Make It Easy For Me

A New Direction

2009-04-01T19:18:05Z

Make It Easy For Me will be taking a new direction from this point forward.

Continuing in the tradition of going after easy targets, MIEFM will now be a celebrity gossip blog. You can expect another post with more information later today, or early tomorrow.

Har har har, April Fools!

Bailing Out Detroit

2009-03-30T18:15:21Z

This morning my friend Scott was telling me that the Obama Administration had asked the CEO of GM to set down. Curious, I sought more information on what was going on, and remembered that the auto industry had also asked for a bailout some time ago.

What’s happened is this: When the GM and Chrysler asked for a bailout a loan agreement was set up, and before they would get the money their continued viability had to be proved, or they had to have a plan that would make them viable. The deadline was tomorrow, March 31, 2009. The assessment of the two companies viability turned out to be negative.

GM seems like it could become viable, but on its own it was not doing enough to become a viable competitor in the global car market. For this reason, it has been given 60 days to get its act together, do an aggressive restructuring that will likely replace most of its board, or it will not receive a loan from the US government. This restructuring has begun with the removal of the current CEO and Chairman Rick Wagoner. Over the next 60 days GM is expected to work closely with a government task force to restructure itself, set up a plan to gain a positive cash flow, and substantially reduce its debt.

Chrysler, one the other hand, appears to be unsustainable on its own. Because of this, Chrysler plans to gain a partnership with Fiat, who as recently as 2004 underwent their own, apparently successful, restructuring. The idea here is that Fiat will lend technology and leadership to Chrysler, allowing it to improve its share of the market, and get themselves out of the negative. Once Chrysler has done this they will begin to payback the government assistance they received, and eventually Fiat will likely own a controlling share of the company. Chrysler has 30 days to finalize a partnership with Fiat, or it will not receive government assistance to stay afloat.

In both plans the companies will receive working capital from the government for their transition periods (the 60 days for GM and 30 days for Chrysler) and full access to Obama’s team of industry experts to help get them on track before their ultimatum is up.

Here’s some things I like about the plan:

First, I like that the government is being tougher on them than they were on the banks. As it is now apparent, the government did not put in enough fail-safes to prevent bank executives from using the government money to give themselves a nice fat paycheck. I feel that their should have been more stipulations there, and it seems like the administration learned its lesson and is being a little more careful with the automotive industry.

Second, both plans stipulate that, in order to receive government assistance, new cars and engines will need to built in United States factories. This should help relieve some of the unemployment that is plaguing the United States, as the automotive industry was one of the largest manufacturers in the United States. Michigan is an example of how the automotive companies failing affects unemployment, as it has had a number of manufacturing facilities closed by these companies, and Michigan also faces the highest unemployment rate in the United States. Reopening U.S. factories coupled with the infrastructure projects and state funding from the Recovery Act should help pull us out of this recession.

Still Alive

2009-03-27T18:55:56Z

I’m still alive, just thought I’d let you guys know. Thanks for still popping in, I know I’ve been a terrible writer for the past, oh, two months. I’m thinking of starting up writing again, but who knows, we’ll see.

For something to read, my friend Scott is starting a new blog, called No Entertainment Media Is Safe, or NEMIS, so check that out.

Sorry

2009-01-15T07:31:00Z

This post is to apologize for my absence here lately. I’m in a transitional period, trying to figure out what to write, why I want to write it, who I am really writing for… Thank you for still coming and checking for posts, I appreciate your support. Hopefully I will have something interesting for you soon.

Thanks, Judge Davis!

2008-12-29T19:48:00Z

Sorry about that long break without warning. Christmas time was a bit busy and when it came time to write a post I was either otherwise engaged or worn out. I should be picking it back up on a regular basis now, though I am playing with the idea of switching to once a week, probably Sundays, so that I can research my posts a bit more and give you something that is a little more original that what I’m putting out there for you now. We’ll see how that goes, and I’ll make a post about that if it is what I choose to do.

Judge Michael Davis made the important distinction months ago that making files available to be shared through file sharing software such as Kazaa or Grokster is not the same as actually sharing music illegally over the internet. Because of this distinction he declared a mistrial in the case of Jammie Thomas, who was being sued for $222,000 for illegally sharing music. The judge is now holding to that decision by refusing to hear an appeal from the RIAA to allow the case to go to trial.

This gets Thomas out of a huge fine, and sets an important precedent for future cases where the RIAA is trying to sue consumers under the making-available idea. Now the RIAA is forced to present actual evidence that a consumer has broken the law before suing the for breaking the law!

Choruss and Corruption

2008-12-10T20:09:00Z

Recently there has been some great news for the file-sharing community: Three of the major music labels are looking to set up a collective licensing system with universities so that students can share music without being sued and expelled from their schools. The project, named Choruss, could have a huge effect on file-sharing, hopefully paving the way for collective licensing with ISPs for the regular home user. The idea behind collective licensing is that everyone pays in a small fee, probably less than $5 per person. This money is split between labels and artists based on relative popularity. People can then share content however they want, with whatever program or provider they want, without the fear of being sued by one of the big labels. Of course, Choruss only applies to three of the four big labels (Warner, Sony-BMG, and EMI, but not Universal), but if these labels start a collective licensing system how long is it until movie and software producers catch on?

In other news, yet another Governor of Illinois is set up to be indicted and likely convicted of corruption charges. Gov. Blagojevich has been conspiring to sell President-Elect Barack Obama’s Senate seat to the highest bidder. The idea was that Gov. Blagojevich would take bids such as high paying jobs for him or his wife, and if nothing acceptable was offered he would appoint himself. This is a man who ran on the platform of reform in Illinois, something we have still not seen to this day, as this arrest clearly shows.

Pirates and Plug-Ins

2008-12-05T22:36:00Z

A couple of interesting articles I’d like to talk about. The first of the two is regarding a recent add-on that was created for the Firefox browser. This plug-in adds a option when you are browsing Amazon to download the content you are looking at for free. When clicked, it takes you to The Pirate Bay, my favorite torrent tracker. Outrage and threats of litigation quickly got the add-on removed, but you can still find it all over the web to download.

The second interesting piece of news is the litigation that Tiffany and Co. is bringing against eBay to try to force them to find and stop counterfeiters. If Tiffany get’s their wish, it would force eBay to handle all goods that are sold through them to verify whether or not the goods are counterfeit. Currently eBay does not handle any merchandise, and this extra step in the selling process would likely bring new fees and increase handling time, causing a serious lack of profitability. This would be a serious detriment to social retail all over the internet. The EFF is defending eBay, who is also being backed by Google, Yahoo!, and others.

Change

2008-12-01T21:01:00Z

It’s an amazing thing to me when the person who is soon to be the highest level elected official in the nations is taking a progressive approach to copyright. Change.gov, the President-Elect’s transition website has been published under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 license. This means that anything published on the site is sharable and remixable under the condition that you give credit to the website for the original works.

This is an example of the progressive views I’m looking forward to seeing when the new administration takes its place in the White House. Hopefully amid the wars and financial turmoil we will have time for reforming all of these things that Obama mentioned while on the campaign trail. While copyright law certainly isn’t going to be one of the first reforms it’d be nice to see it happen down the road.

Black Friday

2008-11-29T05:52:00Z

This is why I don’t leave the house on Black Friday.

Save a life. Observe Buy Nothing Day.

Of Mormons and Millions

2008-11-26T22:16:00Z

A complaint was recently filed against the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints due to their understated involvment in the passing of Proposition 8 in California. The Mormon Church reported about $5000, which does not take into account expenses for things like phone banks and websites the Mormon Church organized and sponsored. California’s law requires that these expense be filed as though they were direct contributions to the passing of the bill.

What I think is interesting in all this is that a Church can openly support and endorse a proposition such as this, but if they endorse a candidate for office they can be fined and for repeat offenses have their nonprofit status revoked. Why is it that in a system that is supposed to stay secular the religions are even allowed to affect an outcome in state or national elections? Our government is supposed to be secular, so let’s keep it that way by putting pressure on religious organizations that are caught abusing the system.

You’re Not In Kansas Anymore

2008-11-25T04:26:00Z

Sorry for the late update.

So, if you hadn’t heard, the mayor of Silverton, Oregon is the first openly transgendered mayor in the United States of America. Of course, this has attracted critisism of the worst kind: The Westboro Baptist Church, the God Hates Fags protesters. Four of these people flew out here to protest the mayor of Silverton. Those four were met by one-hundred and fifty counter-protesters from the town of Silverton. It makes me proud to live in a state where even the small towns refuse to turn a blind-eye to the type of bigotry the Westboro Baptists Church has become famous for. When a town of 7,000 people loans only counter-protesters and does not bolster the number of bigots, that is an amazing victory against this horrible hate-mongering.

Nothing Today

2008-11-21T21:38:00Z

I haven’t found anything that I have a significant amount to say about. Hillary Clinton looks like she’s going to be accepting the Secretary of State position. If I find something later, I’ll do an update.

Problematic

2008-11-19T19:59:01Z

I’ll be writing my blog from home later tonight as my browser is crashing regularly right now. Sorry about the delay.

The Only Show In Town

2008-11-17T20:22:00Z

When it comes to internet providers, there aren’t many shows in Portland, Oregon. Sure, the edges of the city as well as the suburbs have access to a variety of providers, but the closer you get to downtown, the less options you have. Internet service in Portland is largely provided by two companies: Comcast and Qwest. These two companies offer your basic cable and DSL speeds, both have upload/download caps, and Comcast has been known to try to regulate certain types of traffic that comes through it. These two companies run as each others only opposition in the downtown area, and it is not to the benefit of the customers.

Once you leave the downtown area and head to the edges of the city you find a different service, Verizon FiOS. For the same price as Comcast you get speeds that are nearly twice as fast. The service runs through fiber optic lines (hence the name of the service) which seem to carry a more consistent speed than its cable and phone line counterparts. Qwest offers a faster service in various areas of Portland, but again as you get closer to Downtown you are less likely to be eligible for the service.

Now we have Comcast, with largely a lack of competition, getting ready to offer “Premium” services: Bumping their speed up to the fastest Qwest already offers in some areas for about $20 more. Yet if you want faster internet in the Downtown area you are going to be forced to go through Comcast for these speeds. Comcast seems to have a monopoly on the Downtown area, an area which is certainly tech savvy with the creative-class-filled Pearl, Alphabet and Nob Hill Districts. Portland needs to find a way to break this damaging monopoly and get better and cheaper services to Downtown.

Learning The Trade

2008-11-13T21:27:00Z

I want to apologize for not posting yesterday. I don’t know why I forgot to, I just did. I’m trying to be a little more diligent, honestly.

I’ve been working on learning how city government works, as it’s not really a subject I’ve focused on in the past. I spent all my time looking at the national level, where I honestly believe no individual citizen can affect change, rather than looking at our local level where I think a citizen’s abilities to change their surroundings is a little more significant. I’m changing that focus now, as I said Monday, and I’m pouring my attention into our city’s structure.

Portland, Oregon is the last large city in the United States that has a city commission government. What this means is that Portland is run not by a mayor with a city council under them, but by a group of commissioners who share an equal amount of power. The mayor in this form of government is basically another commission member with a symbolic title. The four commissioners and mayor make up the city council, who acts as the executive and legislative branch, as well as a quasi-judicial branch. In Portland there is a sixth elected official, the city auditor. The auditor works towards ethical and transparent government activity.

Each of the commissioners and the mayor are assigned different responsibilities and titles. What I find strange is that the titles assigned to a commissioner do not necessarily denote what they work with. For example, the Commissioner of Public Works doesn’t always have any public works bureaus in their portfolio.

Overall, I find our system of city government to be interesting, and I think it’s fascinating that we have a system of government that is unique to us as far as large cities go.