Category: News

You may recall earlier this year that there was a fair bit of controversy when the White House started putting photos up on Flickr. Or, rather, there was controversy over the licensing. Everyone thought it was great that the White House would have its own Flickr channel and constantly post photos — but since Flickr only had certain licensing options that you could put on a photo, there was a problem. Even though the White House chose a Creative Commons Attribution license at the time, that was still too much. Government documents are not covered by copyright, and the photos clearly should be public domain. After a bit of back-and-forth, Flickr created a special public domain license so the White House could properly designate the photos.

And yet… it appears that the White House is now trying to claw back some rights over these photos that it just doesn’t have. Tim Lee points out that along with these officials photos is a licensing claim that goes well beyond the public domain, stating:

This official White House photograph is being made available only for publication by news organizations and/or for personal use printing by the subject(s) of the photograph. The photograph may not be manipulated in any way and may not be used in commercial or political materials, advertisements, emails, products, promotions that in any way suggests approval or endorsement of the President, the First Family, or the White House.

The problem is the White House has no right to say that you can’t manipulate the photo, since the photo is public domain. It’s really unfortunate that, once again, we’re seeing how little people seem to understand (or value) the public domain.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

Holding the gavel he used when Medicare legislation was first passed, Rep. John Dingell speaks about health care legislation Oct. 29 on Capitol Hill.

When people think of health care and Congress, often the first name that springs to mind is the late Sen. Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts. While Rep. John Dingell, D-Mich., may not be as well known, his legacy on health care is even richer than Kennedy’s.

And when the House takes up the health overhaul bill this weekend that bears Dingell’s name as its lead sponsor, it could cap more than a half-century of effort on his part to bring health insurance to nearly every American.

Dingell’s quest for universal health care began in 1932, when his father, John Dingell Sr., was first elected to the House from Michigan. The elder Dingell quickly became one of the architects of the New Deal.

“If you look at the the picture of Roosevelt signing Social Security, you’ll see a little skinny Pollack with a big broken nose and a mustache standing in back of him — that was my dad,” Dingell said in an interview in his office on Capitol Hill last week. “And he was very, very proud of that.”

But Social Security was just the start. In 1943, the elder Dingell, along with Senators Jim Murray of Montana and Robert Wagner of New York, introduced the first national health insurance bill. The so-called Wagner-Murray-Dingell bill was fought over for years, though it never became law.

And when the elder Dingell died in 1955, John Dingell Jr. took over not only his father’s seat, but also his quest for national health insurance.

For the first decade after his father’s death, on the first day of each Congress, Dingell introduced a bill to create a Medicare program to provide health insurance for the elderly, as his father had tried and failed to do. But after 1965, he no longer had to.

In fact, then-speaker John McCormack gave the still quite junior Dingell the task of presiding over the House when it passed the Medicare bill, “not because I had any merit in the matter — but because he was Dad’s great friend and because Dad had been the guy who started the whole business of Medicare,” Dingell says.

But Dingell did not give up the custom of introducing a national health insurance bill on the first day of every Congress in his father’s memory. One nice thing has happened over time, he says: “As I have revised the bill over the years, we found about half of the original legislation has been enacted into law.”

That includes things like the National Institutes of Health, universal vaccine programs for children, and maternal and child health programs. What Dingell doesn’t say is that most of those things were enacted into law under his stewardship at the powerful Energy and Commerce Committee, which he led from 1981 to 1995.

California Democrat Henry Waxman ousted the 83-year-old Dingell from the chairmanship this year, but that was over their differences on energy and environmental issues. The two have always seen eye to eye on health care. And Waxman says he was always happy to have Dingell to back him up when it came to tough negotiations.

“It was always a relief for me to know that when he and I met with the Senate in conference, we were talking from the same page, believed in the same things, and we were going to fight together,” Waxman says. “And that’s the reason we’ve been so successful as we have been in many of the health bills throughout the decades.”

As chairman, Dingell was legendary for his sometimes overbearing style of interrogation, often berating witnesses. But for all his bluster, says Republican Joe Barton of Texas, who last led the committee for his party, Dingell is actually a very humble person.

“He doesn’t put his name on bills, so to some extent his legacy is hidden, because it’s just the Health Care Policy Act of whatever or the National Institutes of Health whatever,” Barton says. “If he were like other members, and they put their names on bills, there’d be dozens of Dingell-something bills, not just in health care, but in energy and telecommunications and many, many other fields.”

Dingell, who this year became the longest-serving member in the history of the House, says he remains focused on the one bill that has eluded him the longest — health care for all.

And will this be the year?

“I’m an optimist,” he says with the enigmatic Dingell smile.

Including the bonus stages revealed in Famitsu recently, Super Street Fighter IV (PS3, Xbox 360) has a grand total of four new modes. You can check ‘e…

It’s huge! Hide your babies and cats. The Nintendo DSi XL is gonna eat ‘em! [via Go Nintendo and Nintendo Wii Fanboy]

Fifty years ago, guessing what the future would look like was particularly in vogue, and all those fantastic retro-futuristic drawings were born. I remember seeing somewhere the concept for an automatic car parking machine with robots taking your car and stuffing it somewhere in a big warehouse. “That’s ridiculous,” I thought, “When we have the technology to do something like that, we won’t still be driving cars!” Well, I was wrong. Of course it’s not for cars, and of course it’s in Japan, but this automatic bike storage system (video in link) is definitely a little piece of the future.

These Cycle Trees, designed by JFE Engineering, have actually been in use for about two years in various places around Japan, and are recently starting to become a bit more common. A little tag stuck to your bike identifies it to the computer, which then files it away in a sort of big bike rolodex. Swipe a card, and you have your bike back in about 30 seconds, if that video is any indication. Man, I’d love to have one of these for my neighborhood. In fact, Seattle city planners are trying to figure out how to get more bike parking around the upcoming light rail stop on Capitol Hill. If they had one of these things, that’s it — problem solved (plus it’s awesome).

Of course, it’s isn’t free. But ¥1800 (about $20) a month isn’t too much to ask. It’s about on the edge of affordability, though, considering there are plenty of street signs and rails to lock your bike to around here. Still, it’s totally awesome.

[via Reddit]

I watched Saturday night’s House vote with mesmerized horror. The good news is that it did not degenerate into a re-run of the vote for Medicare Part D – an all-night mixture of retail politics and Mafioso strong-arm tactics. Instead, Speaker Pelosi kept her brass knuckles hidden behind closed doors, the proceedings were dominated only by rhetorical excess, and the proceedings moved forward like clockwork.

Unfortunately, the remainder of the spectacle was a bit hard to digest. The most obvious problem is that this is a bad bill. While one might be tempted to write it off to a triumph of good intentions over good legislation, the House bill has too many transparent flaws to be defensible. Let us review:

(1) It does not bend the cost curve. As noted by the Congressional Budget Office, it does not reduce the pace of health care spending growth. Even worse, Administration actuary Richard Foster concludes that it bends the cost curve the wrong way. In this way, the Pelosi bill betrays the basic promise of health care reform: providing quality care at lower cost. No legislation should pass the Congress that does not meet this test.

(2) It is budgetarily dangerous. The bill sets up a new entitlement spending program that grows at 8 percent annually as far as the eye can see – faster than the economy will grow, faster than tax revenues will grow, and just as fast as the already-broken Medicare and Medicaid programs. It also creates a second new entitlement program – the so-called CLASS Act – that Senate Budget Chairman Kent Conrad correctly identified as a Ponzi scheme.

The United States is already living off the questionable generosity of China and other international lenders. The federal budget is already projected to run enormous deficits for the next decade, tripling the national debt by 2019. The Congress has already displayed no capacity to address Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. Every member of Congress that supported this bill (as well as the American Medical Association and AARP who sold their integrity for this bill) should be writing a letter of apology to America’s children.

(3) It is budgetarily dishonest. One reason the Democrats were able to sell the bill is that it uses every budget gimmick and trick in the book: leave out inconvenient spending, back-load spending to disguise the true scale (the Senate Budget Committee minority estimates that the first 10 years of full implementation will cost $2.4 trillion – so much for $900 billion or less), front-load taxes, let inflation push up tax revenues, promise spending cuts that will never materialize … the list goes on. The only thing less transparent than the budget treatment was the process of developing the bill.

(4) It is economically dangerous. The bill has been sold as help for the uninsured, and the polling suggests that people are expecting relief in 2010. Instead, the bill will levy taxes and fees that simply cannot improve a precarious economic situation. It will undertake insurance market reforms that will raise the premiums of those that already have insurance, especially small businesses. As noted above, it invites a U.S. debt crisis. And the reality is that it offers no real insurance subsidies or expansions until 2013.

I could go on to dissect additional follies, but the basic point is simple: we need for our elected leaders to do better than this.

The second, and ironic, aspect of the proceedings was that they were probably also dangerous to the political health of Democrats. The bill is structured so that the first several years are nothing but bad news. Higher taxes, higher fees and misguided insurance reforms will not shower good news on America. No real sign of the misguided Medicaid expansions and debt-financed subsidies until 2013. It is a recipe for electoral backlash. As I watched, it kept running through my head: “What are these Democrats thinking? How could they get the pandering so wrong?”

The third and most troubling recurring aspect was the partisanship (although I personally can’t wait for the spectacle of Democrats’ claiming bipartisan support by cornering the single vote of Republican Ahn Cao). Republicans will now be dead-set on doing a u-turn. If so, the U.S. will achieve neither health care reform nor real health insurance reform and will have expended enormous political energy in the process. This is the worst of all outcomes.

It could have been so easily avoided. With the right leadership, a bi-partisan merger of the Republican alternative and the coverage expansions in the bill itself could have been augmented with real delivery system reforms. Alas.

On to the Senate.

Our health care system is truly titanic, in more than one sense of the word.

Not only is it huge, but it’s also growing at unsustainable rates that undermine our health care security and fiscal stability – and threaten to sink the system under its own weight.

When the health care debate began in earnest just after the November 2008 election, it was supposed to be about reform moving the nation toward universal coverage in a system that could be sustained in terms of costs. We could no longer “kick this can down the road.”

In the spring, it became clear there was neither the consensus on what to do about health costs or the political will to try to tackle them. That is when the health care reform effort shifted to a health insurance reform effort.

In one bit of good news, liberals have shown as much concern as conservatives about bringing costs under control, though their preferred solutions are obviously far different. Liberals pointed to the need for a robust public plan option, saying it was the key to cost containment.

But the House Democratic leadership ended up gutting the pubic option; now it’s hardly more muscular than the weakling co-ops in the Senate Finance Committee bill. As a result, neither fiscal conservatives nor liberals are left with much reason to believe the House-passed bill has much chance of bending any cost curves.

The House bill also fails to provide affordable health insurance to the middle class.

Under the legislation, an uninsured family of three earning $54,930 a year would be expected to pay $5,493 each year for their health insurance plan from the new insurance exchange-net of the government subsidies the bill would provide. A family making $73,240 a year would be expected to pay $8,789 for their health insurance. These costs are not affordable for these families.

If these families didn’t pay these premiums, they would be subject to fines equal to 2.5% of their income–$1,373 annually in the case of the family making $54,930.

The bizarre result is an incentive for families to skip buying coverage, and pay a fine that is only a small percentage of their premium costs. They’ll still be able to get insurance on demand from the exchanges should they have a big medical problem. That’s like being able to buy insurance on your house after it burns down. This kind of system will not make insurance costs lower.

Some supporters of the House bill say that, while the legislation doesn’t tackle health care costs, it’s still important to reduce the number of uninsured. Their reasoning goes: The pressure of adding 30 million more people to the system, coupled with the unsustainable cost trends, will eventually force Washington to deal with real health care reform.

That strikes me as about the same as rounding up lots more people to board the Titanic in the hope that it will sink even faster.

On Saturday evening an old adage proved not to be true. History did not repeat itself. Fifteen years earlier, a Democratic-led House of Representatives failed to enact major health reform legislation put forth by a Democratic president. This time, the same political constellation led to a different result. A major health reform bill was passed, albeit by a close margin. This legislation is as sweeping as any healthcare bill enacted since Medicare.

But a note of caution is needed as we move into the final phases of the congressional debate. It relates to the state of public opinion. When Medicare was enacted in 1965, 62 percent of the public supported its passage. When the ill-fated Clinton health plan did not pass the House in 1994, support was between 39 percent and 43 percent. In recent polls, public ratings of the congressional and Obama health reform proposals are much closer to those for the Clinton plan than for Medicare. Support for enactment in recent polls ranges from 34 percent to 49 percent with the most recent suggesting growing public opposition since the summer. This is the case even though many of the policy elements of the current House legislation are popular with the public, such as requiring insurers to cover people with pre-existing conditions, and the presence of a public option offered as a competitor to private health plans.

But polls show countervailing concerns about the congressional plans. These involve the potential impact of the bills on Americans’ health costs and affordability, their taxes, the extent of government interference in their health care decisions, and worries that health care for those receiving Medicare will deteriorate. Regardless of public enthusiasm for health reform as a principle, and support for many policy elements in the House bill itself, most Americans do not see their healthcare situation as getting better if this legislation is signed into law, and some see their situation as getting worse.

In the weeks ahead, Americans are unlikely to read the 2000-page House bill. Rather, they will form their judgment about the final legislation based on others’ assessments. They will rely on those whom they trust as intermediaries to clarify its impact on them. Many of those who will be most influential will not be political figures working in Washington. Polls suggest they may be leaders of physicians’ and nurses’ groups, seniors’ groups, and organizations advocating for patients with serious illnesses. Also they may rely on the views of major media figures and experts interviewed frequently.

The American public was promised throughout the presidential campaign that major reform if enacted would improve their current health care situation. At the moment they are not convinced that this will be the case. Changing their perceptions may be critical if a bill as extensive as the one enacted by the House is to be passed by both houses of Congress in the next few months.

When I entered health policy more than 25 years ago, a mentor predicted that when things got ‘bad enough,’ we’d finally act to fix our health care system.  Last night’s vote of 220-215 signals that the human suffering and financial toll wrought by our broken system is no longer sustainable.  Stalemate is no longer an option.  Instead, the House of Representatives voted to move us in a better direction.

Key provisions in HR 3962 made last night’s vote historic, introducing changes that are long overdue.

• A framework for universal coverage. The uninsured today, overwhelmingly, have limited incomes and decent health coverage is expensive, so subsidies are a must. The House voted to require that everyone has health insurance, with attendant reforms to make that possible, including subsidies for individuals and small employers.  And the Medicaid program will be broadened to provide a true safety net, covering all of the poorest Americans up to 150% of the federal poverty level.
• Market reforms to end health insurance discrimination.  Today, getting and keeping health insurance is hard when you’re sick.  New rules will apply to all qualified health plans, whether employer-sponsored or individually purchased.  Coverage must be guaranteed issue, premiums community rated, and pre-existing condition exclusions will be prohibited. Insurers will have to justify their annual rate increases, and comply with fair marketing practices and claims payment procedures.  Transparency and accountability in health insurance will be enhanced.  And for first time, the federal government will take an active and direct role in oversight and enforcement of private health insurance rules – working alongside states, like two cops on the beat – to ensure consumer protections are real.
• Market reforms to promote competition.  Private health insurance markets today aren’t competitive at all.  Those few insurers that dominate most markets use their clout to enhance profits, but not to achieve cost savings for policyholders.  With reform, the term “health insurance” will mean something – all policies will provide at least a basic level of protection against medical expenses.   When consumers and small businesses price shop, they can be confident they are comparing like products. Insurers won’t be able to offer cheap policies that stint on coverage; instead they’ll have to compete based on efficiency.  Also, new organized marketplaces, called exchanges, will certify that participating insurers meet all requirements.  They will provide individuals and small businesses with plan comparison information and help navigating choices. And, a new public plan option will catalyze competition among insurers.

These features are key to effective reform and it is amazing that a majority in the House voted for them.

Political consensus for something this big is elusive – there’s a reason we’ve been at it for a century.  There’s always something for somebody not to like.  The reality of politics is that compromise will be necessary to pass reform and some of those deals will limit what reform accomplishes. 

Already, the House has compromised on the overall level of resources that will be available for subsidies.  The 10-year, $900 billion price tag on reform is less than the cost of the Clinton health reform plan 15 years ago.  That means subsidies for some will be watered down, and hardship waivers to the mandate will be needed. Insurance market rules in the House bill also feature troubling compromises. Age rating of 2:1 will severely raise premiums for the baby boom generation.  Middle-income 50- and 60-somethings who have to buy coverage on their own may need those hardship waivers.  And, a provision to allow the sale of health insurance across state lines vests in a single state responsibility for enforcing rules in multiple states, and that will put consumers at risk.

Then there’s cost containment.  Many criticize reform for not doing enough to slow health care costs.  Yet all year long, there were strong – and overwhelmingly bipartisan – efforts to weaken or eliminate other provisions that could have done more to bend the curve.  The public plan was weakened.  Rate regulation eschewed.  Comparative effectiveness research boxed in, with assurances that findings about what works better in medicine would not be linked to what gets covered by health insurance. 

In the end, cost containment is hard politically because every dime of our annual $2 trillion-plus on health care spending is somebody’s income.  We’re a nation of entrepreneurs, and we don’t like to limit what anybody can earn.

But, we are also a nation dedicated to justice and equality.  The House vote signals that we may be ready to listen to our better angels, and include all Americans in our coverage system. Health reform can also take important steps on cost control, and as we debate future efforts, at least we’ll all be in it together.

One of the most revealing moments in Saturday’s debate over health care reform was when Rep. Anthony Weiner of New York took the floor. Weiner is a rising star in the Democratic Party, having quickly established himself as an unusually engaging speaker. But, in this case, it was Weiner’s effective use of a prop that stood apart.

The prop was the handbook for the Federal Employees Health Benefits Plan, or FEHBP–which is, very roughly speaking, a model for how a reformed health care system might work. Once a year, millions of federal workers, including members of Congress, pick one of the many private insurance options available through FEHBP. They can pick plans without worrying that an insurer will deny coverage or charge them more for a pre-existing condition. And, for the most part, they can carry coverage with the peace of mind that it will be there when they need it.

Weiner had brought the handbook in order to make a point. Opponents of health care reform have spent a lot of time complaining about the complexity of health care legislation, in many cases waving around the huge piles of paper it takes to print the full bills. It’s a misleading argument: The bills are long in part because the government uses large type and wide margins to print them. And after the experience of the Bush administration, when the president and his allies frequently made policy without thinking through all of the implications, one could plausibly argue that legislative complexity is actually the product of due diligence. This is one-sixth of the economy we’re talking about, after all.

But Weiner’s broader argument was that legislation matters less than the reality it creates. “There’s been a lot of talk about how big the bill is,” he said. “Here’s what it’s all about. This is what members of Congress get.”

He’s absolutely right. Ideological arguments about socialized medicine and government takeovers don’t have much appeal beyond the conservative base. The rest of the population just wants relief (from rising health care costs) and security (from medical or financial hardship). If reform accomplishes that, they will be happy, no matter how long or complex the actual bill was.

But does Saturday’s vote make that more likely? In many crucial ways, yes.

If passed into law, the House bill would, upon implementation, transform the insurance market for people buying on their own and through small businesses–the two groups who struggle most because, unlike large employers, they face stiff medical underwriting (insurers basing prices and availability on medical risk) and must shoulder a higher portion of administrative expenses. It would bolster coverage even at large employers, putting an end to practices like lifetime benefit caps. It would expand Medicaid, offer some people the option of enrolling in a government-run plan and provide hefty subsidies–putting coverage within reach of people too poor to buy it now. And it would nudge the medical system in the direction of efficiency.

But the transformation would be slow. In order to keep the total federal outlays for coverage at around $1 trillion over 10 years, the House bill wouldn’t create the new insurance exchanges–that is, the FEHBP writ large–or start offering subsidies for several years. While it would offer more financial assistance and stronger insurance protection than its Senate counterpart is likely to promise, it wouldn’t do as much to reduce the cost of medical care in the long run.

To be clear, the House bill is a great start. It should just be faster, stronger, and–really–bigger.

Of course, critics would object even more if that happened. But, as Weiner says, what they think now is a lot less important than what the rest of the public thinks later on.

Writing about tech is so peculiar. On one hand we’re expected to be enthusiastic about the things we cover; no one wants to see us being negative and dismissive about every little thing. That’s no fun. On the other hand, you don’t want a bunch of ninnies bleating on about how great this year’s piece of plastic is compared to last year’s. How is that useful to anyone? A bit of skepticism is necessary so we don’t come across as cheerleaders for this or that company, or for this or that device. You can’t be objective if you worship the ground that the two Steves—Jobs and Ballmer—walk on.

I bring this up not as a condemnation, but rather a recognition: much of this is quite silly. The Motorola Droid comes out today, and my first reaction was, “Eh, so what?” That’s not a popular opinion, of course, and a quick trip to Techmeme will confirm that for you. (Techmeme is a king-making Web site that’s really, really influential for some reason. You can’t fight city hall.) I just can’t get excited over the launch of a device that should have come out years ago. I can recognize its importance to Verizon Wireless (the Droid being the first non-BlackBerry smartphone worth its salt that’s available on VZW), and its place within the wireless industry, but I’ll be damned if I’m going to sit here and be all, “Woo, a phone is available! Hooray for the corporations behind it~!”

Look at the unemployment numbers that the Department of Labor released today. A full 10.2 percent of Americans are out of work right now. That’s a big deal, and will most certainly affect consumer electronics’ companies bottom line this holiday season. How many of these people (or people in similar, dire economic circumstances) are looking forward to a new smartphone? Or a new HDTV? Or a $150 video game?

I’m actually surprised that I haven’t seen more made of these unemployment numbers. The holiday shopping season starts pretty soon (if it hasn’t already!), and I really do wonder how many of the companies we write about will fare. Not to pick on the Droid again (it’s just in the news today, so it’s in my head), but how many people are prepared to buy the phone for themselves or a family member, and then commit to paying a minimum of $70 per month just to use the thing? How many copies of DJ Hero will be under so many Christmas trees when mommy and daddy are having a tough enough time paying the bills as it is? I’m not saying these things won’t sell at all, but I haven’t noticed too many stories in the tech press that so much as hinted at the tough times these companies might have. Not everyone can swing $200 + $70 per month (for one line!) on a basic communication device. I mean, does a $200 smartphone sound any better than a freebie phone you can grab with a $40 per month contract? As impressive as Android 2.0 is, I don’t know if I’d say it’s any more important than putting food on the table for your kids.

(Incidentally, a comment over at TechCrunch made a similar point, that, you know, providing for one’s family is more important than having the latest version of Android in your pocket.)

I write about this stuff with a few things in mind, one of which is that this is all largely for funsies. It’s fun to see that latest super-thin netbook, or to see what new developments that are in the e-book front. It’s fun to tease the Apple TV for being a useless hunk of junk, and it’s fun to predict to what degree that Apple tablet will destroy its competition. But don’t think I assume that all of you have tons of disposable income to throw around to buy the latest widget, one that’ll be obsolete within six months.

I completely lost track of this some time ago, yes. I just sometimes feel that the whole tech world gets caught up in the hype of THIS THING or THAT THING without considering what’s happening in the real world. A tech bubble, if you will. Just know that I recognize it (as do the rest of the CG guys), and try not to get caught up in it. That’s all.

Image swiped from Drudge. Can’t beat bold, red font.

Consumers are more willing to engage with and buy from brands on social networking sites, according to a new study by Performics and ROI Research.

The study found thirty-four percent of respondents who have used a search engine to find information on a product/brand after seeing an advertisement on a social networking site. In addition, thirty percent have learned about a new product, service or brand from a social networking site.

"Social networks are creating a monumental shift in how people communicate with each other and with brands," said Michael Kahn, SVP of Marketing at Performics.

"The results of this study can help marketers better understand where and how consumers interact with social media sites and what types of offers and communications engage them and motivate them to act."


The study also found the opportunity for engaging with consumers on specific social networking sites:

•     Forty-six percent of respondents say they would talk about or recommend a product on Facebook
•     Forty-four percent of Twitter users have recommended a product
•     Thirty-six percent of YouTube users say that they have gone to an online retailer or ecommerce site   after learning about a brand on a social networking site

"The numbers are staggering. One in four respondents have four or more active social network accounts and more than one quarter access their Facebook or Twitter accounts at least once a day via their mobile phone," said Scott Haiges, President of ROI Research. 

"We knew that these sites are extremely popular for socializing, but the level of interest for branding and promotional marketing content is surprisingly large."

Related Articles:

>Facebook Reminds Users How To Handle Death

>6 Ways Twitter Lists Are Changing The Game

>Facebook Connects Users With iPhone Apps

By Tim Conneally, Betanews

As a PlayStation 3 owner, I did not have the luxury of Netflix Instant streaming through my video game console until today. Now, with the aid of Blu-ray’s BD-Live and a free Netflix disc which must remain loaded in the PS3, I now have access to an experience similar to the one Xbox Live Gold subscribers had on their 360s.

These discs shipped out to subscribers this week and started landing in mailboxes today.

Since last year, I have used one of the Roku streamers to watch Netflix on my TV. It’s a $99 investment I’ve gotten a lot of mileage out of, especially with the inclusion of Amazon On Demand, which gets a number of titles that Netflix does not. Unfortunately, for as handy and affordable as the Roku device has been, it does not allow movie titles to be browsed directly on the television. Users had to build an instant queue on their PC and only that content could be browsed.

With Netflix on PlayStation 3, not only can the Instant streaming catalog be browsed, but also lists of titles recommended for the user based on his viewing habits.

Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2009

Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime has thrown down the gauntlet. In the newest GTTV episode, he predicted that New Super Mario Bros. Wii w…

A group of brick-and-mortar retailers have been pushing for years to pass laws that put liability on online sites, like eBay, if stolen goods are sold through the sites. This really has nothing to do with preventing theft from their stores, as they claim. Instead, it’s really an effort to attack online competitors and second-hand sellers to try to boost the primary market. Studies have shown that the number one source of theft in stores is actually employees. If the retailers were serious about cracking down on theft, they would do more to watch their own employees… but instead, they’ve been trying to create a moral panic by claiming that the use of eBay leads to crime because people get so addicted that, after they run out of their own stuff to sell, they start ripping off stores just to keep that eBay high going. Just look at their own words:

“Thieves often tell the same disturbing story: they begin legitimately selling product on eBay and then become hooked by its addictive qualities, the anonymity it provides and the ease with which they gain exposure to millions of customers. When they run out of legitimate merchandise, they begin to steal intermittently, many times for the first time in their life, so they can continue selling online. The thefts then begin to spiral out of control and before they know it they quit their jobs, are recruiting accomplices and are crossing states lines to steal, all so they can support and perpetuate their online selling habit.”

Uh huh. Only problem? Actual stats show that such retail theft is on the decline. But, of course, that won’t stop the lobbyists from these stores from pushing — and that means we’ve now got the fourth such law introduced just this year to deal with. With the introduction of the new bill, the House Judiciary Committee held hearings with law enforcement officials who did claim that retail theft was a problem, but according to Thomas O’Toole, they also said no new laws were needed. What are the chances of that happening? Apparently, the law enforcement folks said that the online websites like eBay are actually quite cooperative, and the only problem is they need more money and resources — not more laws. Somehow, that seems unlikely.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

“House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) said ‘delay tactics’ could prevent the vote from occurring at the 6 p.m. Saturday scheduled time,” and “suggested the debate could go into Sunday or next week,” The Hill reports. “But he also acknowledged that leaders do not yet have the 218 votes they need among House Democrats to pass the bill.” The Hill reports that “House leaders are expected to incorporate any compromise on abortion into the bill Friday in the Rules Committee. Republicans have said that doing so violates the pledge by Hoyer and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) to have the complete text of the bill available to the public for three full days prior to consideration of the bill” (Soraghan and Allen, 11/6).

USA Today: “‘Unless there are delaying tactics,’ Hoyer said on the call, organized by Families USA, ‘I think we can finish debate by tomorrow night.’ But, he added, the House would consider the bill ‘to (its) conclusion’ and added that “Monday and Tuesday is a possibility” (Fritze, 11/6).

The Associated Press: “Hoyer sought to pin the blame for any possible slippage on delaying tactics expected from Republicans, who unanimously oppose the health care remake. ‘Nice try Rep. Hoyer, but you can’t blame Republicans when the fact is you just don’t have the votes,’ said Antonia Ferrier, spokeswoman for House Republican Leader John Boehner of Ohio. Republicans could stall the bill by demanding roll-call votes on parliamentary matters (Werner and Alonso-Zaldivar, 11/6).

The Boston Globe: “House leaders are trying to rush the bill — one of the largest and most complex pieces of legislation considered in recent years — through the lower chamber quickly. They fear that with every passing hour, more issues could arise and create obstacles to passage. Hoyer said discussions are ongoing over two side issues, abortion and immigration. … If the House and Senate both pass legislation, Hoyer said — rather ominously — that he expects a ‘relatively lengthy and difficult conference’ given the major differences between the House and Senate and the complexity of the bill” (Wangsness, 11/6).

The Wall Street Journal: “Signaling the unease of some freshman Democrats in swing districts, Rep. John Adler of New Jersey said Friday he will vote against the bill. Mr. Adler, who won his first term in 2008 with 52% of the vote, said the House bill ‘does not do enough to contain costs.’ He added, ‘Congress should not pass a bill that costs more than $1 trillion’ over 10 years. New Jersey was the scene of a big Republican victory on Tuesday, when Chris Christie defeated Democratic incumbent Jon Corzine in the state’s gubernatorial race” (Yoest and Vaughan, 11/6).

Meanwhile, “[t]he House will not vote on a liberal Democratic plan to have a fully government-run ‘single-payer’ healthcare plan, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced Friday,” The Hill reports in a second article. “Pelosi (D-Calif.) declined to pursue a single-payer plan in the healthcare overhaul. But Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.) secured a commitment from leadership in July to have an ‘up-or-down vote’ on the single-payer approach during floor debate…The amendment almost certainly would have lost, but would have demonstrated what support there is among Democrats for single-payer. But as the vote, now planned for Saturday, has neared, Pelosi has seemed increasingly reluctant to open the bill up for any amendments, even from her own party” (Soraghan, 11/6).

This morning the President gave some brief remarks in the Rose Garden, and before discussing the news on job numbers that also concern all Americans, gave an update on his response to the tragic incident at Fort Hood yesterday:

THE PRESIDENT:  Good morning.  I want to begin by offering an update on the tragedy that took place yesterday at Fort Hood.

This morning I met with FBI Director Mueller and the relevant agencies to discuss their ongoing investigation into what caused one individual to turn his gun on fellow servicemen and women.  We don’t know all the answers yet and I would caution against jumping to conclusions until we have all the facts.

What we do know is that there are families, friends and an entire nation grieving right now for the valiant men and women who came under attack yesterday in one of the worst mass shootings ever to take place on an American military base.  So from now until Veterans Day I’ve ordered the flags at the White House and other federal buildings to be flown at half-staff.  This is a modest tribute to those who lost their lives even as many were preparing to risk their lives for their country.  And it’s also recognition of the men and women who put their lives on the line everyday to protect our safety and uphold our values.  We honor their service, we stand in awe of their sacrifice, and we pray for the safety of those who fight and for the families of those who have fallen.  And as we continue to learn more about what happened at Fort Hood, this administration will continue to provide you updates in the coming days and weeks.

President Barack Obama remarks about the shootings at Fort Hood in Texas and the rise in the unemployment rate while speaking to the media in the Rose Garden of the White House. November 6, 2009. (Official White House Photo by Chuck Kennedy)

UPDATE: The President has just issued the following proclamation:

Our Nation’s thoughts and prayers are with the service members, civilians, and families affected by the tragic events at Fort Hood, Texas. The brave victims, who risked their lives to protect their fellow countrymen, serve as a constant source of strength and inspiration to all Americans. We ask God to watch over the fallen, the wounded, and all those who are suffering at this difficult hour.

As a mark of respect honoring the victims of the tragedy at Fort Hood, Texas, I hereby order, by the authority vested in me by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, that the flag of the United States shall be flown at half-staff at the White House and upon all public buildings and grounds, at all military posts and naval stations, and on all naval vessels of the Federal Government in the District of Columbia and throughout the United States and its Territories and possessions until sunset, Tuesday, November 10, 2009. I also direct that the flag shall be flown at half-staff for the same length of time at all United States embassies, legations, consular offices, and other facilities abroad, including all military facilities and naval vessels and stations.

IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this sixth day of November, in the year of our Lord two thousand nine, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and thirty-fourth.

BARACK OBAMA

Via Game Politics we hear about the situation in Venezuela, where the government is apparently blaming video games for the widespread violence in the country, and has issued a ban on the import, production or sale of any video games that include weapons. The link above is a rather heartfelt writeup, by someone in Venezuela, discussing the many problems the people in that country face, and making it clear that it’s not violent video games that are the problem. It’s long, but is a worthwhile read. Here’s just a small snippet:

This situation is painful to behold. Even if I barely game at all these days, I am a gamer at neocortex. I spent countless hours solving puzzles, riddles and fighting monsters in dungeons. I rescued Toadstool many times, only to be told that thanks, but my Princess was in another castle, later I joined Link and rescued Zelda from Agahnim and Ganon, using the Master Sword and the Silver Arrows. I got the Zantetsu sword and cut metal, I summoned Ifrit, Odeen and Behemoth. From Dragoon, I became a Paladin. I sneaked on Big Boss’ fortress in Zanzibar and stopped doomsday with Solid Snake. I fought along a Double Dragon trapped on a Final Fight, using my Killer Instinct in a Mortal Kombat in which only the greatest Street Fighter would come alive. I was Linked to the Past by a Chrono Trigger, my Soul Blazing, as I lived my Final Fantasies, Wandering from Ys, arriving to a Lagoon, to learn about the Secret of Mana, and finally understood that there is Ever More to life.

These games are a cherished part of my life, they helped to shape my young mind, they gave me challenges and vastly improved my English, opening the door to a whole new world of literature, music and people from all around the world. What I have achieved, all my research, how I have been able to travel even though I’m always broke, the hard work I’ve done to convince people to fund a start up for cheap biotech for developing countries and regular folks, none of that would have been possible hadn’t I learned English through video games.

Now, thanks to the tiny horizons of the cast of morons who govern me, thanks to the stupidity and ham-fisted authoritarianism of the local authorities, so beloved of so many liberals, my 7 year old brother’s chances to do the same could be greatly impacted.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story