mosque

This debate is so silly. No reason not to build. I will probably contribute to building it, in fact.

The inability to distinguish Islamist terrorism from Islam, is sad. Exvery religion has extremists, and that definitely includes Christianity.

I hate the phrase "it's a slap in the face."

By the way, 2 blocks in Manhattan is a long distance.

David Brooks column

Last paragraph from his latest column (3/11/10):

In a sensible country, people would see Obama as a president trying to define a modern brand of moderate progressivism. In a sensible country, Obama would be able to clearly define this project without fear of offending the people he needs to get legislation passed. But we don’t live in that country. We live in a country in which many people live in information cocoons in which they only talk to members of their own party and read blogs of their own sect. They come away with perceptions fundamentally at odds with reality, fundamentally misunderstanding the man in the Oval Office.

Goog Books and Copyright

Maybe we need to start with the fact that searchable books is an amazing thing. We've had online articles for years, but to make hundreds of years of millions of books searchable is a feat. When writing my master's thesis several years ago, I was able to find additional important information on a person central to my thesis because I was able to search netLibrary.

Searchable and readable online books might take away a library's final reason to force people to visit us in order to do research. But library as place (ok, and internet access) is now our central reason d'être anyway.

Google is actually trying to broaden our ridiculously narrow interpretations of Fair Use. They are saying orphaned works (in copyright, but not in print) can be scanned and parts be put online without the copyright holders express consent. It is the attempt to settle the issue that has caused the the worst problem with the settlement - the monitizing of these out of print books. It makes every book, maybe even line of every book, open for a possible lawsuit or a claim of copyright infringement.

A concern is that Google has such an advantage in the digital book market, that they will set high prices for libraries and individuals to purchase books or subscription packages. While this may be an issue, competition will grow and libraries have already started their own service: HathiTrust

We needed someone to stand up to the out of control copyright laws we now have in the United States. Lets hope Congress finally starts taking action in the opposite direction. Thank you, Google.

Campaign financing decision and judicial elections

While the new Supreme Court decision is disheartening, I think it again is another reminder of how important reform of judicial elections has become. I have always disliked electing judges like they are politicians - I hate the site of seeing judges raise money and campaign. Now that they can raise unlimited money from organizations and corporations, I think it really undermines the integrity of our third branch.

Let's stop all judicial elections!

massachusetts and health care

I don't get it. Mass has nearly universal health care. Why didn't anyone argue that Mass. residents costs would go down - maybe costs for nearly universal health care would be spread around the country.

In general, people perceived the whole health care bill as covering more people, and nothing about reducing costs. Of course, most of the costs are hidden by employers. My employer sends us a fancy brochure each January telling us how much we made, and they include the total cost of our health care. I see literally $10k more than my actually salary listed.

Most voters are probably people who already have health care.