he isn't completely correct. As a loyal reader of GNXP I have seen a number of posts covering the subject such as this one about Bruce Lahn and this extremely long one reviewing Richard Lynn's book Race Differences in Intelligence: An Evolutionary Analysis. From the latter it is possible to extract a graph that does indeed show that there is a difference in average IQ between countries and races and which shows that, for example, Africans in Africa have a far lower average IQ than Africans in America but that even the latter have a lower IQ than whites in America. It may well be that this analysis of a large number of IQ surveys is flawed but evidence to support that piece of Mr Ellilä's essay does appear to be present in some degree. On the other hand the book's data also indicates that Asians are smarter than Europeans, something we also see in US SAT scores, so the Asian portion of the essay appears to be on shakier ground.08 May 2007 Blog Home : All May 2007 Posts : Permalink
Paul Wolfowitz's closest aide was involved in crafting an apparently misleading public statement on the Shaha Riza secondment for dissemination by World Bank spokespeople on an anonymous basis, the Financial Times has found. [...]
Ms Cleveland met Marwan Muasher, the newly arrived director for external relations, on April 4 to discuss how to respond to leaks about the terms and conditions awarded to Ms Riza.
They agreed on a statement that was to be briefed on an anonymous or "background" basis by senior bank officials. This included the apparently misleading claim that "after consultation with the then general counsel, the ethics committee of the board approved an external assignment agreement which was reached with the staff member".
Mr Muasher confirmed the agreed text with Ms Cleveland in an e-mail, a copy of which has been seen by the FT, and its authenticity has been attested to by two bank officials. The statement was then briefed to the FT and other media organisations by senior bank officials.
The claim that the agreement was approved by the ethics committee after consultation with the general counsel was immediately disputed by Roberto Danino, then general counsel, and Ad Melkert, then chairing the ethics committee. [...]
Neither Ms Cleveland nor Mr Muasher responded to a request for comment. In a letter to the panel last week, Mr Wolfowitz said he assumed the ethics committee was aware of the terms and conditions because it decided a later anonymous complaint about Ms Riza's pay "did not contain new information warranting further review".
He said: "I relied on this letter when I advised my staff that they could tell the press that the committee had reviewed the matter."
Or in other words that the so called ethics committee seems to want to deny that it ever had anything to do with this whole case. The memos published on the world bank website seem to make clear that this is not the case, other than in the extremely limited case of the general counsel and ethics committee chairman not being informed of the full details of the precise package offered because they said they weren't allowed to be told these details. As the second editorial explains (blog version) this seems to about what one should expect from this group of highly paid individuals:The World Bank’s ethics committee should have a sign on the door warning: “Caveat emptor –don’t rely on us.”
The absurd controversy over the tenure of Paul Wolfowitz, World Bank president, whose longstanding romantic partner was at the bank years before he was, can be traced to that committee’s incoherent advice. [...] In 2005, the ethics committee rejected Mr Wolfowitz’s workable proposal to recuse himself on all personnel matters concerning his friend. Instead, it ruled that she would have to leave the bank altogether, disrupting her career and making her forgo a promotion for which she had been shortlisted.
It was an extraordinary decision, raising important questions of gender equity at the bank.
Some have mistakenly supposed that the “advice” was a reflection of settled bank rules. But, in fact, it was quite different from the treatment accorded to some other couples who work there.
Mr Wolfowitz’s friend, Shaha Riza, whose dignity and reticence have been trampled by the bank, testified last week before an ad hoc investigating committee of the bank board of executive directors. Ms Riza said: “I could not understand at the time or now why I was being singled out for this treatment when the then managing director Shengman Zhang’s spouse . . . was working at the bank and before her . . . Caio Koch-Weser’s spouse, when he was managing director. Neither wife was asked to leave the institution.”
The current crisis at the World Bank is a chance finally to fix the governance problems at the world’s major institution for promoting development. It is time for the US to give up its hold on picking the president of the bank and for Europe to give up its grip on choosing the president of the International Monetary Fund. Had the process of picking the president been truly democratic and fair in the first place, it is almost certain that Paul Wolfowitz would never have been selected.
There is now a global consensus that Mr Wolfowitz will have to leave the World Bank. In democratic societies, leadership requires the confidence of those being led. Mr Wolfowitz has lost that confidence and will not be able to restore it in the three years remaining in his lame-duck tenure. He could, of course, try to appoint more loyalists at the top. But that would only lead to more alienation from the more than 10,000 employees who must carry out the bank’s mission.
Mr Stiglitz appears to be confused. The world bank is not a democratic institution, nor does its president require the confidence of his underlings. Indeed given that Mr Wolfowitz has been trying to root out corruption within the World Bank it seems pretty clear that some underlings are going to do anything they can to hamper the president when he tries to sort things out. There is no evidence (yet) that the origin of the whole Wolfowitz "scandal" was leaks by corrupt staffers but it is certainly the case that the world bank staff association seems to have been heavily involved in the affair and one suspects that this organization is not going to be keen to chuck out the slovens and the corrupt. Likewise the agreement that the US appoint the World Bank president is due to the fact that the US is the largest shareholder. Now it is entirely reasonable to say that this rule is wrong but it is common in international organizations such as the various UN bodies, the Bank and the IMF that certain parties select the head. It wouldn't bother me if the World Bank changed the way it did things but it would only seem fair if all other similar tranzi bodies did the same. I'm prepared to bet that no other beneficiary of these schemes would agree to similar reform.1) The EC cannot interact directly with staff member situations, hence Xavier should act upon your instruction.
2) The interaction with the staff member at this stage is only for information purposes, by way of courtesy, as both you and the EC have been preoccupied from the outset to have a procedure in place and an outcome reached that would duly recognize the record and career perspectives of the staff member, taking into account the scope of the EC which is limited to Board officials.
In other words having notified the Ethics Committee of a potential problem the EC then tells him that he has to solve it directly and therefore cause a conflict of interest.09 May 2007 Blog Home : All May 2007 Posts : Permalink
But the bank has had one competitive advantage that no private-sector Western lender can match -- a willingness to lend large sums to corrupt Third World administrations with few governance strings attached. Wolfowitz's arrival in 2005, and the anti-corruption measures he has brought in, have jeopardized that advantage big time, as seen in a chilling memo the bank received on March 12 of this year.
The e-mail memo, entitled "Sanctions Reform Roll-Out in EAP [East Asia and Pacific Region] -- Your Feedback Needed," was from the manager of the bank's operation in China, Hsiao-Yun Elaine Sun, to James Adams, vice-president for East Asia and Pacific Region. It warned that the bank could lose its second-largest customer, the Chinese government, if it insisted on carrying through with its intention to hold borrowing countries to account for World Bank monies that were used inappropriately.
China's Ministry of Finance (MOF) "is very concerned about the implementation. They foresee potential disagreements as to the scope, level, and approach of the bank's involvement on specific cases. Our MOF counterpart is so worried and is considering to suspend the lending program discussions next year ? in order to avoid getting into a confrontational situation with the bank."
Losing a large borrower like China, which has some US$21-billion in outstanding loans and credits with the bank, and accounts for close to 10% of the bank's total portfolio, would lead to significant staff layoffs. Moreover, at least three other countries -- India, Mexico and Indonesia --have also expressed alarm at the bank's anti-corruption program, which would make their officials subject to investigation and exposure. These four countries alone, ranked first, second, third and fifth in size among bank customers, account for 30% of all World Bank business.
In other words when I said that the World Bank Staff Association was likely interested in defending the corrupt I was understating the case. And the Financial Post points out the all the leakage occured shortly after the memo noted above was circulated. If it were anyone other that Wolfowitz the lefty conspiracy theorists would be all over this questioning the timing."Not a penny was lost from the organization," he insisted last year, following an audit of the U.N.'s peacekeeping procurement by its Office of Internal Oversight Services. In fact, the office found that $7 million had been lost from overpayment; $50 million worth of contracts showed indications of bid rigging; $61 million had bypassed U.N. rules; $82 million had been lost to mismanagement; and $110 million had "insufficient" justification. That's $310 million out of a budget of $1.6 billion, and who knows what the auditors missed.
Mr. Malloch Brown also made curious use of English by insisting that Paul Volcker's investigation into Oil for Food had "fully exonerated" Mr. Annan. In fact, Mr. Volcker's report made an "adverse finding" against the then-Secretary-General. Among other details, the final report noted that Mr. Annan was "aware of [Saddam's] kickback scheme at least as early as February 2001," yet never reported it to the U.N. Security Council, much less the public, a clear breach of his fiduciary responsibilities as the U.N.'s chief administrative officer. Mr. Malloch Brown described the idea that Mr. Annan might resign as "inappropriate political assassination"--a standard he apparently doesn't apply to political enemies like Mr. Wolfowitz.
Oh and guess what? the WSJ thinks that Mr Pillock Brown might prefer to be President of the World Bank that Vice President for Tranzis at the Quantum Fund (prop. G. Soros).Our sources who have seen the committee's report tell us it is especially critical of Mr. Wolfowitz for daring to object publicly to the committee's methods and thereby bringing the bank's name into disrepute. The Europeans running this Red Queen proceeding prefer that they be able to smear with selective leaks without rebuttal.
The more I read of this affair the more I think that the Wolrd Bank has outlived its usefullness and should be shut down as it isn't providing any service that cannot be done equally well by someone else. Sure this might cause a little hardship for 10,000 well paid tranzis but it seems unlikely to cause any harm to the poor and downtrodden.According to the World Bank, Israeli-imposed security arrangements in the West Bank remain at the root of its economic problems, with unemployment levels high among its 2.5 million Palestinian residents
It says the territory has been fragmented into 10 isolated enclaves, in contravention of agreements between the Palestinian Authority and Israel designed to guarantee the free movement of people and goods.
Israel argues that travel restrictions, which take the form of roadblocks, wire fencing and concrete walls, prevent suicide bombers from attacking its cities.
But the World Bank said the prevailing conditions were preventing Palestinians from finding jobs and setting up businesses, effectively strangling the economy.
Graciously the World Bank did acknowledge "legitimate Israeli security worries" but feels that should find a different way to stop attacks because this way is too effective disruptive. Only in Palestine, it seems, are economic sanctions not a viable alternative to war.13 May 2007 Blog Home : All May 2007 Posts : Permalink
21 May 2007 Blog Home : All May 2007 Posts : Permalink
21 May 2007 Blog Home : All May 2007 Posts : Permalink
Absent the government’s decree, copyright holders would have no exclusivity of right at all. Does not then the government’s giveth support its taketh? By that logic, should other classes of property not subject to total confiscation therefore be denied the protection of regulatory agencies, courts, police and the law itself lest they be subject to expropriation as payment for the considerable and necessary protections they too enjoy? Should automobile manufacturers be nationalized after 70 years because they depend on publicly financed roads? Should Goldman Sachs be impounded because of the existence of the Securities and Exchange Commission?
If Mr Helprin had his way we'd be stuck in the position of paying the descendents of Messrs Diesel, Benz, Ford and Co for their internal combustion engine patents, Bayer shareholders for Aspirin and loads of other drug manufacturers, Alcatel Lucent, Nortel and loads of other old telecom companies, IBM and so on. The inventions that these companies developed (and patented) have benefited society far more than any author, although it is true that some authors are excellent alternatives to sleeping pills and others great mood alterers, but none of their inventions, nor those of the various companies who developed offset printing or any of the other ways we turn human thought into printed ink on paper, is protected by anything like the life plus 70 years of current copyright law. Perhaps Mr H thinks we should be paying royalties to these folks, but if so I bet he hasn't thought how this would stick a large hole in the economy. Realistically we accept that it is fair to pay drug companies monopoly prices for a few years so that they can recoup their investment, then we are happy to let the generic makers copy the drig so that it doesn't cost an arm and a leg anymore to cure our ulcers or heart disease. If it did then either we'd be paying about 50% of our salaries in medical insurance or we'd be dying rather sooner than we currently expect to. The point about copyright is that it is a government sanctioned monopoly and in most circumstances governmanet sanctioned monopolies are bad things leading to inferior service and high prices. Evidence to this effect may be found throughout history from the original monopolies granted by 16th century monarchs to Amtrak or SNCF today. It is unlikely that Mr H thinks other monopolies are good so why does he think this one is good? he fails to explain this.Were I tomorrow to write the great American novel (again?), 70 years after my death the rights to it, though taxed at inheritance, would be stripped from my children and grandchildren. To the claim that this provision strikes malefactors of great wealth, one might ask, first, where the heirs of Sylvia Plath berth their 200-foot yachts.
Again he's missed the point. Yes it is true that the overwhelming majority writers do not get rich off their labours and never will even if copyright is infinite, but on the other hand we, the general public, lose our chance to have access to their output if copyright is infinite. As it is today, because of copyright we, the general public, fail to be able to read the works of authors who are slightly less well known than Ms Plath because they are out of print but still copyrighted. A lot of genre fiction (SF, Mystery, Romance...) falls into this category and while much of it is undoubtedly hack work that no one will miss it is also certain that there are many gems that would repay being reprinted in newer editions and it is a lot simpler to do this if copyright has expired. The choice is not between riches and poverty, it is between fame and oblivion, and copyright consigns many worthy works to the category of oblivion because they are out of print and will remain that way for anything up to a century after they were written. This does not bode well for their chances of rediscovery. By the time the copyright term has run out there will be very few extant copies of the book and very little chance that the member of a new generation will be able to find one to read and rediscover.[..F]ew writers have ever controlled the language as did Thomas Babbington Macaulay. He wrote with a seemingly effortless power that made his subject, whatever it was, immediate, interesting and entertaining.
Macaulay lived a life that probably isn't possible any more, that of a scholarly man of business. He was a clever essayist and critic of literature, a politician of the most ardent Whig variety, a government bureaucrat in India, a Member of Parliament, Secretary of War, and the author of a famous History of England.
Macaulay spoke in two related debates in the Houses of Parliament in 1841 discussing copyright and the speeches are available at a number of places on the internet including the Baen Free Library. As Eric Flint writes in his introduction to them they are well worth reading in their entirety but there are a couple of parts that leave Mr H exposed as the grasping buffoon he appears to be. After restating (more elegantly) Mr H's property based argument he neatly demolishes the inheritance part based on the vagaries of laws of inheritance that many has come up with and then goes back to first principles in exploring why we have copyright in the first place:We have, then, only one resource left. We must betake ourselves to copyright, be the inconveniences of copyright what they may. Those inconveniences, in truth, are neither few nor small. Copyright is monopoly, and produces all the effects which the general voice of mankind attributes to monopoly. My honourable and learned friend talks very contemptuously of those who are led away by the theory that monopoly makes things dear. That monopoly makes things dear is certainly a theory, as all the great truths which have been established by the experience of all ages and nations, and which are taken for granted in all reasonings, may be said to be theories. It is a theory in the same sense in which it is a theory that day and night follow each other, that lead is heavier than water, that bread nourishes, that arsenic poisons, that alcohol intoxicates. If, as my honourable and learned friend seems to think, the whole world is in the wrong on this point, if the real effect of monopoly is to make articles good and cheap, why does he stop short in his career of change? Why does he limit the operation of so salutary a principle to sixty years? Why does he consent to anything short of a perpetuity? He told us that in consenting to anything short of a perpetuity he was making a compromise between extreme right and expediency. But if his opinion about monopoly be correct, extreme right and expediency would coincide. Or rather, why should we not restore the monopoly of the East India trade to the East India Company? Why should we not revive all those old monopolies which, in Elizabeth's reign, galled our fathers so severely that, maddened by intolerable wrong, they opposed to their sovereign a resistance before which her haughty spirit quailed for the first and for the last time? Was it the cheapness and excellence of commodities that then so violently stirred the indignation of the English people? I believe, Sir, that I may with safety take it for granted that the effect of monopoly generally is to make articles scarce, to make them dear, and to make them bad. And I may with equal safety challenge my honourable friend to find out any distinction between copyright and other privileges of the same kind; any reason why a monopoly of books should produce an effect directly the reverse of that which was produced by the East India Company's monopoly of tea, or by Lord Essex's monopoly of sweet wines. Thus, then, stands the case. It is good that authors should be remunerated; and the least exceptionable way of remunerating them is by a monopoly. Yet monopoly is an evil. For the sake of the good we must submit to the evil; but the evil ought not to last a day longer than is necessary for the purpose of securing the good.
[...]I will take an example. Dr Johnson died fifty-six years ago. If the law were what my honourable and learned friend wishes to make it, somebody would now have the monopoly of Dr Johnson's works. Who that somebody would be it is impossible to say; but we may venture to guess. I guess, then, that it would have been some bookseller, who was the assign of another bookseller, who was the grandson of a third bookseller, who had bought the copyright from Black Frank, the doctor's servant and residuary legatee, in 1785 or 1786. Now, would the knowledge that this copyright would exist in 1841 have been a source of gratification to Johnson? Would it have stimulated his exertions? Would it have once drawn him out of his bed before noon? Would it have once cheered him under a fit of the spleen? Would it have induced him to give us one more allegory, one more life of a poet, one more imitation of Juvenal? I firmly believe not. I firmly believe that a hundred years ago, when he was writing our debates for the Gentleman's Magazine, he would very much rather have had twopence to buy a plate of shin of beef at a cook's shop underground. Considered as a reward to him, the difference between a twenty years' and sixty years' term of posthumous copyright would have been nothing or next to nothing. But is the difference nothing to us? I can buy Rasselas for sixpence; I might have had to give five shillings for it. I can buy the Dictionary, the entire genuine Dictionary, for two guineas, perhaps for less; I might have had to give five or six guineas for it. Do I grudge this to a man like Dr Johnson? Not at all. Show me that the prospect of this boon roused him to any vigorous effort, or sustained his spirits under depressing circumstances, and I am quite willing to pay the price of such an object, heavy as that price is. But what I do complain of is that my circumstances are to be worse, and Johnson's none the better; that I am to give five pounds for what to him was not worth a farthing.
The principle of copyright is this. It is a tax on readers for the purpose of giving a bounty to writers. The tax is an exceedingly bad one; it is a tax on one of the most innocent and most salutary of human pleasures; and never let us forget, that a tax on innocent pleasures is a premium on vicious pleasures. I admit, however, the necessity of giving a bounty to genius and learning. In order to give such a bounty, I willingly submit even to this severe and burdensome tax. Nay, I am ready to increase the tax, if it can be shown that by so doing I should proportionally increase the bounty. My complaint is, that my honourable and learned friend doubles, triples, quadruples, the tax, and makes scarcely any perceptible addition to the bounty.
I'm tempted to rest my case, but I won't because while he has smacked the "infinite" provision above he did not address the current solution and the life plus X plan gets a very specific kicking in his second speech:It must surely, Sir, be admitted that the protection which we give to books ought to be distributed as evenly as possible, that every book should have a fair share of that protection, and no book more than a fair share. It would evidently be absurd to put tickets into a wheel, with different numbers marked upon them, and to make writers draw, one a term of twenty-eight years, another a term of fifty, another a term of ninety. And yet this sort of lottery is what my noble friend proposes to establish. I know that we cannot altogether exclude chance. You have two terms of copyright; one certain, the other uncertain; and we cannot, I admit, get rid of the uncertain term. It is proper, no doubt, that an author's copyright should last during his life. But, Sir, though we cannot altogether exclude chance, we can very much diminish the share which chance must have in distributing the recompense which we wish to give to genius and learning. By every addition which we make to the certain term we diminish the influence of chance; by every addition which we make to the uncertain term we increase the influence of chance. I shall make myself best understood by putting cases. Take two eminent female writers, who died within our own memory, Madame D'Arblay and Miss Austen. As the law now stands, Miss Austen's charming novels would have only from twenty-eight to thirty-three years of copyright. For that extraordinary woman died young: she died before her genius was fully appreciated by the world. Madame D'Arblay outlived the whole generation to which she belonged. The copyright of her celebrated novel, Evelina, lasted, under the present law, sixty-two years. Surely this inequality is sufficiently great—sixty-two years of copyright for Evelina, only twenty-eight for Persuasion. But to my noble friend this inequality seems not great enough. He proposes to add twenty- five years to Madame D'Arblay's term, and not a single day to Miss Austen's term. He would give to Persuasion a copyright of only twenty-eight years, as at present, and to Evelina a copyright more than three times as long, a copyright of eighty- seven years. Now, is this reasonable? See, on the other hand, the operation of my plan. I make no addition at all to Madame D'Arblay's term of sixty-two years, which is, in my opinion, quite long enough; but I extend Miss Austen's term to forty-two years, which is, in my opinion, not too much. You see, Sir, that at present chance has too much sway in this matter: that at present the protection which the State gives to letters is very unequally given. You see that if my noble friend's plan be adopted, more will be left to chance than under the present system, and you will have such inequalities as are unknown under the present system. You see also that, under the system which I recommend, we shall have, not perfect certainty, not perfect equality, but much less uncertainty and inequality than at present.
By grasping both economics and the tendency of writers to improve as they age Macaulay makes it clear that having a longer copyright term on a writer's earlier works than his later ones in counter productive. If copyright is supposed to reward the value a writer produces then surely his later works, which are generally better than his earlier ones, should receive a longer term. But under "life plus X" schemes the opposite occurs.22 May 2007 Blog Home : All May 2007 Posts : Permalink
22 May 2007 Blog Home : All May 2007 Posts : Permalink
Lebanon is home to more than 350,000 Palestinian refugees, many of whom fled or left their homes when Israel was created in 1948.
If they fled in 1948 they must be at least 59 years old this year. Since I don't recall any reports of a mass crawl by Palestinian toddlers to escape the Israelis in 1948 it seems likely that many were older than this and thus they must be of pensionable age. Oddly enough the pictures seem to depict a rather younger looking set of people, could the Palestinians have found some wonder anti-aging cure?Not since the war - yes, the Lebanese civil war that we are all still trying to forget - have I heard this many bullets cracking across the streets of a Lebanese city.
This is a surprise, last year Mr Fisk seemed to be concerned that some dastardly Israelis were massacring all and sundry. Or was it merely that the Israelis only shot their bullets in villages not cities? Mr Fisk does wonder whether it was all a bit of an overreaction apparently. A terror group of some 300 men, $1500 stolen. Chicken feed. Surely not worth the massive overreaction by the Lebanese government?"We are going to continue fighting until the last shot. There will not be another Jenin massacre," he said, referring to an Israeli assault on a refugee camp in the West Bank in 2002.
Since the Jenin "massacre" involved the deaths of about 55 palestinians, mostly terrorists it is not quite clear what this statement means. Maybe it implies that this will be a real massacre instead of a fake one? Or that more that 56 Fatah al Islam fighters are going to die? or?