Heartland Institute has a notion of software freedom

cite as: F. Bi. 2009. Heartland Institute has a notion of software freedom. Intl. J. Inact., 2:92–93

I have to admit, I’m somewhat uncomfortable with writing about global warming inactivism, because climate is such a diffuse phenomenon which I can’t simply directly tinker with in a lab. Thankfully, our old climate inactivist friend, the Heartland Institute, started talking nonsense about computer software, something I have somewhat more experience with. After publishing an essay by one James Lakely on their web site about the oh-so-scary Marxist plot behind the Free Software movement, they’ve put up another essay by Lakely which says this: [cached]

Apple has approved the creation of more than 65,000 applications (apps) for its wildly popular iPhone.⁵¹ Yet this year, it denied one — Google Voice — for the very good reason it would supplant the iPhone’s core software design and functionality. That decision by Apple prompted the FCC in the summer of 2009 to launch a net neutrality-related inquiry, creating the impression that anything less than approval of all applications may be presumed to be a violation of the FCC’s broadband principles. That is alarming, and absurd. […]

If a manufacturer or carrier does not have the latitude to reasonably restrict applications to ensure they abide with contracted terms of use and a viable business model/offering, then a provider effectively would have no property rights under the U.S. Constitution. That wireless provider also would have no meaningful design, operating, or business role to differentiate its product or service from competitors. […]

As more and more smart phones, netbooks, notebooks, and laptops are enabled to exploit wireless broadband, where would the line logically be drawn where the FCC’s wireless innovation regulation would stop? […]

Well, as you may remember, the other day I wrote a program which crawls through web sites and IP addresses. In the current proto-Marxist regime, I can just load up the program and run it:

$ ./labyrinthvs.pl go http://climatescienceamerica.org/
labyrinthvs: created directory /home/.../.labyrinthvs
labyrinthvs: created db
labyrinthvs: rolled back any uncommitted db changes
labyrinthvs: created any uncreated tables and indices
labyrinthvs: created web ua LABYRINTHVS libwww-perl/5.805
labyrinthvs: added pending url http://climatescienceamerica.org/ (priority 4a957c61.00000000)
labyrinthvs: processing url http://climatescienceamerica.org/
labyrinthvs: ... resolved climatescienceamerica.org to 68.178.254.234

…

Now, if I live in a capitalist world with clear product differentiation and perfect respect for property rights, I’ll probably first need to submit my application to the PC manufacturer for approval, perhaps like an acolyte of yore:

Acolyte (me): O Great Computer Manufacturer Most Wise, Most Capitalist, and Most Free, would you approve my application, that I may use it to perform computations in your honour?

Then the Great Computer Manufacturer will carefully scan my program code for any signs of Marxism, or anti-Apple sentiment, or criticisms of Thomas Jefferson — and if all’s clear, they’ll finally tell me that my software has been approved for running, in accordance with the property rights protections as codified in the Constitution of the United States.

In other news, the Bonner and Associates fiasco continues.

A newsfeed devoted to Bonner and Associates

cite as: F. Bi. 2009. A newsfeed devoted to Bonner and Associates. Intl. J. Inact., 2:84

The Bonner and Associates fake letters scandal — in which it was found that a lobbyist group was sending out anti-climate-regulation letters in the guise of various non-governmental organizations — is developing so fast, that I’m now having trouble keeping up with it in the MLP section of this blog.

So instead of trying to keep up, I’m now adding a newsfeed to the “Bonner and Associates” category from DeSmogBlog. You can watch the astroturf fiasco slowly unravel by visiting the right-hand sidebar of this little blog.

Have fun. 😉

This is vewwwy vewwwy sewwwious

cite as: F. Bi. 2009. This is vewwwy vewwwy sewwwious. Intl. J. Inact., 2:78

Question: Out of the following events, which is the most serious of them all?

1. The Heartland Institute, a think-tank which opposes global warming regulation (among other things), was found to move its ‘conference’ audios around on its web server, causing some hyperlinks to the audios to become broken for a short while.
2. Global warming ‘skeptic’ Anthony Watts reports that another ‘skeptic’, Steve McIntyre, suddenly finds that some files originally on a climate research center’s web server are now missing. The files might have been purged, they might have been moved; who knows. But let’s just assume that there’s something really big and really sinister going on. [cached]
3. A think-tank was found to send anti-climate-regulation letters with forged letterheads to a US Senator. (A brave act of civil disobedience, I suppose.) [cached]
4. Watts slaps a bogus DMCA complaint onto a YouTuber for reproducing the cover page for one of his ‘reports’. [cached]
5. I need a drink.

Answer: According to Watts, the correct answer is 2. But I beg to differ: the answer should be 5.