[Quote:]

I hope that Bertrand Russell, as he hoists a pint with Kurt Gödel and Alan Turing in some celestial pub, will enjoy discussing whether this sign is a member of the set of all quotations that are true of themselves:

[Quote:]

Senator Jim Webb’s “dwell time” amendment failed yesterday by a vote of 56-44.

Yes, it failed by garnering 12 more yes votes than no votes.

By now, though, most of us are used to seeing this sort of thing. “Everyone knows” that it takes 60 votes to pass anything in the Senate. Because that’s how many votes it takes to invoke cloture, and cloture is how you break a filibuster. Right?

Sure.

But that ain’t what’s happening.

And it’s why you’re not seeing headlines today declaring that Senate Republicans cravenly filibustered legislation that would have required that troops deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan get recovery time at home equal to the time spent in combat.

Such a requirement, by the way, is already a tremendous compromise. The Pentagon brass usually requires twice as much rest as deployment. But Webb’s compromise required only half that much rest. Still, Republicans said no. Our troops — including our “one weekend a month” National Guardsmen — must be required to spend more time in combat than out. So that the rest of us can all shop, watch TV, cut taxes, or take a “wide stance” if we feel like it.

So why aren’t the papers reporting on the Republican intransigence in the Senate? Why aren’t they telling everyone how they’re ordering troops stressed to the breaking point back into combat while they busy themselves smoothing their pocket squares? Why aren’t they publishing screaming headlines about the sheer gall of yesterday’s Republican filibuster?

Because there was no Republican filibuster. That’s why.

Instead, the reason the Webb amendment failed even though it got 56 votes was that Senators agreed by unanimous consent that the amendment should have to get 60 votes to pass, even without a filibuster.

But why would anyone agree to allow Republicans, who are already on pace to shatter all previous filibuster records, to stop an amendment this important and this sensible without even lifting a finger? And the question here is not just why anyone would allow it, but why everyone did. A single Senator could have put a stop to this simply by saying, “I object” when the unanimous consent request was made. Just one Senator.

Yet none did.

Not Harry Reid. Not Russ Feingold. Not Bernie Sanders.

Nobody.

And so the Webb amendment died quietly yesterday, allowing Republicans to enjoy all the obstructionist benefits of a filibuster, without having to stand up and tell Americans and their fighting men and women in the military exactly what they were doing. And not a moment was “wasted” on the “extended debate” that’s supposed to make up a filibuster.

Everyone just politely agreed that 56-44 would be a losing vote for America’s sons and daughters wearing the uniform in Iraq and Afghanistan. And they did it on national television. And America yawned, hit the snooze button, and slept in.

In the coming days, the Congress will be dealing with the appropriations bills for fiscal year 2008. President Bush has threatened to veto almost every single one of them, which would leave the United States without any spending authority come October 1. That’s ten days from now. The president says he’s going to veto everything, and we have ten days to see if he’s serious, decide what to do in case he is, and then figure out a way to get funding passed.

But hey, since those veto threats are pending, why not just agree to unanimous consent requests in both the House and the Senate that the appropriations bills will require a 2/3 vote to pass? Since they’re going to be vetoed, why not just spare poor President Bush the trouble and the wear and tear on his veto crayon, and agree up front that if a bill doesn’t pass with a veto-proof majority, it shouldn’t be considered passed at all?

Because that’s the logical extension of what happened yesterday. And the truth is, it makes no less sense. We don’t know that Bush has the will to veto these bills any more than we knew that Republicans had the will to filibuster the Webb amendment. And I mean really filibuster. Not wait out a one-day cloture petition, beat it, and then break for lunch. But really stand on their feet day in and day out, live on C-SPAN2, and tell America they think our troops should spend more time in combat, and their families should just shut up about it.

Until recently, cloture votes were the easy way out of a filibuster. Forty-one Senators had only to make their protest last long enough to make it to the cloture vote, beat it, and then bask in their victory as the majority pulled the “defeated” legislation from the floor and slunk away. But believe it or not, Senate Democrats have found an easier way to do this, and begin slinking even earlier.

Bravo.

If you’re curious about some techniques of spammers and the intersection between economics and spam, check out this talk by Ross Anderson at Google:

[Quote:]

Competition Commissioner ‘Steely’ Neelie Kroes hit back at US politicians who criticised this week’s verdict from the Court of First Instance.

On Monday the court roundly rejected Microsoft’s appeal of anti-trust charges and upheld the decision to fine the software giant €497m, forcing it to change its behaviour in Europe.

Thomas O Barnett, assistant attorney general at the Department of Justice, said the verdict would take some time to digest, but warned: “[This] may have the unfortunate consequence of harming consumers by chilling innovation and discouraging competition.”

His statement is here. Assorted US politicians made similar comments.

Kroes said: “I think it’s totally unacceptable that a representative of the US administration criticises an independent court of law outside its jurisdiction. It’s absolutely not done. The European Commission doesn’t pass judgment on rulings by US courts, and we expect the same degree of respect from US authorities for rulings by EU courts.”

[Quote:]

Peer-to-peer (P2P) poisoning company MediaDefender has sent a flurry of takedown notices and legal threats to P2P web sites that are facilitating the propagation of a 700MB archive of internal MediaDefender e-mail that was leaked onto the Internet this week. The e-mails, which were obtained by a group that calls itself MediaDefender-Defenders, reveal that the company attempted to deceive the public after the disclosure of its affiliation with the MiiVi site and was providing information about file-sharing network users to the New York State Attorney General’s office.

MediaDefender is now in damage control mode and hopes to slow the spread of the e-mails by intimidating P2P site operators.

[..]

The popular P2P site’s formal response to SMR&H is filled with caustic wit and considerable legal expertise. “If Mr. Gerber is truly as experienced in IP law as his bio claims he is,” asks the isoHunt administrator in his response, “why is it that he is incapable of composing a DMCA takedown notice as per USC Title 17 Section 512?” The isoHunt administrator explains that Gerber failed to adequately specify the allegedly infringing content as required by law. The administrator also helpfully provides a link to a valid sample complaint so that SMR&H will be less likely to send the improper information in their second attempt. The following is an excerpt of the isoHunt administrator’s response:

“This e-mail serves as a counter notification under USC Title 17 Section 512 (c)(3)(A)(iii) that you have failed to properly identifying links to content that allegedly infringes your copyright/trademark/rights (or, in this case, has something to do with really embarrassing trade secrets *and* employee social security numbers) AND you have failed to address your e-mail to the appropriate agent, namely copyright@isohunt.com, so I invite you and your clients to take a long walk off a short pier, since you and/or your clients might actually manage to NOT get something that simple wrong.”

In closing, the isoHunt administrator says that the he will comply with the request if it is properly submitted. “Despite us being located in Canada, if you do actually figure out how to compose a valid DMCA notice, we will honor it,” he concedes, “just as soon as we’re done laughing at you.”

Torrent site Meganova received an identical letter from SMR&H, but responded publicly and with a bit less civility. “Dearest little asstunnels, Let me start off by thanking you for your pitiful attempt to have your e-mails removed from the entire internet,” Meganova’s response says. “In case you haven’t noticed, this site is located in Europe (I hope you can point it out on a map) where your stupid copyright claims have no base. But fair is fair you guys did suffer over the past week so here’s bit of advice to you guys: F*** you! F*** you again! F*** you again and again and again!”

This article calls it “the US army’s” new weapon, but in a country where you get tasered for asking a politician a question, or for not having a library card, this is a very worrying development.

[Quote:]

The SCO Group, Inc., a leading provider of UNIX(R) software technology and mobile services, today announced it received a notice from The Nasdaq Stock Market indicating that the Company’s securities will be delisted from Nasdaq on September 27, 2007, pending an appeal.

Amazing, these guys are so delusional they still call themselves a “leading provider of Unix”….

Oh, and what an excellent moment to give yourself a pay rise:

[Quote:]

Item 5.02 Departure of Directors or Certain Officers; Election of Directors; Appointment of Certain Officers; Compensatory Arrangements of Certain Officers. On September 13, 2007, the Board of Directors (the “Board”) of The SCO Group, Inc. (the “Company”), approved an increase in the base salary of Ryan E. Tibbitts. Mr. Tibbitts’ base salary will be increased from $160,000 per year to $210,000 per year, effective as of September 3, 2007. In recognition of the significant contributions Mr. Tibbitts has made to the Company, the Board also approved a discretionary bonus of $50,000, net of taxes, to be paid to Mr. Tibbitts.

And how about this journalist:

[Quote:]

For four years, I’ve been covering a lawsuit for Forbes.com, and my early predictions on this case have turned out to be so profoundly wrong that I am writing this mea culpa.

[..]

I flew to Utah and interviewed their managers. I attended a SCO conference in Las Vegas and did more interviews. They told me all sorts of things, like they’d found a “smoking gun” that proved IBM was guilty, and that they were preparing to sue big Hollywood companies that use Linux server farms to make movies.

I reported what they said. Turns out I was getting played. They never produced a smoking gun. They never sued any Hollywood company.

[..]

The truth, as is often the case, is far less exciting than the conspiracy theorists would like to believe. It is simply this: I got it wrong. The nerds got it right.

SCO is road kill. Its lawsuit long ago ceased to represent any threat to Linux. That operating system has become far too successful to be dislodged. Someday soon the SCO lawsuits will go away, and I will never have to write another article about SCO ever again. I can’t wait.

[Quote:]

The other shoe has dropped in the Apple/NBC divorce. NBC announced plans to launch its own online video service this fall (which suggests to me that they’ve been working on the service for some time now — without a doubt they had this plan in their back pockets during their negotiations with Apple).

I can already tell you that the NBC store will suck because it does so much less (and, if NBC has their way, will eventually cost much more) than the iTunes store. The NY Times story describes it in these less-than-mouth-watering terms:

“The NBC service, called NBC Direct, will begin a testing period in
October with plans to be operational in November. The service will
allow customers to download full episodes of NBC shows for seven days
on Windows-based PCs. The file will expire after the seven days.”

[..]

Update: The Federal Government of News ran a second story about this with some more detail and some more humorous quotes about how scared the network is of nasty evil internet video pirates. This piece discloses NBC’s fantasy price point for video downloads ($4.99!), suggests that they’re going to support Macs and iPods Real Soon Now, and specifies that the free downloads will contain commercials that can’t be skipped. Just what I was hoping for.

And no doubt they’ll blame the inevitable failure on piracy…

[Quote:]

“The US market for smart phones has been mostly enterprise related, but Apple has jump started the consumer demand for smart phone,” he said in a chat earlier today at our offices. “Apple’s market share gains show that devices can make a difference,” said Panagrossi.

He believes now handset makers will start thinking about making interesting and innovative handsets available in the US. Hopefully some of them will be using Symbian’s mobile OS, commonly found in high-end Nokia (NOK) and Sony Ericsson (SNE) mobile phones.

The number of Symbian-based phones increased 44% to 34.6 million in the first six months of 2007 from 24 million in 1H 2006, with a quarter of those sales coming from Japan. The recent success of Nokia N95 and E-Series phones has also helped Symbian boost its revenues to about $172 million. It is not clear if the company turned a profit.

I’m mainly posting this for the graph:

Here’s what Stephen Fry has to say about the smartphone market:

[Quote:]

I could issue forth quires of intemperate fury on the subject of how bad internet account configuration is on the UIQ Sony Ericssons. It’s utterly pointless. Is there not one person at either Sony E or Symbian who themselves uses the phone and says “hang on, we could do this better”? That’s all it takes. Just one person to point at the Emperor and shout “nudie!” That’s why Apple is Apple, they have people there (and of course it comes from the top) who say - “woah, not good enough, not cool enough, not simple enough, not fun enough, not sexy enough, not clever enough, not useful enough”. The P1i is what happens when “oh, that’ll do” becomes the corporate motto. UIQ promised something, the actual GUI is reasonable, in fact quite delightful, but it needed refinement, it needed acceleration and it needed flair. Instead we’ve got a very, very slow device that eats power, is difficult to use in varying environments and frequently hangs and crashes. In a word unusable. And I can just hear them hiding behind the excuse of “price” and “sectors of the market” and other bullshit. What, Apple’s a bigger company than Sony? Got more muscle? What muscle it has got, it got from daring to be better. That was once true of Sony too. Of Ericsson I cannot speak …

Don’t these people get it?