People, corporations, what's the difference?

Here's a technology story that belongs on this blog. Coursey believes that prosecuting all people involved in corporate fraud, rather than just the top guys will help stamp it out. Big fines and taking out the top executives just doesn't work. While it may be a fine idea I think he has forgotten about corporate personhood and its death grip on modern society. Corporations just wont stand for it as it weakens their viability, people just wouldn't want to work for a corporation if they thought they could be liable for every single mistake they or the corporation makes in day to day business. The "I was just following orders" argument will be used. People will not and cannot be expected to know about the legality of everything they are told to do.

Even if you can single out all those individuals who were demonstrably responsible and culpable in some corporate fraud, the reality is that corporations have this funny way of making it worth people's while to do anyway. The benefit nearly always outwieghs the risk to both the corporation and the individuals. The risk of being caught, being fined, being thrown in jail are just the cost of doing business. Dodgy doings in businesses attract dodgy dealers with questionable ethics and those with squeaky clean ethics will just go elsewhere.

Predictably I belief the real solution is to abolish corporate personhood, and let government treat incorporation as a privilege, not a right. This will give the government sufficient power to investigate and punish corporations, with the ultimate threat of revoking their corporate charter. There are good many people behind the idea of a "three strikes" law for corporate fraud, the problem is almost every major US corporation would have to have its corporate charter revoked at the moment. But going forward, it might prompt some alternate thinking when the executives are next contemplating fraud. It would give shareholders the ultimate incentive to pay attention to who is running their company and vote for executives with squeaky clean ethics and a clean pasts to ensure their corporation doesn't sent to the firing squad for corporate fraud.

Hey George, here's another disaster for you to botch...

2004 Flu vaccine shortage - "it was the British who let us down"

2005 Katrina disaster - "nobody told us it would be that big or hit New Orleans!"

200? The Great Bird Flu Epidemic - "we didn't have enough warning"

The reality is there was plenty of notice in each of these cases. Of course the Bird Flu Epidemic hasn't hit the USA yet, but with global trade and travel its only a matter of time before avian flu does reach us. Then its only a matter of time before a strain appears that affects humans. If the last global flu epidemic was anything to go by it wont be pretty.

But will America be ready? Of course not, we're too busy fighting a futile war in a foreign country who's impact on American safety is and always was, infinitesimal compared to a flu epdiemic. Meanwhile our Homeland Security guys are out to lunch trying to bolt the doors against terrorists while the real great threats to human life in this country are all around us, every day - the air we breath.

Just think of the economic impact of a couple of cows with mad disease - hundreds of millions, if not billions in lost beef sales. And how about the impact of SARS on the airline industry just a few years ago? Now think of the impact when everyone is too afraid to go outside, to shop, work or play, for fear of getting bird flu from their neighbors? Better start stockpiling those 3M face masks and hand sanitizers!

If we get any response from the government when the shit hits the fan I'm betting it'll be something like Tom Ridge's "duct tape and plastic sheeting" defence against terrorists. Whatever way it goes, I guess 3M will make a fortune...

Condemnation nation

Browsing magazines in Barnes & Noble the other day I noticed there was an article on eminent domain in the October issue of Harper's Magazine. So I sat down and read it (hmmm, should have found a couch) and I have to say I was surprised over the angle it took. Apparently, so it says, it was all the liberal judges who supported the recent Supreme Court ruling on eminent domain. Furthermore despite all the ho-ha from across the board, the democrats pretty remained silent on the issue. In fact it was the Republican controlled states that all rushed to pass state specific laws limiting the extent to which eminent domain could be applied (as the ruling allowed).

I guess I hadn't been following the case well, and just assumed this would be popular with wealthy Republicans who support the mega-retailers and developers that love eminent domain like an old and wealthy relative. However Harper's (and I have to admit I haven't divined the political affiliation of Harper's yet) clearly states that its the liberals and not the libertarians who love eminent domain and the more broadly it can be applied "for the public good" the better. Dis-information? Well perhaps this is just an indication that the "liberal" democrats are actually not so liberal at all. More likely its that their definition of liberal has strained itself too far in the direction of socialist. I can't personally name a single friend, even those who might consider themselves "liberal", or merely left of Bush, who thinks the ruling was a good one, or that cities should be able to cease property purely on the basis of earning more tax dollars.

As the Harper's article points out, there are serious doubts that even well considered eminent domain land grabs are for the better. In this decade they are seldom used to convert blighted land to productive real estate, and mostly to convert diversely populated land to monoculture big box stores. Diversity of land use can endure all kinds of attrition and remain vital. Whereas we all know that monocultures are highly susceptible to being wiped out by a pox - a single bad quarter, a slash-and-burn takeover, or a single crooked CEO or CFO.

The result its an empty big box and underutilized, non-tax yielding land and property. Indeed, as my local neighborhood bears witness, empty real-estate is much coverted by some property developers as it is a very hand tax right-off. In the short term by inflating its "market value" its value as a tax right-off can actually exceed its value as leased property. Hence we spend five years surrounded by mostly empty store fronts because a big developer could care less about unutilized retail space, something highly unlikely if the same property was in the hands of small property owners.

Terrorists, insurgents, freedom fighters or plain old vandals?

In France Les dégonflés are going around deflating the tires of SUVs and smearing them with mud. Fortunately for them they are not acting in the USA where congress is considering branding such things as full on acts of terrorism, as opposed to good old-fashioned vandalism which is what they really are. In France Les dégonflés have to endure little more than hate mail, but they also get a lot of fan mail.

All Quiet on the Miers front

An interesting opinion on Miers is voiced in The Miers Nomination: Avoiding Advice and Consent. Discrediting current claims about why Miers is unsuitable, if focusing on her lack of written record of her legal opinions. It gives three possible explanations of why that might be, all of which, it says, are grounds for vetoing Miers as a Supreme Court candidate.

#1 for the Iraq Flag

I have two blogs, this and another with a similar name focused on technology (because I believe in separation of politics and technology). It turns out both a getting quite a lot of traffic every day due to images that they are hosting. The other blog has an image of a person driving a very fast car, this one has an image of the Iraq flag. Google for "Iraq flag" and then click"images" and there is Long Dark Tea-Time. I originally put the image online in reference to a different version I created - with a small cross for every Iraqi civilian death that had occured during the American occupation to that date.

Of course the figure of 15,000 Iraqi dead was an estimate, and the image just a token effort to try and show the magnitude of the crisis, but I wanted to try and make some statement no matter how feeble. At that time (September 2004) the civilian death toll was conservatively estimated at 15,000 but now it stands at almost 30,000. For a country of twenty-something million people that's a very high figure, more than one in a thousand. It probably means that one in eight people will know someone who has died since the invasion and occupation, and that everyone will know a handful of people who know someone that died. That's really not a good place to be if you're an American in occupied Iraq.

On my other blog I modified the popular fast car image to include my blog URL, its driven a lot of hits it's way. But I'm not going to do anything so crass with the Iraq flag image. I am more than happy to serve the hundreds of downloads that image gets every day.

Uneasy about Miers?

Personally I'm shocked by all the stories like Conservatives uneasy about Miers, many of which seem to eminate from the press themselves. It seems to me all this is a big fuss to make out that Miers would make a really liberal Supreme Court judge. Where are all the "Democrats uneasy about Miers" stories? Or how about cries of outrage about the nepotism - "Supreme Court Judge wanted, no experience necessary, cronies need only apply" ???

Frankly I'm dismayed that the democrats are keeping such a low profile on this one, like they've given in already. While they roasted Roberts on the abortion issue, it seems like this is just not an issue anyone will going to pester Miers with too much, because? Because she's a woman and we have to be thankful for Bush picking a woman? Do they think that only men oppose right to choose?

My first picket line experience

Once in a while something in life just goes differently and you wonder "Is reality on the blink again?". This happened to me yesterday when I called to take my aging Honda in for service. Since I purchased the car I've been taking it to one dealership in Berkeley called Jim Doten. They weren't the place I actually bought it at but I've always serviced my car there, although admittedly being 11 years old it more often goes to an oil-changer type place these days.

So I pick up the phone to ask for an appointment and instead of saying "How about two weeks from now?" they ask, "How soon would you like to come in?". "Well what's the earliest you can fit me in?", I ask. "How about tomorrow at 10am... no, make that 9:30am" they say. At this point the word "Blimey!" springs to my mind. You see Jim Doten is a very popular garage, has been around for years and before they made appointments you'd sit in a long line at 7am to get your car in there. But I wasn't going to complain, and assuming myself the beneficiary of a cancellation I took the appointment.

So I drive to Jim Doten Honda and approach it from the back so I'm on the same side of the street as the shop entrance. Doing so I completely miss seeing the front of the dealership. As I get near the entrance I see a bunch of people sitting by the entrance with some chairs and think "Oh, they must have some people working out their to take your car details" (instead of doing inside). Then I get closer and I see they are actually picketers holding signs saying "On Strike". They start waving at me and I look in the garage - its empty except for a single car. So I slow down, open the window smiling and a woman says "You're smiling like you're going to cross the picket line, please don't", and so I get the scoop.

It turns out that Jim Doten isn't Jim Doten anymore. The business, owned by the Doten family for 30 years was sold back in June to Stephen Beinke who renamed it Berkeley Honda and then proceeded to lay off all the staff and interview them all for their jobs again. For employees with an average of 15 years of seniority it was quite a slap in the face. It turns out that 50% of the 30 union staff at Jim Doten were not offered jobs, including the local IAM shop steward. Along with wage cuts, cancellation of defined benefits pension plan, changes to the health care plan, and an influx of new non-Honda certified employees the place became a very unhappy work place - the remaining union workers went on strike and picketing started. Even the Berkeley City council passed a resolution urging Berkeley residents to boycott the dealership until the new owner negotiated with the union. It even offered to mediate between the two sides but so far the new owners have not stepped up to the table.

Needless to say, although I really wanted to get my car serviced today I wasn't going to cross the picket line, and the only reason I made the schlep to Berkeley in the first place was because Jim Doten had always been such a nice and friendly place. As I left I pointed out to the picketer that she was wrong about me, I didn't cross the line. In fact I was smiling because I'd just realized why I had been able to get my car in for service the very next day and that reality wasn't on the blink. There are some people who are really perceptive about that kind of thing, and might have asked while still on the phone what the blazes was wrong - next time reality seems to be going off the rails I think I'll pause a bit longer before carrying on assuming all is well.

I'll huff and I'll puff

This article pretty much proves my point - buildings in hurricane prone areas should be built to better standards. As it turns out just building to current codes would have been a great start. I had previously heard stories that houses built by Habitat for Humanity do much better when hit by tornadoes than others. The reason was their amateur builders used far more nails that code requires, just to be on the safe side, whereas professional builders will cut costs and use at least the bare minimum of nails, if not less.