The Only Republican in San Francisco

Charitable math

Glenn Reynolds has a good list of Katrina-related charities over at Instapundit. Send $100. Send $200...you can probably afford it.

Here’s a bit of charitable math for you. How much do you make a year? OK, divide that by 2000. That is, lop off the last three digits and cut it in half.

That’s what you get paid for an hour of work. Now, how much labor would you be willing to contribute to a cause? A day? Two? Multiply those hours by your hourly pay.

Give it, you can afford it.

Weather as theology

Some, instead of focusing on the victims of the unfolding tragedy of Katrina, see an opportunity to tell us about their God.

Now, many who call themselves environmentalists might be quick to tell you that they are above religion. And yet, the environmental cause is rife with all of the logic and symbolism of apocalyptic religious movements from past and present.

First and foremost is God itself. The concept is there at every turn -- a noble force greater than ourselves that metes out punishment. When humans are hurt by great tragedies, it should be read as judgment from a higher power.

And what is judgment without sin? We fossil-fuel burning, standard-of-living-improving humans are clearly sinners. We’ve committed great wrongs against nature and are being justly punished.

As with any religion, there is a tension with scientists who provide basic empirical reasoning to explain these “super”-natural phenomena. (And who would have expected it from the NYT?)

Der Spiegel has a nice wrap-up of the “evangelicals” in Germany.

I say, eyes on the prize. Let’s get the resources to the people in need instead of mythologizing...

Oooh, here’s another one.

Who is Christopher Hitchens?

...is a question that I’ve asked myself lately. As I’ve waded into the various right- and left-leaning blogs, his name seems to appear with regularity.

In an attempt to characterize, I found a number of people refer to him as liberal. Certainly, as a columnist for Vanity Fair, one might easily accept the stereotype.

Further research reveals that he has spent a good deal of time writing for decidedly left publications, including The Nation and Harper’s (aka, the Journal of American Self-Loathing).

And yet, as I browse some recent articles on the web, I find him resolutely defending the war in Iraq as a battle against real fascism (as opposed to “fascism” as an all-purpose expletive currently used by a Tourettic left.)

The short version of the story is that he has, over time, grown weary of, and simply outgrown, the modern American liberal. Some folks develop and evolve their views, and do so without fear of peer rejection. Others, well, they are deeply frightened of the possibility of rejection by their peers, or by having to justify their views in an independent way.

Mr. Hitchens has shown encouraging, call it thrilling, intellectual growth and independence. His most recent polemic, “A War to Be Proud Of” appears in the Weekly Standard, of all places.

So who is he? He fits the mold of a rambling and history-intoxicated writer. His words are highly personal -- he makes very strong and factual arguments but ultimately communicates that he can only speak for himself. His paper trail is long.

Here’s my thing: I don’t much care on which team you consider yourself to be, or whom you despise. Hate Bush? Great, but be on the right side of the issues (e.g. Thomas Friedman). Few people have the independence of mind to argue and defend issues on their merits -- it is much easier to join a team.

Mr. Hitchens is displaying many signs of such independence, and it’s exciting to read. You won’t easily pigeonhole him, and you won’t easily follow him.

Is he a clear and independent voice, or an onanistic blowhard? TBD. But I dig the ride.

For further reading:
Michael Kazin gives us a well-written history in Dissent.
An enormous accounting of his writing, at HitchensWeb.com.

Professor Weiser follows up

Professor Weiser was nice enough to offer some feedback on my commentary on his and Mr. Bleha’s debate on broadband policy:

You[r] post was great and right on.  ...

More generally on broadband, another issue is the demand side story, which in South Korea, for example, relates to a story about interactive gaming as a killer application.  In the US, the applications that will drive broadband are still developing (like Voice over IP).  The best way govt can support broadband is as a model user—say, online egov initiatives—and as supporting a framework that ... addresses issues like digital rights and privacy in a manner that can enable providers of broadband applications to thrive.

Let me also offer a plug for his book, Digital Crossroads, which is on my list. He also directed me to the very dense and interesting Picker MobBlog.

Broadband a Foreign Affair?

Pardon the pun above, but there are a couple of engaging articles in Foreign Affairs regarding US broadband policy or the lack thereof.

Thomas Bleha argues that the US should be emulating the successes of Japan and other Asian nations. His argument is one of government leadership and investment.

In turn, Professor Philip Weiser responds that our current problems are the result of obsolete laws passed by Congress, and that our current deregulatory track is the right one. His argument is one of government providing frameworks and removing barriers, but not making direct economic choices.

(Thanks to Progress and Freedom Foundation for bringing these to my attention.)

It is true that Japan and South Korea have done very well in deploying broadband, and very fast broadband, to their citizens. But because they exceed the US in this regard, does this imply that we should emulate them? I think there are two glaring omissions from most analyses on this topic.

1) As with all things, one must first look at the economics. What is the salient metric here? I argue, population density.

According to The Economist Pocket World in Figures here on my desk, the population density of Japan is 337 people per square kilometer. South Korea, 477 souls in the same space. The United States, 31.

At a minimum, these countries are 10 times as dense as the US. Running a mile of fiber will pass 10 times as many people in Japan as it will in the US.

If the costs of providing fiber to an individual are linear, it means that fiber deployments in these countries cost 10% of what they do in the States. Let’s assume that the process has enough overhead to make this only half true. In that case, they cost 20% of the comparable deployment.

That’s a pretty cost-effective equation for broadband providers -- imagine the return. Should we be surprised that they are deploying a lot of bandwidth at those prices?

If you are in the fiber (or cable) business and can tell me what the real numbers are, please do so or hit my Comments below.

2) The other, more philosophical point, is the will of the people. Here’s the thing about a free(-ish) market like ours in the US: the state of affairs reflects the will of the people.

We all drool about the prospect of fiber speeds to the home. Imagine the possibilities! Video, HDTV, Internet, voice. All great stuff. But who exactly is demanding it?

We might have to warm up to the idea that the broadband market in the US has and will develop according to the will of the people. Is it a tragedy that we don’t yet have fiber to the home? The people say no.

This gets to Prof Weiser’s point above. He argues, rightly, that the type and quality and price of broadband (and any technology) will be determined by the buyers. If the demand is there (which means paying consumers), then there are many players who will rush to fill the demand.

The best thing that government can do is to provide a framework, without advocacy. This means, removing itself from the equation so that the incentives of the producers match the demands of the consumer.

The clearest place for govt policy is in opening spectrum. This means, freeing that market to allow spectrum to be bought and sold, and moving as much of it into this free market as possible.

Prof Weiser makes the point that under the current regime spectrum is not allocated according to demand, but to supporting the shrinking audience for broadcast television. In a freely-traded market, the allocation would quickly trend to the demands of the citizens.

What do you think? Got some figures for me?

More on the FCC and franchises

http://blog.pff.org/archives/2005/08/reasonableness_1.html

What’s a Republican to do? Support free trade? Or local authority?

Although this sounds a lot like the federal government infringing on the rights of localities, I have to go with the greater benefit here, which is free trade. I am no fan of the FCC dictating the terms of broadband rollout, and under Powell and Martin, they have generally sided with deregulation. A good trend and the markets are responding.

In the case of local franchises, there is an argument to be made that the feds have no say here. But they do, rightly, have a say in preventing barriers to interstate commerce.

The above link is a nice primer on what could become a headline issue -- for geeks like me.

The right thing for the wrong reasons

So, I had a great chat with my Dad (ODofORinSF) last night. Dad has been in the cable business for quite some time, and of late is involved with buying and building new cable systems in rural (exurban) Texas.

Historically, for a cable or telecom company to provide service in a new town, they must get permission from the town. This is called a local franchise.

The assumption is that municipalities will essentially allow any legitimate, stable provider to have the franchise with a minimum of fuss. This is good for the residents of the town. The reality is, of course, a lot of bureaucracy and opportunism on the part of the towns.

The Texas House of Representatives, after some controversy, has passed a bill which allows providers to obtain the franchise at the state level -- and to avoid the thicket of myriad local laws.

On the face of it, this sounds like a great leap forward. Anything which removes barriers to telecoms competition is great by me. By every estimation, Verizon and SBC will leap at the chance to compete with the cable incumbents.

But let me tell you why Dad’s pissed. The cable companies have had to fight through these thickets for years, at great expense, only to have their main competition swoop in with no such baggage.

Imagine being a tennis player who’s played on a muddy court for years. Then, you are put into a match while an agile rival, who plays on a nice fast surface. Oh, and you need to finish out your match in the mud -- you only get the fast surface when the current game is done.

The cable companies are subject to the same law as the telecoms -- they too can apply for franchises from the state. The injustice is, they must finish out their existing contracts (for years) while newcomers do not.

So what’s the right thing to do here, especially as a free-market Republican? Well, this falls into the sticky area of doing the right thing for the wrong reasons. The bill is wrong because it was written to benefit Texas-based SBC. Make no mistake about that.

However, the bill is doing the right thing. Removing barriers to telecoms competition is essential to our competitiveness as a nation. The cable companies get the shaft, for a time, but consumers win here.

The solution? Pass the bill. Sign it into law. And then, let cable companies sue the s**t out of Texas to allow them to sunset their existing contracts.

NCTA, do not try to redress past injustices by punishing the consumer. Anyone who studies the facts will agree that cable has been treated unfairly. But, let’s have this net out positively instead “fairly”.

Addendum: the FCC is getting into the act. Will be interested to see how this is spun -- “promoting competition” or “kowtowing to big telecoms”?

Nominal vs. Real News

George Will goes further regarding my previous post. Our economy is doing extremely well by any measure, and being George Will, he measures.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9022907/site/newsweek/

A couple of salient highlights: We spend less of our incomes on energy than in the past, and oil and gas prices are not near a record in real dollars. The one place we are at record levels is in energy efficiency.

Now, to be clear, my point is not a rah-rah USA kind of thing. Rather, it is to ask the reader to understand successes and failures empirically.

Weirdness

Love this...the US economy is probably the best on the globe and better than at pretty much any time in history. And yet somehow, we’re struggling, according to MSM??

OpinionJournal does the math [site requires registration]

Fun with cultists

Wow, on my way home from “breakfast” this “morning” (what, 1:30pm is not breakfast!?), I came across a table of folks handing out leaflets from Lyndon LaRouche’s organization.

Now, I’ll have to admit that LaRouche was before my time, so I don’t know a lot about him. His name has been mentioned in the context of the whole Springer-esque Cindy Sheehan silliness.

Anyway, the gf was not in tow, so with no one to embarass I decided to listen to what they were pitching. Besides the fact that Cheney is hoping for WWIII, and that money is meaningless, and that 5% unemployment is some sort of economic disaster, and that globalization is bad, they were nice folks.

Really funny, actually. Notice how it’s only wealthy folks that think money doesn’t matter? When the tummy is full it’s hard to imagine hunger.

(I couldn’t help but ask what wealthy suburb they were from. Crickets!)

Anyway, quite amusing, we mixed it up for maybe 20 minutes, and I frankly lost track of all the subjects they tried to introduce. Needless to say, they didn’t have any point except to say that Bush and Cheney are evil and everything is bad and we’re all screwed.

I suggested they might be better of with sandwich boards displaying “The End is Nigh”. Or, you know, reading a book.

Update: Looks like someone at Little Green Footballs has come across these lovers of humanity as well.