Tag: Dan Gillmor

How Not to Refute Ann Coulter

I have absolutely no use for shock columnist Ann Coulter who this week writes — among others — of Max Cleland,

Cleland lost three limbs in an accident during a routine noncombat mission where he was about to drink beer with friends. He saw a grenade on the ground and picked it up. He could have done that at Fort Dix. In fact, Cleland could have dropped a grenade on his foot as a National Guardsman – or what Cleland sneeringly calls “weekend warriors.” Luckily for Cleland’s political career and current pomposity about Bush, he happened to do it while in Vietnam.

Ugh. Completely inappropriate.

But so is the reaction of Dan Gillmor and the Center for American Progress. Gillmor writes that,

The Center for American Progress shreds her misrepresentations, and wonders why Bush has no problem with this kind of shameless behavior by big-time supporters.

But Dan hasn’t bothered to do any fact checking and, in fact, the Center for American Progress doesn’t appear to know what it’s talking about, at least when it comes to training for Vietnam. According to CAP’s “shredding” of Coulter,

SAYING CLELAND WAS “LUCKY” TO HAVE LIMBS BLOWN OFF: Coulter said, “Luckily for ClelandÂ…he happened to [lose his limbs] while in Vietnam” and said that had he been injured “at Fort Dix rather than in Vietnam, he would never have been a U.S. Senator.” Of course, Cleland probably would not have been dealing with live grenades and enemy fire in the save haven of Ft. Dix. But, then, many top conservatives might not know this because they do not have firsthand knowledge of a combat zone.

What are they smoking? Fort Dix was a major training area for soldiers headed for Vietnam. The military constructed a mock Vietnamese village there and trained American soldiers to assault it in live fire exercises featuring small arms and explosives. People can get killed during such exercises (in fact the military generally has an extremely high accidental death rate even during peace time precisely because training for combat is itself extremely dangerous). Does CAP think that soldiers train to use grenades by simply reading the manuals?

I also find it absurd to refer, as Gillmor does, to Coulter as a “thug.” Referring to writers as thugs crosses the line straight into Coulter territory, in my opinion. That sort of characterization is something I’d expect to see in Newsmax.

Sources:

Will President Bush Tolerate This? Press Release, Center for American Progress, February 13, 2004.

Cleland drops a political grenade. Ann Coulter, TownHall.Com, February 12, 2004

Gillmor Still Doesn’t Understand the Basic Facts of the Hawash Case

So Dan Gillmor wrote about Mike Hawash’s guilty plea today, but he still demonstrates an annoying ignorance of the basic facts surrounding the case. According to Gillmor,

Hawash was held without charges of any kind for weeks, incommunicado
and in a judicial limbo that only lifted when people started raising a
ruckus.

Sorry, Dan, but Hawash was not held incommunicado for weeks. He was granted access to a lawyer and contact with his family shortly after he was arrested.

Steve McGeady did claim that (emphasis added),

Mike was held incommunicado from his wife and attorneys for several days.

But nobody’s ever published a timeline of when he first saw a lawyer/talked to his wife, or what caused the delay. It’s likely the delay is related to the fact that Hawash was arrested — apparently completely by surprise to he and his wife — on a Thursday. The delay likely means he didn’t see a lawyer until the Monday after his arrest (if anyone has more concrete information, please e-mail me or post it here).

If he had been held for weeks incommunicado that would have been a major violation of his rights. But that simply never happened.

Mike Hawash Pleads Guilty

What a difference a day makes. Last night anyone who visited FreeMikeHawash.Org would have been informed that Mike Hawash was being unfairly prosecuted because of his religious beliefs (emphasis added),

On April 28, the day before Mike would have been ordered released, the U.S. Justice Department issued a Complaint, charging Mike with Conspiracy to Levy War on the United States. Mike is being targeted because he is a Muslim. The Justice Department has organized a smear campaign to portray him as a radical.

Mike’s attorney, Mr. Stephen Houze, has characterized the evidence in the Affidavit provided to be “sketchy” and “circumstantial”. The evidence provided is substantially less detailed and conclusive than that against the alleged “Portland 6” co-conspirators.

Visit the site today, however, and it’s a whole different story,

Aug 6: Mike pled guilty today to one count of his three-count indictment. He admitted attempting to enter Afghanistan with members of the “Portland 6”. We hope that justice has been served, and our focus now shifts to support for Mike’s family in this difficult time.

I can’t wait to read what Dan Gillmor makes of this Kafka-esque turn of events. Somebody call Andy Grove!

Dan, Et Al — I Told You So

Remember back to June 2001 when the Appeals Court in the Microsoft case reversed and remanded Judge Jackson’s proposed penalties against Microsoft? At that time, people who should have known better (Dan Gillmor comes to mind) went around grasping at straws that this was somehow a loss for Microsoft.

Of course, here the more sensible view prevailed,

As for the remedies, they’re headed toward Microsoft but what are the odds this case will ever go before another judge? Very, very low. With the Appeals Court making a breakup impossible, Microsoft now has the leverage it needs to reach an advantageous settlement. This is a prospect the Justice Department is going to be very amenable to since it seems clear that John Ashcroft and the rest of the Bush administration don’t want this case.

This whole thing will almost conclude with a slap-on-the-wrist-fine and some meaningless agreement in which Microsoft promises not to enter into exclusionary deals with ISPs and to stop threatening competitors like Intel who want to enter into deals with Microsoft’s competitors.

Of course there was a settlement that amounted to a slap on the wrist, and today a judge upheld that settlement agreement with only minor changes.

The interesting thing about Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly is how far she went in agreeing with critics of the entire lawsuit. Groups that were out there claiming that this was a classic abuse of antitrust to benefit MS competitors were derided as sycophantic spokespersons for MS who didn’t have a clue, but here’s Judge Kollar-Kotelly strongly criticizing the states and others for just this problem. Here’s what she wrote about Sun’s Scott McNealy’s claim that Microsoft’s failure to include a JVM was evidence of monopolistic behavior,

The incompatibility of Microsoft’s JVM is a non-issue…Mr. Green’s testimony is revealed as little more than an attempt to advance Sun-compliant Java technologies through this proceeding.

Dave Winer doesn’t get it either, insisting that the decision is bad because it harms Microsoft’s competitors. But antitrust was never intended to help a company’s competitors, and to suggest that it should do so is a complete perversion of what little justification there is for antitrust laws in the first place.

Source:

Rivals come up short in decision. Declan McCullagh, CNET.Com, November 1, 2002.

The Big Google Loser Is Not Domain Names, But Yahoo!

Dan Gillmor claims that with the advent of Google, domain names are no longer important. I bet to differ.

He notes that whereas in the past he would have might have hunted around for the web site for Via Technologies, today he just types in the company’s name into Google to find its web site. The main lesson there, though, is not that domain names are still important, but rather that directories like Yahoo! are probably toast over the long run.

Does anybody use Yahoo! anymore? Obviously that’s a bit facetious, but I almost never visit Yahoo! Two years ago if I wanted to find a web site about 19th century slave revolts, I probably would have navigated through Yahoo’s directory. Today I’d just spend a few moments searching for “slave revolt 19th century” and similar such terms until I find a few sites, and then go from there. I don’t think I’ve searched for any topics on Yahoo in at least 6 or 7 months.

As for domain names, they are still important if only as easy-to-remember markers to bring visitors back. On the one hand, for example, my animalrights.net site certainly benefits from Google. On the other hand, I’m certain it receives a lot of return traffic simply because animalrights.net is very easy to remember. Similarly, I find it very nice that if anyone asks me for the address of personal web site, I can smile and tell them it is just simply Brian.Carnell.Com.

I know this works from personal experience. Three sites I visit regularly are Steven Denbeste’s site – Denbste.Nu, Fredrik Norman’s site – FredrikNorman.Com, and Glenn Reynolds’ InstaPundit.Com (which isn’t a name, but is very easy to remember and very descriptive of the site).

Gillmor says he’s letting his domain names lapse, but I’ve been registering cool ones. Seth Dillingham was nice enough to alert me to an awesome domain name that was available, and which I subsequently registered, DevilsAdvocate.Org, and I’ve had other people e-mail ideas for very cool domain names that are still available. Given how cheap domain names are, it’s still a good idea to grab one for your site rather than rely solely on Google for people to find your site.

Dan Gillmor on Windows XP

Personally, I’m going to upgrade to Windows XP as soon as its available because pretty much everything I’ve read indicates its the most stable version of Windows yet (granted that’s not saying much…)

Dan Gillmor, writes that, “The Justice Department and states must quickly seek an injunction blocking the release of Windows XP, at least the version Microsoft is planning to ship.”

If I understand it, the Justice Department won’t be able to ask a federal judge to issue such an injunction until the case goes back to the lower court near the end of August, at which point it is extremely unlikely the court would issue such an injunction due to the harm it would likely cause Microsoft.

I think it’s kind of amusing to watch the same people who were horrified at the injunction that shut down Napster suddenly turn around and beg the government to do pretty much the same thing to Microsoft. Plus, Gillmor doesn’t even bother to be internally consistent with what he objects to with Windows XP. Among other things he doesn’t like about it are,

  • Microsoft removed the Java environment from XP, thereby breaking thousands of Web sites that use Java. XP customers will face endless downloads to replace the functionality they’d come to expect.

    • …

  • Microsoft is bundling all kinds of services into XP in ways that block competition, from photography software to video/audio playback. If customers want to use other vendors’ products they’ll have to jump through Microsoft-designed hoops.

Hmmm…so bundling Java with XP is fine even though it potentially hampers alternatives but bundling video/audio playback software is bad? I’m not seeing the logic there, Dan. I suppose he’s still peeved that Windows includes a calculator and text editor too.

I also didn’t understand this objection,

  • Windows XP contains harsh controls on users to prevent unauthorized copying of the software. If you reinstall the OS after upgrading your hardware in ways that Microsoft considers questionable, you’ll need Microsoft’s permission.

Yeah, Windows XP and several thousand other PC applications. Maybe the Justice Department should have asked for a preliminary injuction against all those Safedisc-protected games I keep running into. Actually Windows XP is better, in that respect, because its authentication method is a lot easier to spoof than is something like Safedisc.