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2006-10-31

Can You Count to Ten?

The great political inversion.

I started to read Randy Barnett's book Restoring the Lost Constitution but I didn't need to finish it, because the basic idea is so clear to me: America has reached almost the exact inversion of its founding principles, which (as I've noted before) can be summed up in the last two articles of the Bill of Rights:

IX. The enumeration in the Constitution of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

X. The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

Unfortunately, our intellectuals and our political elites have never been able to count to ten when it comes to the Bill of Rights. If they could, perhaps we'd still retain a form of government that is strictly limited in its powers -- and a people who are unlimited in the enjoyment of their natural rights. Instead, today we've experienced what folks in software development call scope creep and bloatware. It's about time to hack the political system by performing some serious debugging, no?

Posted on 2006-10-31 at 22:11. File under politics.

~ link ~

Realignment?

1776, 1860, 1932, ????.

It may be that American political history goes in cycles, with major realignments every 70 or 80 years. Think American Revolution in 1776, Civil War in 1860, Great Depression in 1932. What's next? Aren't we about due for the next major realignment? Perhaps. But in a recent essay the ever-insightful Michael Barone notes that major realignments need a trigger:

Political realignments occur because of events that have deep demographic impact and when one party stands for new ideas that command majority support. The Iraq war (2,500 deaths) and our current economy (4.6 percent unemployment) are not events of the magnitude of the Civil War (600,000 dead) or the Great Depression (25 percent unemployment).

It's not clear what the next trigger might be, but the current distractions are not it. Be afraid, lest it will be something truly horrible. May you live in interesting times.

Posted on 2006-10-31 at 21:59. File under politics.

~ link ~

2006-10-30

I Voted

Colorado ballot 2006.

This evening I cast my votes in state and local elections (or at least they gave me one of those little "I Voted" stickers -- do those new computerized voting machines really work as designed?). For elected officials, two principles guided most of my choices: (1) vote against incumbents and (2) if no incumbent, vote for gridlock by splitting the ticket.

But the real fun came from all the initiatives and referenda on the Colorado ballot this year. Here again two principles guided most of my choices: (1) vote for economic and personal freedom and (2) make life more difficult for the political class (yes, call me a libertarian populist if you must). So I voted as follows:

• Amendment 38: Petitions. YES. If we make it easier to get petitions on the ballot, the voice of the people shall be heard even if the political elites don't want to listen.

• Amendment 39: School District Spending Requirements. YES. Sorry, school administrators, but as long as you're part of the political class, you'll have to pay the price. There's a simple solution: take the schools out of government hands and give the schools to the teachers.

• Amendment 40: Term Limits for Supreme Court and Court of Appeals Judges. YES. Sorry, judges, but you too are part of the political class. If term limits force you out of your current position, you can always find another job in another court, in electoral politics, in academia, or (gasp) in the market economy.

• Amendment 41: Standards of Conduct in Government. YES. Here again we stick it to the political class. No one ever said it should be easy to feed at the public trough.

• Amendment 42: Colorado Minimum Wage. NO. It's just wrong to legislate wages, especially since the result is that low-skilled workers (such as teenagers) are priced out of a job. But if we're going to raise the minimum wage, why stop at $6.85 an hour -- why not, say, $68.50 an hour? Now that's a living wage! :-)

• Amendment 43: Marriage. YES. No this doesn't really belong in Article II of the Colorado Constitution, but I'm enough of a lexicographical conservative to hold that marriage means a particular legal relationship between a man and a woman (first citation in the Oxford English Dictionary: the year 1297). But see below on Referendum I.

• Amendment 44: Marijuana Possession. YES. As Bob Marley said, legalize it!

• Referendum E: Property Tax Deduction for Disabled Veterans. YES. This one wasn't clear cut for me, but it involves a tax reduction and my father's experience caring for disabled veterans makes me think that they deserve a break.

• Referendum F: Recall Deadlines. NO. Why open the handling of recall elections up to legislative skullduggery?

• Referendum G: Obsolete Constitutional Provisions. YES. It's good to keep our state constitution neat and tidy.

• Referendum H: Limiting a State Business Income Tax Deduction. NO. Another close call, but in the end I decided that there's no good reason to burden small businesses with the government's problems regarding immigration. Shall we, say, reform the INS instead?

• Referendum I: Domestic Partnerships. YES. No, it's not marriage, but I see no good reason why same-sex partners shouldn't have the privilege of entering into civil unions.

• Referendum J: School District Spending Requirements. NO. This is the toothless version of Amendment 39, and it isn't hard enough on the political class for my taste.

• Referendum K: Immigration Lawsuit Against Federal Government. YES. Sure it's tilting at windmills, but it annoys the federal government on the subject of immigration, which might just possibily lead to reform of the INS (though don't hold your breath).

Posted on 2006-10-30 at 20:20. File under politics.

~ link ~

XMPP URNs

Naming namespace names.

A few weeks ago, Dave Cridland suggested that we start using URNs of the form "urn:xmpp:foo" rather than URIs of the form "http://jabber.org/protocol/foo" to identify the XML namespaces of XMPP extensions. Great idea, Dave! In my travels recently (IIRC, while flying home from San Diego on the 17th), I wrote up an Internet-Draft about it, which I've just submitted to the IETF. Unfortunately it won't be published for a while given the impending IETF meeting in San Diego, but you can find it online at xmpp.org. Enjoy!

Posted on 2006-10-30 at 14:32. File under jabber.

~ link ~

2006-10-26

Swing

Courting libertarians?

A brief article in this week's issue of the Economist makes a case for libertarians as an underappreciated swing vote in American politics. Since so few people self-identify with the geeky term "libertarian", David Boaz and David Kirby of the Cato Institute use positive answers to the following questions as proxies for libertarian sentiment:

• Do you think that government is trying to do too many things that should be left to individuals and businesses?
• Do you think that government should not favor any particular set of values?
• Do you think that the federal government has too much power?

According to a recent study by Boaz and Kirby, 13% of Americans agree with those statements. While that's not a majority or a plurality, it's at least a sizable percentage that is being mostly ignored by Republicans and Democrats alike. It's also a lot more than the miniscule percentage of people who vote for the traditionally feckless Libertarians Party (there are many problems with the LP, not the least of which is its geeky name -- wouldn't something like the Founders Party be more palatable?). In any case, it's true that those of us who trend libertarian are in essence politically homeless. And as the Economist article hints, it doesn't help that liberty-lovers tend to be independent cusses who don't flock together for joint (read: collective) action.

Sigh.

Posted on 2006-10-26 at 18:11. File under politics.

~ link ~

Traveling Blues

Blog outage explained.

Sorry, I've not been blogging because I've been busy travelling (and trying -- unsuccessfully -- to catch up on my backlog of email). Last week I participated in the Joint Systems Chat Conference in San Diego, where we had lots of productive discussion about the use of multi-user chat technologies in the U.S. military (expect more about that soon). This week I traveled to the D.C. area to speak on one of my favorite topics -- the presence-enabled, real-time Internet -- at the invite-only Connected World conference held by CSC's Leading Edge Forum. (BTW, the CSC folks are podcasting all the talks -- if I weren't on a plane right now I'd track down the audio, but in the meantime I've posted a PDF of my slides.) Thankfully, I don't have to travel again for a while, so I should have some focused work (and email) time here soon...

Update: The MP3 podcast is here.

Posted on 2006-10-26 at 17:57. File under jabber.

~ link ~

2006-10-13

Not Clear

Personal unproductivity.

About six months ago I instituted drastic measures regarding the flood of email I receive. For a while I was doing quite well. Unfortunately, in the last few weeks my inbox has ballooned up to 700 items. Ouch! Time to get back to basics. Expect lots of outgoing email from me next week. :-)

Posted on 2006-10-13 at 15:53. File under personal.

~ link ~

bis

XMPP updates continue.

I've just submitted the following Internet-Drafts to the IETF Secretariat:

1. draft-saintandre-rfc3920bis-00 -- This document is intended to supersede RFC 3920. It contains clarifications and modifications based on implementation experience, deployment experience, and interoperability testing.

2. draft-saintandre-rfc3921bis-00 -- This document is intended to supersede RFC 3921. It contains clarifications and modifications based on implementation experience, deployment experience, and interoperability testing.

3. draft-saintandre-xmpp-interop-report-00 -- This document is an initial report on XMPP-related implementation experience, deployment experience, and interoperability testing. The document still requires much work but provides some directions for interoperability reporting.

Send feedback directly to me or to the xmppwg@jabber.org list.

Enjoy!

Posted on 2006-10-13 at 15:23. File under jabber.

~ link ~

2006-10-11

TBird

Contributions good.

As a mostly happy Thunderbird user I'm delighted to see that Qualcomm will be migrating Eudora to Thunderbird. Maybe some of the bugs and usability issues that have been bothering me will get fixed faster now. :-)

Posted on 2006-10-11 at 10:46. File under technology.

~ link ~

Bach to Brahms

Thematic comparisons.

Is it just me, or is there a strong family resemblance between the Prelude of Bach's fifth English Suite (BWV 810) and the Allegro of Brahms' first Sonata for Piano and Cello (Op. 38)? Either way, I really like both pieces...

Posted on 2006-10-11 at 10:37. File under music.

~ link ~

2006-10-10

Jingle Slides

Yet another presentation complete.

I just finished my Jingle talk at the Internet Telephony Conference & Expo. My slides are here.

Posted on 2006-10-10 at 17:23. File under jabber.

~ link ~

2006-10-09

✈ San Diego Bound ✈

Talking about Jingle.

I'll be in San Diego tomorrow to talk about Jingle at the Internet Telephony Conference & Expo. See you there!

Oh, and if your browser doesn't understand U+2708, get a better browser! :-)

Posted on 2006-10-09 at 19:57. File under jabber.

~ link ~

2006-10-08

Against Jihadism

The courage to speak out.

In yesterday's Rocky Mountain News, Tawfik Hamid spoke out against jihadism. He'll do so in person tomorrow night at the University of Denver and I plan to attend his talk. Reading his essay has also prodded me to post my blog entry from September 10th as a standalone essay entitled Islam and the Future of Civilization.

Posted on 2006-10-08 at 20:23. File under society.

~ link ~

Hot Rize

Live bluegrass.

On Friday night I schlepped up to Boulder and heard a great concert by Hot Rize, including a rare appearance by their alter egos Red Knuckles & the Trailblazers. In general I'm not a pure bluegrass fan (since I don't love the traditional variety), but Hot Rize are an amazing blend of that older sound with a modern edge, and on Friday night they were simply cooking. But I still miss the ever-creative playing of flatpicker Charles Sawtelle...

Posted on 2006-10-08 at 20:19. File under music.

~ link ~

2006-10-04

XMPP Update Redux

Moving right along.

As posted to the Standards-JIG list, I have completed the rebranding of Jabber Enhancement Proposals to XMPP Extension Protocols and I am very close to having rfc3920bis and rfc3921bis ready for submission to the IETF Secretariat. I'm sure there are still things to fix at the jabber.org and xmpp.org websites (this was a big move) and in the bis drafts, but we can get those worked out over the next 48 hours or so.

Posted on 2006-10-04 at 16:59. File under jabber.

~ link ~

2006-10-02

Booking It

What I'm reading.

In my copious spare time I've been reading the following books of late:

• This Is Your Brain On Music by Daniel Levitin
• Restoring the Lost Constitution by Randy Barnett
• The Cultural Origins of Human Cognition by Michael Tomasello
• Authentic Happiness by Martin Seligman
• Aristotle's Ethics in the fine translation by Terence Irwin
• Before the Dawn by Nicholas Wade

I doubt I'll have time to report on them here, but they're all pretty interesting so far.

Posted on 2006-10-02 at 22:11. File under personal.

~ link ~

XMPP Update Progress

Seemingly on schedule.

As promised I've been cranking away on the new xmpp.org website as well as rfc3920bis and rfc3921bis. It's all in CVS here (though the bulk of the RFC revisions are here and here -- up through what I consider to be Release Candidate 1, which I finished today). More soon!

Posted on 2006-10-02 at 22:01. File under jabber.

~ link ~

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