Xark!

If the NSA freaks you out & you still use Google, you are an idiot

A few years ago, back when I was devoting much of my energy to developing semantic journalism products that seriously interested absolutely no one in the newspaper industry, there was one thought that could jolt me right out of any nice nap: The other word for the new media business model I was describing was "surveillance."

Because here's the thing: Collecting information is easy, traditional, and essentially inconsequential. Connecting information, however, is the radical act that will either empower or destroy us.

So back in 2010-11, when I was arguing in public that we should consider the atomic unit of journalism to be the fact, not the story, and the rest of the industry was furiously busy not noticing anything I said,, the worry that consumed much of my going-to-sleep time wasn't whether I'd find investors, but whether my hypothetical machine -- Fintann -- would wind up turning into Frankenstein's monster. 

The lesson that should be learned by anyone who spends any amount of time staring into the abyss of 21st century networked informatics is that information is not power. Garden variety information is just static. Only connected, useful and predictive information is power. And the richer you make it, the more authoritative and complete your hyper-connected data archive grows, the more absolute your power becomes. Fintann didn't get built, and that's not necessarily a bad thing. From what I've seen of newspaper executives, I don't know that giving them that kind of power would have a civic good.

So when I hear people arguing about The New York Times editorial stance on Edward Snowden, or read civic-minded freakouts about the National Security Agency violating the civil liberties of "ordinary Americans," I turn away in frustration. 

Sure, we need to be concerned about the power we give to government. Duh. Glad we're finally having that conversation. 

But the public media freakout over NSA data collection misses the primary point of those systems entirely: The NSA's email metadata campaign is designed to efficiently collect and then discard information. Not because the NSA is a civic-minded agency that wants to protect our theoretical privacy, but because your personal email isn't the target of the fucking machine. Your mundane metadata is the shit that NSA machine operators have to shovel in order to find covert organizations.

Granted, at any moment, any one of us could become a target of that machine. But if you're focused solely on the abstract possibility of abuse, you're likely missing the big-picture understanding of what that NSA machine was engineered to do in the first place.

The NSA sucks in massive amounts of metadata because it's searching for a subtle signal (some indication of covert terrorist communication) in a vast sea of static (like me emailing a fantasy football trade offer to my buddy). Got it? The system isn't designed to care about you and your private data. It's designed to efficiently eliminate anything it determines to be not-bad-guy. 

Now, compare that mission to the private informatic projects being conducted by Google, or Facebook, or Target, or Amazon, or your local grocery store's rewards card. Because Target isn't looking for terrorists. It's looking for every last dollar it can squeeze out of you. 

Google knows where you are, what you search for, what you bought. It knows what porn you stream, what political rhetoric you consume, and -- through G+ -- it can compare that knowledge to your social graph. Facebook is doing the same thing, in increasingly annoying ways. Target uses informatics and inference, based on massive data sets compiled from your shopping and mine, to spot women who've just learned that they're pregnant, and to send those women special offers and coupons for expectant mothers. 

Why does Kroger give you a break on the price of orange juice for using its rewards card? Because those marginal discounts you recieve are nothing compared to the value of your data to a company that's trying to sell you and those like you more and more stuff. 

And there's nothing wrong with that. In some ways it's nice to have people and companies that anticipate my needs, remember my birthday, treat me like a trusted and valued member of a community. 

Until the inevitable day when there is something wrong with it. 

Today we're worried about an NSA program that looks big and scary, but really isn't . But the day is coming when corporate control over our information will produce a civil liberties crisis that will make our NSA worries look quaint by comparison That day will come because that day must come, because in the same way that atomic fission was neither good nor bad, smart, unregulated, authoritative networks are neither good nor bad.

The problem with humans isn't that we're inheriently good or bad, it's that eventually some greedy asshole turns everything we learn into a weapon.

So if you're talking about the NSA in the context of 20th century notions of privacy, stop. And if you're making a big wailing deal about government intrusion via the collection of our metadata, prove you're not a nut and devote at least 75 percent of that outrage toward the larger threat: The private, unregulated, unreported, unseen world of corporate Big Data.  

I am convinced that connected information is ultimately going to be a boon to humanity, and that it's entirely within our power to write rules for the collection, use and control of the "public" information we all contribute to the commons. But to prevent that power from turning on us, we simply must start a conversation that relates to the actual threats, conveyed in the context of their actual potential for abuse. 

Of course, that's not going to happen. But every now and then I like to shout important things into the void, just to heard that echo that says "Forget about him! He doesn't know what he's talking about!"

Reid, racism and ... oh dear Gawd

I think I get it. The "uproar" over Sen. Harry Reid's "racist" statements about President Obama is a calculated episode of Republic rage designed to assert a passionate proxy claim: that Republicans have for years caught media hell for statements about black people, and now they want the same standard applied to Democrats. 

So let's set aside Reid's remarks and deal with the GOP grievance for which this controversy is a stand-in. Does the mainstream media apply a double standard on race when it comes to Republicans and Democrats?

Answer: I think so.

But here's the difficult part for Republicans. It's not a context-free double standard, and it's probably not going to go away until party leaders establish a sustained public track record of confronting the racist-wacko wing of the GOP. There are clearly party officials who find this corner of the conservative base frightening and offensive, but political calculus has long required that they trend lightly on their neo-Bircher constituents.

Neither can media attitudes (not to mention public skepticism) about Republican racial credibility be laid entirely at the feet of a few closet Klansmen. Nixon's "Southern Strategy" was a successful racist gambit. Lee Atwater felt so bad about his role in perpetuating that era that his conscience compelled him to a deathbed confession of his political sins. George H.W. Bush gave us Willie Horton, and his son won the Republican nomination in 2000 with the help of push polls in South Carolina that insinuated that John McCain had fathered an illegitimate black child. Earlier this year a majority of Republicans believed that ACORN had stolen the election for Obama. And so on.

Is it fair to tar all Republicans with this brush? No. Think back to the conservatives who confronted the extremists at various campaign rallies in 2008, or even to McCain trying to correct statements made by audience members at town hall gatherings. I'm no fan of Michael Steele, but I certainly don't think he's a black-on-black racist. 

So if you Republicans want an apology for Trent Lott, here's mine. Lott shouldn't have had to resign his Senate leadership post for those comments he made to Strom Thurmond. Dumb? Yes. Firing offense? No. I suspect Lott was just trying to say something nice on the man's100th birthday and probably wasn't thinking too clearly about the fact that he had just publicly endorsed an explicitly racist campaign platform from 1948. Mistakes were made.

But here's the part I wish more Republicans would get. Lott was sacrificed for your party's collective sins since the middle of the 20th century, and the sins of the father will continue to be visited on his children until you confront the cynical political calculus that keeps nine out of 10 black voters in the Democratic camp. 

The deep irony here is that in setting the racism bar so low for Reid, Steele and the Republicans are laying a trap for the next ill-equipped white guy from their party who says something quasi-stupid. As a liberal I can't say I'm upset about that, but my agenda here is pretty simple. In the same way that only Nixon could go to China, only the Republican Party can push the die-hard remnants of white racism out of the mainstream once and for all.

Consider it a practical quest. I sure wouldn't want to be known as the "white party" in a country with our current demographic trends.Not a good long-term branding solution.

*(For the record -- and so as not to hide behind the view-from-nowhere -- I don't consider what I read of Reid's remarks to be racist, or anything less than candid truth. But racism is, like obscenity, in the eye of the beholder... which is part of what makes it such a tiresome subject.)

In support of terrorism

These people are out of their minds, displaying the kind of fanaticism that goes beyond laughable and into the dangerous. Michael Scheuer, appearing on Fox News, tells Glenn Beck ""The only chance we have as a country right now is" for bin Laden to "detonate a major weapon" in U S. Yep, they are WISHING for Americans to die so that they can push their political agenda.

It's time for Republicans to call these people what they are and to distance themselves from such lunatics and a network that promotes them. Seriously, folks, come back to reality.

The betrayal of the Fourth Estate

I have attempted to be discreet on the decline and fall of the media empire, mostly because I am still in it. With layoffs and furloughs announced every quarter, the consequences of being brutally honest could be dire. But I am disgusted by the complete hypocrisy of the newspaper industry, whose leaders are staking a claim to the sacred art of journalism, as if it has sole rights to it. The assertion by newspaper executives that newspapers are the torch-bearers for a community (or global) moral and ethical center would be laughable, if it were not being used to cloak the greed of corporations that have enjoyed healthy profit margins for decades, all the while failing to invest in anything other than expanding their arrogance. 

These corporations profess it is their duty to hold the world to a higher standard but conveniently overlook their failure to substantively investigate major issues and their own increasing immersion in the very organizations they profess to watchdog. Three words. Yellow cake uranium. Need more? WMDs. Economic meltdown. Climate change. Want a book? Death by Journalism.   Into the Buzzsaw.

(Note to press: You are supposed to COVER politicos not hang out with them.)

The flu will test who we are

"Flu is a highly political issue, to put it mildly," Terry Jones wrote this morning, and that's what I'm going to talk about -- not the science of it. Because science is only part of what we'll be facing in the coming days.

Whether or not history records April 2009 as the genesis of a global pandemic, there are some things we can expect with near certainty: Rumors, reports, controversy, credibility gaps and fear. So please bear these things in mind and, if you agree with these ideas, help spread them. Because fear is a deadly virus, too, and just as networked media can help spread it, network media can also serve as an immune system response to fear IF WE KEEP OUR HEADS AND WORK TOGETHER.

McCain Admits "Republican" and "American" Not the Same Thing

I always knew this, but it's big of him to admit it, anyway.

(from MSNBC.com)

Tropic Thunder's Defensive Politicking

Perhaps some of you have been following the controversy surrounding the film "Tropic Thunder." And it's not as if the cast and film crew were unaware that their work would raise some eyebrows, as their omnipresent media campaigning demonstrates. Robert Downey Jr's role as a white actor who dyes his skin to play a black soldier is discussed in just about every interview and set piece on the film that I've seen, with each focusing on how the point of the film is to mock Hollywood, not offend "real" people. And, given what I've seen of the film's reviews, their strategy seems to have worked. Stiller is given much credit for an entertaining film that turns Hollywood pompousness on its head, and Downey earns raves for following his Iron Man success with an iron-jawed, intentionally self-absorbed caricature. So, why is there so much controversy? Probably because the filmmakers and reviewers all anticipated the wrong controversy, and this error in judgment tells us a lot about the current state of identity politics and cultural politicking today.

What's scaring me today

A friend sent me this link to a minor, if interesting, piece:

"Federal agents may take a traveler's laptop or other electronic device to an off-site location for an unspecified period of time without any suspicion of wrongdoing, as part of border search policies the Department of Homeland Security recently disclosed....
 
DHS officials said that the newly disclosed policies — which apply to anyone entering the country, including US citizens — are reasonable and necessary to prevent terrorism...

We knew it was happening.  I'm glad they've finally admitted it.  It's a step in the right direction.  "Secret laws" are wrong and can too easily become evil.  (I do not use the word "evil" lightly.)

The US slipped across a line in the last few years.  Once upon a time the Constitution was honored in the breach nearly as much as in the maintenance.  You can argue that it even started off that way. 

The "line" crossed is that we're no longer even paying lip-service.

R.I.P. The US Bill of Rights.  c. 1789 - c. 2004.  215 years isn't a bad run.

One of the reasons I want Obama in office is that, despite the fact he's going to screw me in taxes and probably do significant damage by socializing many private programs (it's a Democratic Party view of life) *and* take my guns, I think McCain will try to go status quo on "civil liberties" (once called "civil rights").  I'm guessing Obama will be the best in that direction, and it *might* be enough to recover.  I want the full Latin:  "status quo ante bellum".  (No, not *that* far ante bellum, for all you Yankee readers reading far too much into this.)

I hope Obama's at least somewhat as idealistic and he wants to appear, and I think it would be good for our next President to be an ex-civil rights lawyer who comes at least partially from a culture on the wrong side of the power base.  He's more likely to think about how to limit the power base (not that any politician can be successful without participating in the power base).

McCain comes from a family tradition of trading individual rights for the security of the country (i.e. military service).   I think that's beyond a good thing -- that's a noble and laudable tradition.  All honor to him.  (I say that quite seriously -- no sarcasm at all.).  I like the idea of a Commander-in-Chief who's been there making the decisions.  He, personally, knows the cost of war better than most anyone else, certainly better than Obama.

Such tradition must, however, influence his thinking.  The problem with trading civil rights for security is that civil rights are not our income, they're our capital.  What happens when you spend your capital living day to day instead of investing?  That's right, eventually you have no capital left to spend and the bills still come in the mail. When you're flush in civil rights, such a trade might be reasonable. When you've built up a deficit you should stop spending -- that applies to civil rights just as much to dollars, and the Bush administration has run up quite a debt in both. 

I sure do miss the old Republican Party -- and by that I mean the goals of minimal Government, individual rights and responsibilities and leaving social activism to societies.  And yes, I do realize that what I miss is more mythology than history.  So what?  What's our current mythology?

I just hope our next President keeps the space program going so in a few hundred years people can get the hell out.

And last, I'll offer an apology:  I'm currently reading a dystopian post-H5N1/global cooling apocalyptic near-future SciFi novel right now, so perhaps I have an overly pessimistic view of things and certainly an overly cynical one.

I've got a bad feeling about this...

I'm generally a pretty optimistic guy, and there's a general logic to that attitude:  Things have pretty much always looked bad to some degree, yet things have, generally,  gotten better over time.  So you shut your eyes and you keep on walking and you whistle past the graveyard and then, you know -- the sun comes out.

But now a-days you look around, you do the math, and you realize: Holy shit, dude -- are we fucked?

I get the sense that this is one of those moments when things are much worse than "they" are letting on. Which makes me think: We need an "F-Scale."  Like, if stuff is just sorta screwed up, but things generally work and you can pretty much expect that you're going to be able to keep your job and your house and suicide bombers aren't going to move in next door and really downgrade your property values, that would be F-1.

And then an F-10 would be economic depression, the destruction of the Bill of Rights, civil war and environmental collapse. And so on.

So where does that put us? Because when the Feds are bailing out the banks and the President is giving the economy a "You're doin' a heckuva job, Brownie" pep-talk, and currency converters in Amsterdam stop exchanging dollars because their value is dropping so fast, that's got to be like an F-7.

And when we're five years into a botched, brutal war and still hoping that the latest strategy is someday going to give the Iraqis a chance to build a society that's stable enough to do simple shit like, say, provide electrical power to most of the grid for most of the day, that's at LEAST an F-8.

And then we've got a political campaign where the entire focus of the past few days has been a concerted, deliberate attempt to destroy an inspiring presidential candidate by endlessly looping out-of-context statements by his preacher?  At essentially the same time that the President of the United States of America is openly advocating TORTURE? And the media doesn't even think the torture veto is really all that NEWSWORTHY?

Where's the F-scale on THAT?

Answers, please, on a post card...

South Carolina Primary Numbers

So here's a few numbers from the South Carolina Democratic Primary. They are, of course, unofficial, and gleaned from sites such as CNN and Charleston.net:

Total number of votes cast
Dem Primary (1/26):     530,322 (54.5%)
GOP Primary  (1/19):     442,918 (45.5%)
Total:                                 973,240

87404 more voters went to the polls in the Democratic Primary than GOP primary. Yes, it was raining and cold on the 19th. It was overcast and cold on the 26th as well. In fact, as Dan and I walked to our polling place, it was sprinkling and windy and made my eyes water.

2004 Dem primary:      280000

Using the total number of votes in both primaries, here are some figures calculated by xark and rounded:
Percentage of total votes in both primaries:
Obama             30%
McCain            15%
Clinton          14%
Huckabee      13%
Edwards           9%

Another fun figure:
If you take the top two vote-getters in each  primary,  Obama and Clinton  for Dems and McCain and Huckabee for GOP, the Dems got 44% of the total  number of votes cast, compared to  28%  for the  Republicans. Interesting, if nothing else.