In the early afternoon, Post staff writer Howard Kurtz wrote that the paper’s publisher, Katharine Weymouth, cancelled the series of “salons” scheduled to take place in her home. “This should never have happened,” Weymouth told Kurtz. “The fliers got out and weren’t vetted. They didn’t represent at all what we were attempting to do. We’re not going to do any dinners that would impugn the integrity of the newsroom.”

Sorry, but the fact that the fliers were distributed to DC lobbyists already impugns the integrity of the Washington Post. It’s not like you can put that particular tootpaste back in the tube.

Now this, from the Times on the death of entertainer Michael Jackson:

“The death of Mr. Jackson was the latest Twitter-enhanced luminary spectacle that is specific to Los Angeles, with the customary body-slamming paparazzi, weeping celebrities, grim-faced officials trying to maintain dignity and tourists seeking their succor along Hollywood Boulevard, where the police were forced to place barricades on Friday to hold back the throngs seeking to peer at his star on the Walk of Fame.”

You’re kidding me, right? Twitter-enhanced luminary spectacle, body-slamming paparazzi, and tourists seeking their succor? If that’s not the worst piece of “news” reporting I’ve ever read, it has to be in the top two.

Never mind that the photo caption at the top of the article notes a billboard “tribune” at the 02 Arena in London. The billboard is presumably a tribute.

Everyone makes mistakes—even stupid ones—but the US paper of record is really, really slipping.

No links because links are votes and represent a value of exchange on the web. The Journal and Times are undeserving lately.

The concept of hypertext, and its more recent hypermedia branchings, has not changed much since first envisioned by Vannevar Bush in 1945. It has taken this long for both the hardware and software to catch up. Now, with the introduction of the Macintosh hypermedia software tools such as OWL International’s Guide and Apple’s HyperCard, we have the beginnings of nothing short of a paradigm shift in the way we deal with data, information, and knowledge.

These software tools, however, are only half of the complete hypermedia solution; to be really useful, they require appropriate hardware that is only now beginning to appear. Apple’s recent introduction of a CD-ROM drive targeted for the mass market signals the first acknowledgment by a major computer manufacturer of this vast opportunity to reshape the way individuals work with overwhelming amounts of data and information, and, in turn, refine that raw data and information into useful knowledge tools.

The availability of appropriate hardware and software solutions for the Macintosh community leaves only a single stumbling block to overcome - a somewhat typical chicken-and-egg dilemma. Few CD-ROM titles will be available, and most will be of questionable quality and innovation, until a terminal mass in unit sales of the CD-ROM drives themselves is reached. Conversely, few CD-ROM drives will be sold until unique and plentiful titles are available. This is at least partially addressed by Apple’s entry into the CD-ROM drive market with a reasonably priced unit that is sure to appeal to a broad base of users.

The foreseeable CD-ROM products, however, can at best be termed first generation and as few as two years from now will be seen as terribly obsolete. CD-ROM is a read-only storage medium (it’s only half-literate; it can’t write), and as Ted Nelson said, “... a read-only medium in this day and age [is] intrinsically oppressive.” For this reason, CD-ROM will not play an equal role (relative to the hypermedia software tools) in the work proposed here; it will be surveyed, along with other mass-storage devices as guideposts to future incarnations of more appropriate hardware. [....]

It took me a couple of years after my kidneys failed in 2000 to figure out that my days of working 16-18 hours every day were over. I researched what my obligations were with regard to disclosure and found that there basically were none. But I felt something—not really a moral obligation—but something that told me the best path for me was full disclosure.

When I went to work for Utne Reader in 2002, for example, I disclosed my condition—because not disclosing it would have placed an undue burden on the small publishing company. We worked it out so I’d work 75-percent time, thereby not qualifying for company-paid health insurance. Both parties were satisfied with the arrangement. When I went to work at the University of Minnesota in 2006 I also disclosed my condition. My health condition—and associated costs—wouldn’t make much of a dent in the University’s fiscal situation, but I disclosed in the first interview anyway. Why? To this day I’m still not sure except that something told me it was the right thing to do.

But it was my decision.

Last night, in one of the worst pieces of “journalism” I’ve ever seen, the Wall Street Journal reported that Steve Jobs had a liver transplant about two months ago. The bylined work was totally and completely unsourced. Sources amounted to an unnamed “person familiar with the thinking at Apple,” a corporate governance attorney that has no relationship with Apple or its board, a surgeon in Saint Louis who has never treated Jobs, a Saint Louis transplant specialist who, also, has never treated Jobs, and “people who have seen him” at the Apple campus. [....]

At the same time, the Obama administration claimed it had taken the necessary steps to bring the NSA into legal compliance. Under the law, the NSA can surveil only those Americans suspected of having links to international terrorism and only then after obtaining permission from the US Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.

The NSA, in Congressional testimony, steadfastly maintains that any “overcollection was inadvertant.” Representative Rush Holt (D-New Jersey), chair of the House Select Intelligence Oversight Panel, told Risen and Lichtblau that he disputes that position and that “the people making the policy don’t understand the technicalities.”

Risen and Lichtblau report that the NSA is believed to have overstepped its legal bounds in 8-10 cases. But in each of those cases, potentially thousands of email addresses were illegally surveilled. “Say you get an order to monitor a block of 1,000 e-mail addresses at a big corporation, and instead of just monitoring those, the N.S.A. also monitors another block of 1,000 e-mail addresses at that corporation,” a senior intelligence official told the reporters.

When my fistula failed, I had no way to dialyze—and without dialysis I would eventually die. The only choice available was to have a tunnel catheter surgically placed in my chest with two lines directly to my heart. I was not looking forward to this because the first tunnel catheter I had—when I was first diagnosed with permanent kidney failure—got infected and I almost died from the resulting sepsis. But the choice was to take the risk with the catheter or eventually die.

What I didn’t know was that I was going to have to basically restart the dialysis process from scratch. First the catheter, then one small needle, then two small needles, then two larger needles, then two largest needles.

On June 1, 2009, I had a single 16-gauge venous needle placed with the arterial flow relegated to the catheter. On June 5, 2009, the same; and again on June 8 and 12, 2009.

On June 15, 2009, I had two 16-gauge needles—one venous; one arterial—successfully placed for the first time. That will continue until I gradually work my way back up through 15-gauge needles to 14-gauge needles. Each needle size hurts an order of magnitude more than the next smaller size. The one thing that’s different than when I began dialysis is that each and every needle placement has been successful (knock wood). When I started using my first fistula there were days when I was stuck with eight needles, none of which were successful and I was sent home without dialysis. That was no fun at all, but I have to tell you:

Starting over sucks rocks.

But I’m getting ahead of myself.

The API’s paper outlines models and recommendations for charging for content online, insisting that news organizations “establish a true value for news content online by charging for it.” What is this, 1999? I thought we were discussing the future of the news business. Scott Rosenberg plays along anyway, writing, “News flash: Pricing a product does not establish its value. What you have to do is find a price that people will pay.”

Rosenberg tried this—many variations of it, actually—when he was at Salon. I tried it when I was at Utne Reader. Rosenberg sums it up quite nicely: “We are grizzled veterans of this argument. We have Been There and Done That. We aren’t grave-dancing; we’re saying, ‘Maybe you don’t want to fall into that grave that almost swallowed us.’” Rosenberg and I learned a hard lesson. If you remove yourself from the internet in any way, two things happen: you become immediately irrelevant and the financial picture is even worse. [....]

In short, Moore recommends killing GM with utmost swiftness while making it a top priority to save the US industrial infrastructure. “And when we realize that the best way to transport ourselves is on light rail and bullet trains and cleaner buses, how will we do this if we’ve allowed our industrial capacity and its skilled workforce to disappear,” Moore writes. The solution isn’t a smaller GM; it’s a totally different GM.

Moore’s solution is to rapidly retool the former automaker and its remaining factories into modern manufacturing facilities used to build mass-transit vehicles and alternative-energy infrastructure. It’s already been done once and can certainly be done again: In 1942, after the attack on Pearl Harbor, Roosevelt ordered GM to stop car production and start making planes, tanks, and other implements of war. GM completely retooled its factories in a matter of months.

Instead of pouring money into GM to build cars, instead use the money to keep the skilled workers primed and ready, “so that they can build the new modes of 21st-century transportation,” Moore writes. Let them start by retooling the existing GM factories.

There’s not only deep justice, but something deeply right about retrofitting GM to manufacture some of the modes of transport it worked so hard to obviate.

The W3C web fonts module for the CSS 3 specification has been available since 2002, but until recently none of the major browsers could link to a font file. Now, all of the major browsers—except Internet Explorer—support this function. And Typekit incorporates support for using Microsoft’s embedded OpenType (EOT) file format as a last resort for Internet Explorer. As Veen writes, “No longer will you need to trap your content in images or Flash just to express yourself visually. Pages will be more usable, accessible, and indexable. This is a massive upgrade for the web.”

A Panglossian web designer would specify type in CSS, link to the appropriate font file, and off she’d go. Except that most typefaces are protected by copyright and aren’t licensed for use on the web. Full stop. Typekit hopes to serve as a licensing intermediary to host type and provide a way of solving browser differences in how they handle type. Veen says that an added line of JavaScript (and a license fee, of course) is all that’s required. Reserving final judgement until the system actually ships, Typekit certainly sounds a lot easier to implement than the current alternatives. [....]

With Congress having just passed legislation that would limit penalties on risky credit card holders, the credit card companies have to make up that revenue somewhere. According to Martin, they’re “going after those people with sterling credit.”

Expect the return of annual fees and the elimination of loyalty reward programs for starters. Next, the card companies will likely eliminate grace periods, charging interest at the point of purchase.

David Robertson who publishes a newsletter on the credit card business told Martin that people who pay their credit cards in full each month “have been enjoying the equivalent of a free ride.” Never mind the fact that credit card companies collect an average of 2-3% on each and every credit card transaction. Free ride indeed. Martin reports that the credit card industry refers to those who pay their credit cards in full each month as “deadbeats.” Nice, very nice, coming from the recipients of the public bailout of the US banking industry.

For one solid week, we “deadbeats” should simply refuse to use our credit cards. Use cash or heaven forbid, a check, for a change. I suspect that would send an audible signal—30 percent worth. According to a 2005 Government Accountability Office report, 70 percent and growing of credit card companies’ revenue comes from interest charges; the rest comes from annual fees and merchant processing fees.

An especially disturbing point of Martin’s report is the finding that Bank of America and JPMorgan Chase “account for 80 percent of the credit card industry.” Too big to fail = too big to exist.

Update: Wednesday, 20 May 2009 12:31PM CDT: I meant to get this in last night but it slipped through the cracks. If the US Congress would grow a set there would be interest rate limits set on the credit card companies. Four percent more than they’re willing to pay for deposits sounds about right.

When are we going to wake up, come to our senses, and realize that Gordon Gekko capitalism is just, well, wrong.

Face it, the taxes are about the same all in. But instead of reinforcing the American oligarchy, the collective wealth is used in these European states to benefit everyone.

Oh, sure, there are problems. Europeans ride bikes for real, drive too close to each other, and that plastic wrap in European groceries is just too much. The one that really gets to me, though is “consensus and conformity.” As if conformity isn’t the demanded norm in the US. The idea of the American pioneer, the great non-conformist is a myth. It died 30 years ago.

I figure I’ve got no more than 20-30 years of this life left; probably less—maybe a lot less. The question, which becomes more pressing every year, is whether I want to live in the land of Gordon Gekko and his somehow malformed inherently inferiorly designed clones or something more; something else. I used to hope the European social movement would come here, but after the last half of 2008 and most of the first half of 2009 it’s never been clearer that’s not going to happen in the US. Not ever. All that’s left is to put Gekko’s profile on the money.

1. Make money (lots of it) for the publishers
2. Provide an “authoritative” voice for big pharma that it completely and covertly controlled that was trussed up to look like any other authentic peer-reviewed medical journal

Merck, the pharmaceutical giant developed the periodical that looked like a real live peer-reviewed medical journal. Within its pages, Merck published “data” that exhibited the company’s products in a favorable light. The pharmaceutical giant then paid Elsevier, the largest corporate publisher of medical journals, to publish the thing. The Australasian Journal of Bone and Joint Medicine has no editor, doesn’t appear in MEDLINE, nor has a website, but who’s counting.

The story was first broken by Milanda Rout writing for The Australian, and Bob Grant at The Scientist has the most substantial coverage. “Merck paid an undisclosed sum to Elsevier to produce several volumes of a publication that had the look of a peer-reviewed medical journal, but contained only reprinted or summarized articles—most of which presented data favorable to Merck products—that appeared to act solely as marketing tools with no disclosure of company sponsorship,” wrote Grant in his lede. [....]

Louise Story, writing in the New York Times, reports that “workers at the largest financial institutions are on track to earn as much money this year as they did before the financial crisis began….” Interesting concept: drive your company over the cliff and reap the financial rewards; nice work if you can get it.

Story reports that six of the biggest Wall Street players are setting aside more than US$36 billion for first-quarter salaries for employees. Goldman Sachs alone has set aside US$4.7 billion. “If that level continues all year, it would add up to average pay of US$569,220 per worker,” writes Story. That’s almost as much as the 2007 pay level, which—according to Story—set a record. Morgan Stanley—which lost US$578 million for the quarter—set aside an unbelievable US$2.08 billion for compensation; a mind-blowing 68% of revenue. [....]

Ars Technica‘s Jacqui Cheng reports that researchers at the Know-Center in Austria are working on just that. Online publications will be ranked as “highly credible, having average credibility, or ‘little credible.’” The algorithm examines “the distribution of words over time, and compares blog topics against articles from mainstream news, which are apparently weighted as being more credible.”

What’s this? The Austrians believe that corporate media are more credible solely because they exist? That’s just silly. Little credible—that’s us.

Little credible like US Representative Jane Harman (D-California). She thought the Bush administration’s illegal warrantless wiretaps were a-okay. Harman is currently upset because the US government wiretapped her legally, with a warrant. The ever-credible Glenn Greenwald sums it up best: [....]

After having led the lawsuit against the telecommunications companies, in October 2008 the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) filed a lawsuit against the National Security Agency (NSA) and members of the Bush administration for the illegal warrantless wiretapping program.

On Friday, 3 April 2009—two days late to be a cruel April Fools’ joke—the Obama administration filed its response to the EFF lawsuit (.pdf; 120Kb). The Obama administration seeks immediate dismissal of the entire lawsuit based on the same argument Bush used: the state secrets privilege.

But Obama seeks to extend executive power even further than Bush did by claiming sovereign immunity included in the Patriot Act bars any lawsuits for any government surveillance except in the case of willful disclosure of any illegally obtained communications. Never mind that the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), the Wiretap Act, and the Stored Communications Act (SCA) all specifically prohibit illegal warrantless wiretaps. [....]