Make it go Away

http://mobile.nytimes.com/article;jsessionid=E8F9200F90B78B35D7AF05461C5DE5D3.w6?a=408088&f=19

Somehow I can't really get myself worked up about the news that Ortiz used steroids, since everyone did. Were the 2004 Sox a fraud? As I recall they went through the New York juggernot led by um Arod, Clemens, and Giambi.

I mean in the sample that kicked off testing they found enough users to stock four full teams and a few leftovers for the DL. And since it had just about everyone in the top ten for homers it only figures he might be on it.

There is no doubt steroids enhance performance and are bad for you. But as near as I can tell everyone was using, so the case that it have them a competitive edge that would invalidate the team accomplishment seems week.

Electing Republicans

While there are certainly some tangible benefits in terms of committee numbers, I am honestly starting to wonder if the president would be better off if a few of the centrist democrats in the senate got knocked off.

So far they have yet to support anything on the democratic agenda. And if they are dumped then the left bound of whatever gang of 'centrists' emerges, since the senate now seems to require one to pass any major bill, will be substantially more progressive.

The main criticism of this is that the move mirrors the moderate purge of house republicans that is responsible for their current minority status. But I would counter that the success of the President and plenty of other democrats last year shows that there is much more room to the left of Mary Landreau than to the right of Lincoln Chaffee.

No Size Fits All

http://mobile.nytimes.com/article?a=403492&single=1&f=28&sub=Columnist

David Brooks has a great piece on the Presidents new community college initiative. It doesn't go as far as I do - that most kids in 4 year schools don't belong there (and even fewer grad school students do) - but notes the important point that it is those schools that will make up the human capital gap America faces.

But what really got my attention was the ending when Brooks basically begged the President to seize the legislative reigns. I think there is a pretty good case that the passive nature of the white house is at least somewhat attributable to 'legislative capture' - the idea that with so many of the occupants having come straight from the Capitol they have an excessive deference to congress.

But it is also an unusual inversion of how presidents start terms. Usually the president grabs the reigns early, wages his major battle in the first 18-24 months, and when the dust settles everyone in congress is sick of him and the second half of the term he works around the margins. This president, whether intentional or not, has skipped the initial seige.

The interesting test will be whether folks like Brooks are still salivating for him to fight a big battle 12 months from now. If health care and global warming go to the mats and get done early next year, and they still are looking for the president to lead something bold, there could be the opportunity for something really incredible.

The only question left is, what does the president have up his sleeve?r

Looking Over the Horizon

I noticed that Google Reader has added a new feature recently, the Like. I love the like.

The like does two things. First, in addition to being able to Star or Share a news item, users can now Like it. This essentially creates three levels for users to flag items in their feed. The Star is for personal memory (individual). The Share flags an item for your friends and other followers (group). And now the Like sends a signal out to the public.

Alone this would be a feature of marginal value. But the second piece is that each news item now shows you whether anyone else has "liked" the item. More importantly, clicking on the number of likes shows you all the Reader users who "liked" it and provides one-click ability to either view their google profile or start following them. Essentially it lets you peak beyond the horizon and find others heading in the same direction as you.

Where it gets really cool though is if you apply the enterprise perspective. Imagine if everyone in the US Government was on the same platform to consume all their news and other data feeds. Say you work in USDA cyber security. You probably know a few people in the Agencies and a couple in other Departments that you have met working on projects, so naturally you Follow them. Then one day you are reading the DHS cyber blog and there is an important message with a few likes, so you check out the user names. Next, you read an item on Wired, and you notice someone from SSA liked the DHS item and also liked this one. Then you see an item that is a new report on FISMA best practices that you like, but also this mysterious person likes.

Guess what, you have just discovered someone with the same portfolio and interests as you. So you can do two things. In the old days you would randomly call them up and say "hey we do the same thing" and maybe you'll get lunch once or twice or even find a great opportunity for interagency collaboration. But likely you won't, because based on those few data points and that you have a job to get done building a relationship isn't worth the investment. But now you can just Follow them.

Your investment now is the click of a button and potentially wading through a couple stupid extra items in your Shared stream. But the potential is that they will share some great stuff (after all, we already know you like similar things). And maybe you'll even comment on some items and strike up a digital relationship. Which means that if you finally do move to the "hey lets get lunch" level you already have a good sense of the baseline value you can expect from the relationship.

The idea also has a ton of merit from a systems perspective. Right now, networks (especially in the enterprise environment) are largely based on where people sit. The like system provides a way to connect with people based on what they know. A key feature of the "2.0" world is the notion of meritocracy. The likes are another valuable system for breaking down the traditional walls that silo people and knowledge and then augmenting users capacity so that they can drink from the firehose of info now directed at them.

What an F-ing Jackass!

I was curious about the upcoming movie "The Hurt Locker", so was searching online for reviews. I came across the review by Alexander Marlow, and lemme just say, I was so annoyed by the end of reading it, I wouldn't have wanted to quote him to give him publicity, if not so that people can go read his article and see how much of a ridiculous, pompous a-hole he is.

This is also why as much as I agree with several conservative beliefs and principles, I would never ever call myself a conservative. Or a Republican. Saying it will only leave a foul taste in my mouth.

UGH. See, this is the thing. There's a characteristic that is somehow left out in the description of the modern-day so-called conservative party in the US (or elsewhere? well, that I wouldn't know), and yet this characteristic utterly defines the party and its members. It's that they're all arrogant, paternalistic jerk-offs.

Pardon my french there.

Open Government & "True Democracy"

I was pointed to John Kamensky's post on Collaborative Governance, which was mainly discussing Beth Noveck's new book about "Wiki Government." It was an interesting read, but had lots of jargon and definitions those political science types keep us common folks confused and remain two steps behind.

The idea of opening up the government to hearing more of the public's opinion and allowing for more participation on the citizen (or "grassroots") level has been thrown around a lot, especially since the beginning of the Obama administration (or think back to his online-media-savvy campaigning team).

I know that there is a lot of potential to this approach, and numerous possible benefits to bring us closer to "true democracy" (whatever that might mean, I take it means less power to the rich), but count me among the cynics who see this more as a theoretical, abstract construct that has been nothing more than gimmicks so far.

I don't know anything about the Obama adminstration's "Open for Questions" forum, but if my memory serves me well the "apply for a job in the Obama administration" website was put up with all the buzz but pretty much went nowhere. Who really got a job through this thing other than people that already know someone through his campaign or have worked in his campaign?? (if you do, please let me know, so I can slap myself and stand corrected). My point is, the "open government initiatives" we've seen so far do not appear more than just a dog and pony show. It might have been started with good intentions, but the lack of follow through or sustainable development is embarrasing.

My other concern is the use of online technology to encourage and increase public participation. I don't know about other places people go online, but I myself am a proud purse forum member (haha shamelessly so), and let me tell you, it is ridiculously easy, and I repeat, absolutely ridiculously easy to start an online riot against a particular product or brand. The ability for people to distort information, manipulate opinion, and instigate a rapid contagion of emotions is still something that amazes me to this day. And I myself am pretty good at it as well.

Now perhaps this is what the printed and tv news media is already doing to us, so it's only fair that online means can be employed as well. I do not contest that at all. I am only cautioning that "open technology" as a means to improving governance might not be the be all and end all that so many people are hailing these days.

Here's a cartoonish scenario I offer you to close: imagine when light bulbs were first invented, people found out that there're so many things that they can now do with the presence of light bulbs that they didn't use to be able to do. They also notice that light bulbs emits heat. So they thought perhaps they can warm food up with it, if not cook their steak on the bulb.

Take it as what you may.

NATO: In decline or on the rise?

Mike Tomasky has a piece up in favor of dissolving NATO. It follows up on the Presidents speech yesterday which embraced the idea of the post soviet states joining NATO, noting that if Georgia had been in NATO last summer "the US (and the UK) would in theory be committed to military intervention to defend two provinces in Georgia. That's nuts." And he's right, that is nuts - as nuts as Russia going to war with the US over two provinces of Georgia.

Unfortunately much of IR is a giant staring match. But as we learned in the Cuban missle crisis and afghanistan in the 1980's and countless other of the great powers chess boards, at the end of the day these things come down to not-batshit-crazy people and not mindless, rule following computers. Not to say nuclear annihilation couldn't happen as a result of poor human strategic judgement, just that I don't think that is more likely than it being touched off by a flock of geese or a rogue General.

That said, Tomasky makes the very useful comment that "What I'd rather see out of Obama is some bold thinking about the next generation of alliances." So here's my idea. But what if rather than dumping NATO that next "generation of alliances" was welcoming Russia into NATO? What if Obama had instead said:

For any country - including Russia, if it so chooses - to become a member of NATO, a majority of its people must choose to; they must undertake reforms; and they must be able to contribute to the alliance's mission.

Obviously such a radical proposal would require checking with the rest of the NATO member states, but such a carrot could potentially be a huge tool for fostering the democratic transition in Russia that seems to have stalled the last few years.