Terri Schiavo's parents, in conjunction with the National Urban Policy Action Council, a Michigan-based nonprofit whose mission is to "promote fiscally responsible compassionate conservative public policies," have declared Mar. 31 "Terri Schiavo Day."

What are we commemorating? Terri Schiavo Day is a "celebration of the 'Culture of Life' as well as celebrating the woman who sacrificed her life for this cause."

Terri Schiavo "sacrificed her life" for the Culture of Life? More correctly, she was taken off of life support after it was determined that she was brain dead, despite the wishes of her parents, who had no say in the matter, and despite the wrongful intervention of the U.S. Congress, the Conservative Christians of which tried to use Terri Schiavo's case to lobby for their Conservative Christian constituents.

Recall also that Bill Frist, a doctor, diagnosed Terri Schiavo as not brain dead after merely watching a videotape of her. He later said that he never did such a thing, despite the fact that he is on record as having done it. After her death, Terri's brain was autopsied and it was determined that much of it -- including her occipital lobe, which is responsible for vision -- had died, making a recovery impossible.

The insidious inference of the Culture of Life is that any life is a good life, even if that life is one of vegetation, paralysis, constant pain. Conservative Christians who have no idea what it is like to live a life in constant pain pass judgment upon those who do live their lives in pain or coma, insisting that just being alive is a gift and that it is not their place to throw away what God gave them. The people in constant pain or coma, if they're able, have radically different stories to tell. Theirs are not stories filled with joy at waking up each morning, thankful to be alive, but stories of misery, stories of depression and anger, stories filled with a desire to die and be over with it.

Terri Schiavo Day is a celebration of passing judgment upon others without knowing what it's like to be in their places. It's a celebration of one group of people handing down morality to everyone else in a display of ignorant patronization. To usurp Terri Schiavo's name and memory for political gain and to suggest that she would rather have lived as an empty, blind, brain-dead shell than a thinking, feeling human being is monstrous.

Posted by Mark at 3:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Remember two years ago, when Marvel, creator of Spider-Man, X-Men, and a bunch of other comic book characters, sued NCSoft, maker of the MMPORPG City of Heroes? Marvel alleged that players of City of Heroes were creating superheroes that were infringingly close to characters copyrighted by Marvel. The case was thrown out when it was discovered that Marvel was creating Marvel-like characters and then complaining that the game allowed the creation of such characters. Since no actual damage could be demonstrated, the case was thrown out.

Now, Marvel wants, in the words of Cory Doctorow, to continue putting ideas "in a lock-box to which it will control the key." In 1981, Marvel and DC Comics jointly filed to trademark the word "super hero." If this isn't the most asinine thing I've read so far this year, then it's pretty close. No one has really discovered this fact until now, when Marvel's press releases for a "science of super heroes" exhibit at the California Science Museum in Los Angeles contained the ubiquitous "TM" after the word "super heroes."

A Los Angeles Times op-ed points out why this is a terrible idea:

In trademark law, the more unusual a term, the more it qualifies for protection. We would have no quarrel with Marvel and DC had they called their superheroes "actosapiens," then trademarked that. But purely generic terms aren't entitled to protection, at least in theory. The reason is simple: Trademarks restrict speech, and to put widely used terms under private control is an assault on our language.

Once a trademark is granted, it remains in effect until someone proves to the feds that the term has lost its association with a specific brand, as happened with "cellophane" and "linoleum." That's why Johnson & Johnson sells "Band-Aid brand adhesive bandages," not simply Band-Aids(TM).

Why is a word trademarked? So that people will associate a particular word with a particular company or product and buy more of that product. This gives the company incentive to create more of this product, which is theoretically good for everyone.

Marvel is doing no such thing. It is using its legal leverage to shut out competitors:

The government's action means that any company wishing to market a comic book, graphic novel or related item with any variation of "super hero" in the name or title must get permission from Marvel and DC. Dan Taylor, the Costa Mesa-based creator of the "Super Hero Happy Hour" comic, learned about this absurdity two years ago when he was contacted by lawyers for Marvel and DC, prompting him to rename his series to the more pedestrian "Hero Happy Hour."

Patents, trademarks, and copyrights are granted to give an artist an incentive to continue producing art or inventions by giving him a monopoly on producing that art or those inventions. But corporations see copyrights, patents, and trademarks as doing something else: instead of innovating or competing in the "free market" that these corporations love to talk about, they get the government to step in and shut down their competition for them.

Take Lexmark, for example. Lexmark charges way too much for toner cartridges. So, another company steps in and takes advantage of Lexmark's poor business model and offers to refill toner cartridges for cheaper than Lexmark would. In a free market economy, Lexmark would have to lower the price of its toner cartridges if it wanted to stay competitive. But in a United States where ridiculous laws like the DMCA exist, Lexmark can call up the government and order its competition to shut down. How? Because the other company is infringing on a copyright held by Lexmark regarding a piece of software in the toner cartridge. Instead of sucking it up and changing an old-and-busted business model, Lexmark uses the law to stifle competition and continues using an old-and-busted business model. It's easier and cheaper to stifle than to innovate.

So it goes with Marvel and DC Comics. If you want superheroes, you have to come to us. Anything else isn't the same. The theory is that a comic without a "super hero" is somehow a comic of lesser quality; since only Marvel and DC can legally use the word "super hero," then anything that is not Marvel or DC is somehow of lesser quality. This is a horrible misuse of trademarks and I hope that someone takes Marvel and DC to court to shut down this blatant disregard for art, the law, and the public domain.

Posted by Mark at 12:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The subsidiary of Interpublic Group that I would work for, McCann-Erickson, has offices around the country, but its audio/visual studio is in San Francisco. One of the things that interested my boss was my voice acting. He said that sometimes they use employees in commercials and advertisements, and I might have the opportunity to do voice acting in commercials made by McCann-Erickson.

It's my big break!

This space will soon contain my musings on How to Get a Job.

Posted by Mark at 11:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

After months of searching, I finally found a real job, not one in which I'd be dubiously employed. I've been offered a job as a Desktop Support Analyst with The Interpublic Group of Companies, a conglomeration of international advertising and PR agencies.

Posted by Mark at 1:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Isaac Hayes, the voice of Chef on South Park, is leaving the show, reports BBC News.

Hayes, a proponent of Scientology, was apparently upset by South Park's ridicule of Scientology, the ridiculous religion founded by science fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard.

Matt Stone, South Park's co-creator, makes it appear as though Hayes is being hypocritical: "In 10 years and over 150 episodes of South Park, Isaac never had a problem with the show making fun of Christians, Muslim, Mormons or Jews. He got a sudden case of religious sensitivity when it was his religion featured on the show."

Posted by Mark at 5:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

On Friday, two disturbing news stories appeared. These stories should make privacy and accountability types shake in their boots.

The first story is about a new bill that is going to be introduced in the Senate. The bill would make it more illegal to disclose the existence of top-secret government programs -- for example, President Bush's illegal, warrantless, poorly-justified wiretapping program. Whoever disclosed this information may have broken the law, but the whistleblower was breaking the law so as to inform the American people about an even bigger incident of someone breaking the law. Only a few Republicans are outraged that someone revealed the existence of a clandestine spying program. The rest of us are more concerned with bigger things -- namely, the existence of a clandestine spying program.

The bill's chief author is Ohio senior senator Mike DeWine. According to The Washington Post, via the Associated Press, which saw a draft of the legislation, the bill is vague in that it makes no distinction between programs that affect national security and programs that don't. Admittedly, I haven't seen the draft legislation, so I'll add as a caveat that the above interpretation is the Associated Press's, not mine.

Next disturbing story: despite the criticisms of security experts, the US Department of State has gone ahead with its plan to include RFID chips in new US passports. The RFID chips will contain all of the information included on the passport's title page, plus a digitized photo of the passport holder. Here's the kicker: there's little or no security in the system. Security experts asked for the smallest concession of a foil-lined cover to prevent the passport from being read clandestinely at a distance (aluminum foil would block the radio signal). Anyone with an RFID reader would be able to stand several feet away and read the information on your passport. Despite your best attempts to be incognito, your passport would identify you as an American ("No, I'm Canadian!") and thus make you a prime target for robbery or kidnapping:

But civil liberties and privacy groups are uneasy about the formation of biometric information databases on US citizens and concerned that identity-theft rings, foreign government agents or even terrorist groups could "skim" information from the RFID chips or "eavesdrop" on the communication between official readers and the microchips.

But as it turns out, the United Nations' group that handles international passport standards wanted the passport to be readable at a distance. Whaaa? Why on Earth would they want the passport to be readable at a distance? That's a huge security problem that will ultimately cause more harm than good, as it would allow the same access to both people who should be able to read passports and people who shouldn't. A foil-lined passport would mean that the passport holder would have to consent to a reading of the RFID chip by opening the passport, meaning it would not be read unless he wanted it to be. A foil-lined passport would also mean that the person reading the passport would have to come into physical contact with the passport holder, ensuring that the passport couldn't be read from several yards away (despite what the US government says, or may say, RFID chips can be read from a considerable distance). We also don't know what kind of encryption scheme is being used in the passports. It could be as simple as cleartext -- meaning that there is no encryption and the data is sent to the RFID reader as it appears on the chip, allowing anyone to intercept the communication and read it.

Posted by Mark at 10:43 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The New York Times reports today that scoring errors in thousands of SATs have led some to question the validity of the tests.

It's about freaking time!

The SAT measures little or nothing. It's a test of reasoning skills that presents itself as something more. The stated purpose of the SAT is to accurately predict the first-year college grades of the test-taker, but studies have shown that the SAT's predictions are unreliable. For example, as a generality, men score better than women on the SAT, but women receive higher grades their first year in college than men do. This fact in itself should cause anyone and everyone to question why we still use the SAT -- or any other standardized test -- in college admissions. It boils down to two things:

1. Money. The SAT is administered by The College Board, an arm of the powerful Electronic Testing Service (ETS), which runs pretty much every standardized test in the country. The SAT's biggest rival is the ACT, administered by a rival company. Some major colleges and universities switched to the ACT a few years back because it doesn't pretend to be an objective test of objective reasoning. The ACT knows that it's a test of what you have learned in school, and that's what it's supposed to measure. There are Algebra II problems on the ACT, and if you don't know Algebra II, then you won't do well on the questions that require Algebra II knowledge. In 2005, ETS introduced the "new" SAT in its March test administration after its largest client, the University of California system, threatened to switch to the ACT for college admissions of the SAT wasn't made more relevant. Analogies were out; essays were in. ETS spends a lot of money on phony statistical studies to make it appear as though its tests are actually measuring something. And why not? If ETS admitted that its tests were biased (no more racial bias; in studying the SAT -- which was my job this summer and fall -- I found more of a geographical bias than anything else) and unreliable, the company would fall apart. Imagine if thousands of students weren't paying $50 every year to take the SAT (and some students take the test more than once in a calendar year). That's a lot of lost revenue.
2. Sheer Size. Huge state schools like University of Michigan (the largest public university in the country, I believe) and Ohio State University (the second-largest public university, I think) need some way of reducing its applicant pool every year. Admissions employees can't possibly look through the thousands and thousands of applications individually, so they need something to reduce the size. In comes the SAT, which provides a handy number that stands in for "aptitude" or something like that. If OSU or U of M specifies that it will cut off applicants below a certain score, that makes its life easier. The theory is that those schools don't want students who will have poor first-year grades, but the SAT doesn't reliably measure first-year grades, so the point is moot. In any security system, a false positive means that the system isn't working. The SAT is a security system because it's trying to control access to something, and its criterion for access is the composite SAT score. What if ETS released a study showing that terrorism was linked to SAT scores? The higher the score, the lower the probability that a person would blow something up. So, we'd have people taking SATs before they boarded planes. This is a more obvious example of a security system in action, and it's ridiculous. The SAT controlling access to colleges is just as ridiculous and meaningless, but we don't think it's so ridiculous because we've accepted it as "normal." The SAT is a way of restricting access to a scarce resource, and that's fine. But the problem is that the SAT doesn't restrict that access to the people it says it's going to restrict access to. Plenty of smart people are shut out of the system because they don't take tests well. Plenty of dumb people learn to circumvent the system because of test preparation companies <cough>. Like Bruce Schneier says, any person can invent a system so secure that he can't figure out how to get past it. For years, ETS claimed the SAT couldn't be cracked, but in 1981, The Princeton Review figured it out. Now many other companies have followed. Test preparation is an industry. We should be concerned about this.

And now we found out that kids are losing, in some cases, 400 points due to errors caused by someone else. 400 points on the new test (for those of you who aren't familiar with the new test) is about 266 points on the old test. This can be the difference between getting into a college and being rejected from a college. We're talking life-altering stuff, here.

And the appeals process for the SAT isn't easy. And since you're not permitted to remove any exam materials from the room, it's not like you can prove that something was scored badly. You'd have to wait until you received your score report three weeks later and noticed that a correct answer was marked incorrect, in which case, you'd have to go through a lengthy appeals process. During the time this is happening, you're also applying to colleges, and they're not going to sit and wait while you appeal your SAT score.

With the rise of standardized testing standing in for intelligence, aptitude, or learning, we must question machine-scored results. Machines are not infalliable, and in some cases, the supposed infalliabiltiy of those machines means that people don't go to the colleges they should, people don't graduate from high school, and presidents are dubiously elected.

Posted by Mark at 10:19 AM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

Line-item veto

President Bush reiterated on Monday his call for the line-item veto. You'll recall that Bush mentioned the line-item veto in his State of the Union speech in January, leading many of us to ask, in the way that kids do these days, "WTF?!"

The Supreme Court ruled in in 1998 that the line-item veto -- the ability of a president to veto portions of legislation without vetoing the whole bill -- was unconstitutional, since it allowed the president to effectively rewrite legislation, giving him the powers of a legislator. The Constitution says that legislative authority is vested only in Congress and in no one else. Congress also does not have the authority to delegate its legislative responsibility to anyone else. Since Congress's powers are enumerated, Congress only has a power if the Constitution says it does. Omission does not constitute endorsement within the Constitution.

The line-item veto also violated another part of Article I of the Constitution, which specifies that the president may perform only two actions when presented with a bill: "sign it" into law or "return it" to the house of Congress that it came from. Again, the omission of a possible action does not constitute an implicit approval of that action.

Bush, though, insists that his new line-item veto proposal will pass the constitutional test (even though that's impossible, as the line-item veto itself is inherently unconstitutional). He also insists, however irrelevantly, that 43 state governors have line-item veto authority, which means that the U.S. president should have it, too.

High court says 'yes' to military recruiters

Monday was also the day when the Supreme Court ruled on the controversial Rumsfeld v. FAIR, chronicled in a previous entry. The Court unanimously decided that it was permissible for the federal government to deny certain higher educations funds to universities that didn't allow military recruiters the same access to campus it allowed to other kinds of recruiters.

While I had hoped that the Court would see the Solomon Amendment as a violation of freedom of expressive association, seven justices (Alito doesn't count because he didn't hear oral arguments in the case, and O'Connor doesn't count because she is no longer on the court) felt that there was no such issue. Chief Justice Roberts, writing the opinion, focused on the Solomon Amendment's requirement that universities offer equal access to both military and civilian recruiters: "Compelling a law school that sends e-mails for other recruiters to send one for a military recruiter is simply not the same as forcing a student to pledge allegiance to the flag." Thus the issue is not one of compelled speech, but of universities playing by their own rules.

The Court also rejects a comparison between this case and Boy Scouts of America v. Dale, which I -- wrongly, apparently -- said was similar to this case. If freedom of expressive association is discounted, then the conclusion reached in Dale is a moot point.

Also, seen from the point of view of the military, it is the university that is impacting the military's freedom of speech. The university provides resources for civilian recruiters (providing recruiters with access to receptions, including them in interviews), but not for military recruiters because it disagrees with the military's message. A public university, as an extention of Congress, cannot discriminate among speech it likes and speech it does not in providing equal access to resources.

South Dakota will probably challenge Roe

Now that Alito is on the Court, anti-abortion types are getting pumped for a challenge to Roe v. Wade. South Dakota's governor signed into law on Monday a bill outlawing abortions in South Dakota. The law is in flagrant violation of Roe, which is the point. Anti-abortionists are foaming at the mouth with hope that the law will be challenged in court, and will eventually arrive at the U.S. Supreme Court. Now, with Alito there, a possibility exists that Roe could be reversed and the Religious Right will have completed their transaction with George W. Bush: "Make me president, and I'll appoint justices who will overturn Roe v. Wade."

The South Dakota law makes an exception only to save the life of the mother, but makes abortion illegal in every other instance, including rape or incest.

Posted by Mark at 12:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

An Italian design group called Molleindustria has produced the McDonald's video game. Using Flash, they've created a SimCity-style representation of the McDonald's corporate structure. You must oversee grain and soy production in, cow production, store management, and corporate marketing. The game is clearly anti-McDonald's and is designed to demonstrate how corrupt and evil capitalism is (like most Europeans, these Italians are probably socialists).

Some of the evil capitalist things you can do in the game are:

• Demolish a native village in South America to create more land for cow pasture or grain
• Use genetically-modified soy to increase soy output (soy feeds the cows when they're in the slaughterhouse)
• Add animal waste to the soy when they're isn't enough soy
• Add hormones to the soy to increase beef production
• Reward McDonald's store employees with a trite "badge" for doing a good job
• Use marketing techniques to get people to buy more product (by targeting children specifically, for example) or as damage control, such as when an obesity group claims your product causes obesity

The game is very pretty and very well-designed, but like most European socialist beliefs, I have to take issue with some things.

McDonald's doesn't add animal waste to its feed ("shit" is specifically mentioned in the tutorial). Why would animal waste be nutritious? It's toxic and it doesn't contain any nutrients. Someone at Molleindustria thought this would be a good way to gross people out ("Horrors! McDonald's puts animal shit in animal feed? That's disgusting!") and encourage them not to buy McDonald's, but it just doesn't make sense. Corporations may do horrible things, but only when it makes sense.

That word "genetically modified" is here again. Despite no evidence whatsoever to support their claims, European socialists hate genetically-modified crops, which they call "Frankenfoods." I don't even know what they think is going on when it comes to GM foods: do they think we're creating a race of super-plants? Do they think we're putting mind-control serum into the plants? No, they're just being reactionary, because when a multinational corporation does anything, it is necessarily bad, especially when a multinational corporation messes with Mother Nature. But did anyone mention to these people that we have been genetically modifying food -- by splicing cuttings from plants together -- for thousands of years?

On an economic level, genetically-modified foods increase output and lower costs because you have to plant less. You can engineer plants that are more yielding and more resistant to pests, meaning that you cut down on pesticide use (wait a second, I thought you people didn't like pesticides!) and you can make more money with the same amount of land use.

Second, when it comes to growing food, socialists love organic. It's somehow "better" than regular food growth, because it doesn't use pesticides, and that makes it more "natural." Well, this concept of "nature" is just as fabricated as the old Romantic notion that farmers and poor people are more virtuous than everyone else. Because organically-grown food doesn't use pesticides, there's more crop lost to pests. This means that, to compensate for the lost crop and generate the same yield as non-organic crops, organic growers must grow approximately four times as much as non-organic growers, and this means about four times as much land use. If the world were convinced by the organic argument, then a lot of the world's population would starve. We don't even have enough arable land on planet Earth to allow for organic production. Either the "organic all the way" people (and by this, I mean the people who want to impose organic growth on everyone else, not the organic people who prefer it for themselves) haven't thought much about the issue, or they want a good portion of the population to starve and die. This latter suggestion would be most consistent with the idea of "sustainability," which involves having a much smaller population than we do now. In that case, the organic movement would be very sinister, as it would be encouraging people to die in order to promote sustainable growth.

Third, what does "organic" mean, anyway? Like I said, it's a fabrication. Human beings have been using pesticides since they first starting growing crops over five thousand years ago. They used pesticides because pests were eating their crops and they had to do something about it! (Please read the last sentence with a Lewis Black inflection on the italicized words.) Human beings have the capability to solve problems and use technology. Are we not supposed to do these things? If so, we would have been killed by lions thousands of years ago. There is a difference, certainly, between using a careful application of pesticides to control pests while keeping crops safe and coating everything we see in DDT. Many of these European socialists, I feel, can't see the distinction. All pesticides, to them, are DDT. There is no middle ground. In this way, they're a lot like neoconservatives. Same style of argument.

Problem is, I have to deal with this all the time in Berkeley, since there are a lot of European-style people there. Lousy hippies.

Posted by Mark at 12:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

If you're Catholic, then Lent has begun, and you've decided that you're going to give something up for the next forty days. If you're Mark, then it's Wednesday.

Yesterday, to celebrate Mardi Gras, I went to a picnic at People's Park in Berkeley. The picnic was organized by a local chapter of Food Not Bombs, a worldwide organization that promotes peace and social change by providing free vegetarian meals at protests and other events.

Yes, vegetarian. Welcome to Berkeley, where everything is vegetarian.

The picnic is also sponsored by The One True Church of the Great Green Frog, which organizes a Mardi Gras parade in Berkeley every year. Members of the Church (or even non-members) dress up in costume, construct floats, and march through Berkeley. The parade events began at 6 AM with a pancake breakfast, after which they paraded around the city and ended up at People's Park around 2:30 PM. After a nice lunch courtesy of Food Not Bombs, the parade was off again, ending somewhere on Sacramento Street at sundown.

Okay, so they're hippies. But they're also social activists. The ones who aren't crazy, anyway. Not all people in Berkeley fall into the hippie stereotype. Some of them, like the woman who was yelling in People's Park about peace and love and then decided to take her top off and yell about peace and love, do fall into that stereotype. But by and large, they're really nice, interesting people who want to have a good time and be as inclusive as they can.

Posted by Mark at 12:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)