Obama Trades Licks with the GOP

Obama met with the Republican caucus on Friday in Baltimore. Skip the speech and read the Q & A session.

Two Solutions to Corporate Speech

The debate over corporate speech continues, with lawmakers in the middle trying to find a constitutional way to limit corporate influence in government.

The first such proposal would require a corporation intent on political advocacy to first take a vote from their shareholders.

Representative MIKE CAPUANO (Democratic, Massachusetts): Quite simply, the shareholders, its their money and I think that anybody who is spending money should ask those people who own that money what their opinion is. If the shareholders choose to be involved in political action, thats fine. Apparently the court has said that is legal and thats okay with me. Thats all I want. I wouldnt want somebody reaching into my pocket and taking my money to be used for something I didnt want.

The second idea limits the speech of corporations who have, or want to have, government contracts.

A 2008 Government Accountability Office study found that almost three-quarters of the largest 100 publicly traded firms are federal contractors. If Congress endorsed our proposal, these companies -- and tens of thousands of others -- would face a stark choice: They could endorse candidates or do business with the government, but they couldn't do both. When push came to shove, it's likely that very few would be willing to pay such a high price for their "free speech."

These both seem pretty reasonable to me.

Happy Friday

Happy Friday party people, here's a song to get your weekend started right.

This Could Get Interesting

House Republicans are meeting with President Obama today to rip him the proverbial "new one," and it will all be televised, live.

BALTIMORE — It’s the rumble in Baltimore as House Republicans take on President Obama today.

Gathered for a retreat in the Renaissance Hotel overlooking the blue-collar city’s famous harbor and historic Fort McHenry, members of the conservative Republican House Conference say they are itching to quiz the president and present their policy ideas rather than listen to another lofty presidential address.

“House Republicans welcome any opportunity to present our better solutions,” said Representative Mike Pence of Indiana, the No. 3 House Republican and the organizer of the House retreat.

We'll see if that big talk means big ideas from House Republicans. I know there are some good ideas out there. Are you there Ron Paul?

Obama Inspires Hope, Skepticism with State of the Union Address

Well, it wasn't an apology, but more of a mea culpa, concerning the bank bailout. I'll take it, I guess.

As for the rest of the speech, it was very well written and delivered, no surprise there. Obama attempted to distance himself from the bank bailouts while simultaneously saying they saved us from the crisis--nice move. However, we're still supporting a broken banking system, so I'm still not a fan. Nevertheless, he showed some balls, calling out Congress on its numerous failures. That I liked.

He also plans to give tax cuts and loan incentives to businesses, both small and large, to increase job creation. Sounds like something out of Reagan's playbook, which isn't surprising considering the similar hands the two were dealt.

He calls for a financial reform bill, and says he won't sign it until it's right. We'll see how that goes. As we're still relying on the banks that got us into this mess, I'm not terribly optimistic. He does have a plan to place fees on the big banks to help out smaller ones--not sure how I feel about this, but it could facilitate the changing of the financial guard.

For energy, he called for new nuclear plants, which is a no-brainer. He also called for more investment in the standard green energy BS, biofuels, etc. So he still wants a comprehensive energy bill, but I don't think Congress can produce anything I'll like.

His executive order to start a commission to bring down the deficit sounded great, but exempted defense and entitlements, i.e. 3/4 of our budget, at least. Considering defense and entitlements are creating the deficit, this is a show and little more. If it's the beginning of a move towards a balanced budget, I'll be happy, but again, we'll see.

The part I liked the most was when he called out Republican leadership for simply saying no to everything, how that's not leadership. It's true, but at the same time I'm sure Nancy Pelosi doesn't exactly have an open door policy for every Republican house member with a workable idea. Either way, he called on both parties to quit quibbling and figure it out.

It was a good speech, probably the best State of the Union I've seen, but as always with State of the Union speeches, I'll believe it when I see it.

The iPad

Seriously Apple, still no Flash in the browser? Oh, you can read books on it. BFD. Because that 's the only thing separating it from a giant iPod Touch. We are not impressed.

Digital Rights Management or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Pirate

Book publishers are learning the lesson the music industry already learned: don't treat your customers like criminals.

It's been 18 months since O'Reilly, the world's largest publisher of tech books, stopped using DRM on its ebooks. In the intervening time, O'Reilly's ebook sales have increased by 104 percent. Now, when you talk about ebooks and DRM, there's always someone who'll say, "But what about [textbooks|technical books|RPG manuals]? Their target audience is so wired and online, why wouldn't they just copy the books without paying? They've all got the technical know-how."

So much for that theory.

Any conversation about digital media inherently turns to piracy and how to stop it. The music industry has realized that no matter what kind of encrypted wrapper (DRM) they put their music in, pirates found a way around it. So the industry gave up, and began offering un-DRMed mp3 files. Guess what? They sold more of them, and book publishers will soon follow.

[BoingBoing via TWiT]

Taliban Begins "Hearts & Minds" Campaign

The Taliban, in an effort to clean up its image, has decided to curtail its practice of brutally murdering innocent civilians:

In recent weeks, Mullah Mohammad Omar, commander of Taliban forces, has released a code-of-ethics handbook that, among other directives, warns his followers not to conscript children or target innocent people. It also says bombs should be used to kill only government officials and coalition soldiers.

In the 62-bullet-point handbook, homicide bombers get specific instructions. They are to "be fully-educated in their mission"; they are to target "high ranking people"; and they are to "try your best to avoid killing local people."

Taliban followers are further prohibited from smoking cigarettes, using captured vehicles for their personal use, cutting noses, lips or ears off detainees, and drafting "youngsters that have no beard." (As soon as a boy can grow a beard, he is considered an adult in Afghan culture.)

Considering a majority of rural Afghans are illiterate, it is unlikely this handbook will have a large impact on Taliban operations outside of Kabul. Also, the Taliban is not a united group, but a collection of locally lead factions, making broad policy almost impossible to enforce.

Warrantless Wiretapping: Legal if You Tap Everyone

A federal judge dismissed a complaint against the NSA's warrantless wiretapping program.

"The court has determined that neither group of plaintiffs/purported class representatives has alleged an injury that is sufficiently particular to those plaintiffs or to a distinct group to which those plaintiffs belong; rather, the harm alleged is a generalized grievance shared in substantially equal measure by all or a large class of citizens," wrote the Judge

So basically, warrantless wiretapping is illegal when done to one person, but when done to everyone in America it suddenly becomes legal. I guess this judge is unfamiliar with the 4th Amendment, maybe I will send him a copy.

Not only is this unconstitutional program allowed to continue, but this dismissal sets a horrible precedent. It says that an unconstitutional act of government is OK if it is done to enough people. Strange, I must have missed that Constitutional clause.

[Register via Jazzdog]

Robot Apocalypse [UPDATE]

It appears our future robot overlords will at least have the courtesy to serve us a nice breakfast before they enslave us all.

[Thanks Steve]