I know what animal you're thinking of.

Hey Rizzn-ites,

Have you ever played 20 Questions with a computer or small orb? If so, you know that computers and technology, are very capable of predicting what we'll say and what we're thinking.

How does it do it?

Greg Blonder, who we interviewed on the show about a month ago, posted on Internet Evolution today not asking how it does it, but noting how it doesn't, and posing a work-a-round for poor predictive technology. I've chatted with Greg a few times, and he's a great guy to talk to, but I don't know him well enough to know exactly how much of an AI fan he is.

I am a fan of AI. I'm an AI nut. One of my big fantasies (given enough cash and computing cycles, one that I think is realistic), is to create a truly sentient (at least by Alan Turing's standards) AI.

Greg gives a couple examples of how current predictive technology falls short:

• Search engines, and their contextual ads: "Search engine companies believe that they can target ads more efficiently based on invading my privacy and analyzing my last hundred search queries and emails -- and thus charge a premium for each ad served. But last week, while I was seeking information on car recalls, I was flooded by ads to buy the very same lemon from the same company I was investigating."
• Piracy: "The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) snoops around our computers to see what music files we're posting and trying to guess our intent. Do we own the track we posted, and are we just backing it up to the net?"

It's hard to argue with his examples (and there are others in his list), but I'll try. The bottom line that Greg is getting at is that invading privacy to learn more history is not going to assist a computer in accurately predicting the future. I think that frankly, the opposite is true.

Remember the 20 questions bot I mentioned in the opener? The trick to those AIs is for them first to narrow down the possible responses you could have to a narrow list of nouns, and then, narrow down the possibilities further with a refined tree of questions. Most modern 20 questions AIs can get the answer in less than 17 questions, but rarely more than 26.

What do you need to do when all you have is one question (a search query), and no retries? You need more context. You can either get that by coaching the user to be more specific, or you can use historical context.

Search engines, particularly Google, are going back not just a hundred queries, but years in their history, to determine context and intent. Google is also working to invade our privacy on a number of levels, and I'm not just talking about that silly street view thing they have on the maps system everyone seems to be up in arms about.

Look at Blogger, GMail, Search History, GTalk, Calendaring, and just about every tool that's graduated from Labs into common usage. What's a common thread? Not just organisation and assistance in utilisation of said data - archival! They default to archiving all text chats, give you nigh unlimited space to store email conversations, go back as far as they can in their history of your searches, and give you a free tool to record your thoughts on everything from the mundane to the profound in Blogger. Then they tie it to one nifty little Google Account that has your name and cookie attached to it.

They want to give you a gPhone and a Social Network too, not so that you can do better business with it (although that will be the selling point so that you'll use it) - it's to give better context and idea mapping so that when ads do get served up, it'll know from that bulletin you posted about how much you hate your Honda POS, when you search that term, you aren't necessarily looking to buy a new one.

Read some Kurzweil, if you don't believe me. Even if you do - read some Kurzweil. Age of Spiritual Machines changed the way I think about the future. Kurzweil talks about how for a time, AI's will be almost indistinguishable from unmodified humans in levels of performance and in some cases appearance. And then there will be a period where they excel in every way possible past the unmodified human, especially in matters relating to cognition.

All that having been said, the very things that are driving us toward that solution, that is the ability for Facebook and Google to sell us better, more targeted and predictive ads, are the very same factors that are driving us towards the solution to the problem that Greg proposes.

Greg thinks that we should have a 'transparent internet' - that is an internet where actions have consequences. We are slouching ever towards a social internet - where we log in to an internet based operating system that is focused around our task list and our workgroups. Social networks imply responsibility, as actions are increasingly coming with consequences. It's easier to dig up dirt on a person by looking through their photo albums, but it's also easier to see where information has been forwarded from, as more and more information is moved around by the grease of social tools like Facebook, MySpace and Twitter.

I don't think we'll ever quite have the transparent internet Greg asks for, with modified SMTP and DNS protocols and security aware browsers. There's just no margin in it for anyone. We will, though, see both more accurate predictions from computers as well as more accountability in our online actions due to social networking. Count on it.

/rizzn

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RizWords Weekly Roundup

I'm going to try to highlight a few things from the show this week that I think warrant further discussion. This may or may not become a regular feature. We'll see how you guys like it.

gPhone
Do I really need to say more about this? Check Episode 116 of RizWords (you may need to subscribe to the feed to listen). Also read these two posts. The second one contains links to other interesting coverage. Or just Google gPhone. Everyone's got an opinion now.

Two Unfortunate Investments (originals: here and here).
On Thursday we talked about VC put into startups Veveo.TV and Wis.dm. Both Art and I puzzled over the amount of money flowing into these two losers.

Wis.dm is basically an expanded form of the comments features on every website on the web, but tries to be the newest Web 2.0 to pull wisdom from the crowds. On Wednesday and Friday, I inaccurately referenced from memory the anecdote of Sir Francis Galton, who was from the 19th century, not the 17th, as I said. The anecdote itself was properly related, though, which can be found in his Wikipedia entry:

[T]he crowd at a county fair accurately guessed the butchered or the "slaughtered and dressed" weight of an ox when their individual guesses were averaged (the average was closer to the ox's true butchered weight than the estimates of most crowd members, and also closer than any of the separate estimates made by cattle experts).

The example by which the term is defined dictates that yes or no questions aren't going to be the type of questions that the crowd displays it's wisdom, and I can't think of many other instances where a comment form is worth $9 Million in development time. My question: "Where's the beef?"

Similarly, Veveo is a puzzling investment, weighing in at between $14-28 Million. Veveo promises to index videos, making them searchable. Their big selling point? An autocomplete feature.

As we mentioned on the show, we sincerely hope these aren't signs of the end times (in terms of our current tech boom cycle). I certainly remember similarly stupid investments last time around. Either there are some highly charismatic PR folks at these firms, or there are some highly stupid investors over at the VC firms of Matrix Partners, North Bridge Venture Partners, Norwest Venture Partners, OmniCapital Group. I'm not familiar with the staffs of any of the companies (the startups nor the VC firms), so I really couldn't say. The type of money these firms are doling out though (North Bridge Venture Partners in particular), it's worth coming up with some worthless ideas, getting a Web2.0 design job done, and trying to get a zillion in VC.

I'm game, anyone wanna join me?

Digg's Very Prominent New Media Failure
A front page story over at Digg.com Friday morning was a something we covered on Episode 120: Homophobia Inc: Message of Hate Raises Hundreds of Millions of Dollars.

The type of story we love more than most others at RizWords is a story exposing Old Media screw-ups. What we hate is when a prominent New Media source like Kevin Rose's Digg promotes to the front page a piece of pseudo-journalism full of not only factually incorrect but borderline libelous content.

The piece prints falsehoods that could be discounted by doing only cursory research, alleging that the non-profits Christian Broadcasting Network, Focus on the Family, and Family Research Council devote the entirety of their organisations' energy into anti-gay agenda. Give those sites a cursory glance. Clearly they have other focus than just talking about their moral take on homosexuality (which, by the way, is a far cry from being hate-speech or homophobic).

Art and I both attempted to comment dissenting views on the forms, and within seconds, both our comments were buried.

My point being, the failure isn't the blogosphere. There will always be moronic drivel in the blogosphere. The failure is in Kevin's algorithm. The tripe was promoted to the front page before the Digg count reached 100. For better or for worse, Digg is a major New Media news source. If they want to avoid the fate of Dan Rather and CBS News, they should look at changing the system before more people realized how game-able Digg is.

Facebook: You Can't Look The Other Way Anymore
I did a blog post on the business side of the Facebook API, which has been covered on the show several times. The type of money trading in this space can't be ignored, and neither can the ease of entry. This week, not only was it revealed that Facebook wanted to get serious about good applications, but it was also revealed that Bill Gates is a Facebook user, as well as many other prominent Microsoft executives.

This isn't surprising to those of us who listen to Ken or Scoble, but with news like this coming out, it is getting hard to keep up thinking of reasons to stick around that ol' trailer park... especially in light of the way they like to beat up on the tenants.

That's about all the news that's fit to discuss. Any questions? Comment or email!

/rizzn

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RizWords - Daily Politics and Tech - EP51

RizWords - Daily Politics and Tech
Episode 51 - download now - subscribe now

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We opened the show with something Mark thought would be good news for conservatives wishing to stay sane in the mornings... of course Art found the dark cloud around the good news rather quickly:

Rosie O'Donnell has fought her last fight at The View.

ABC said on Friday she will not be back on the television talk show following her angry confrontation with co-host Elisabeth Hasselbeck on Wednesday.

It ended a colourful eight-month tenure for O'Donnell that lifted the show's ratings but no doubt caused heartburn for show creator Barbara Walters.

O'Donnell feuded with Donald Trump and frequently had tense exchanges with the more conservative Hasselbeck.

O'Donnell said last month she would be leaving because she could not agree to a new contract with ABC executives.

"Rosie contributed to one of our most exciting and successful years at The View," Walters said.

"I am most appreciative. Our close and affectionate relationship will not change."

In a statement, O'Donnell said that "it's been an amazing year and I love all three women."

'US troops terrorists'

No one was feeling the love on Wednesday, when the argument with Hasselbeck began over O'Donnell's statement last week about the war: "655 000 Iraqi civilians have died. Who are the terrorists?"

Talk show critics accused O'Donnell of calling US troops terrorists.

She called Hasselbeck "cowardly" for not saying anything in response to the critics.

"Do not call me a coward, because No 1, I sit here every single day, open my heart and tell people what I believe," Hasselbeck retorted, and their riveting exchange continued despite failed attempts by their co-hosts to cut to a commercial.

According to a New York Post report, O'Donnell's chief writer, Janette Barber, was allegedly led out of the building on Wednesday after she was caught drawing moustaches on photographs of Hasselbeck in The View studios.

ABC executives did not return repeated calls for questions on the incident on Friday.

Scrapbook-like video

On Thursday, O'Donnell had asked for a day off to celebrate her partner's birthday. The View aired a taped show on Friday.

On her website, O'Donnell posted a scrapbook-like video on Friday with pictures and news clippings of her tenure at The View.

Cyndi Lauper's Sisters of Babylon played in the background.

A day earlier, she had posted messages on her website indicating she might not be back.

"When painting there is a point u must step away from the canvas as the work is done," she wrote. "Any more would take away.

The Nose on your Face finds a conspiracy uncovered in all this:

Despite claims that a monster pig shot in Alabama bears a striking resemblance to “The View” host Rosie O’Donnell, both ABC and O’Donnell representatives deny that the enormous swine is the controversial star. ABC’s abrupt announcement on Friday, however, that O’Donnell would be immediately leaving “The View” only lent strength to the rumors that she may indeed have been bagged by 11 year-old Jamison Stone while on a hastily scheduled “foraging retreat” in Alabama.

“Rosie does like foraging as a stress-reliever,” said her spokesperson, Amelda Johnson, “but she stopped going to Alabama several years ago after she discovered it was a favorite foraging haven of Starr Jones.”

In Newsguy Jon news:

Sheen Re-Thinks Loose Change Alliance

May 27, 2007 -- SUPPORT for the loopy 9/11 documentary "Loose Change" - which argues that the World Trade Center terror attack was part of a secret U.S. government conspiracy - is quickly losing steam.

A source tells us Charlie Sheen "is having second thoughts" about being involved in an updated version of the flick, which has a huge following on YouTube. As Page Six reported in March, Sheen had agreed to narrate the ridiculous flick, presumably to give it some needed Hollywood sizzle.

The conspiracy documentary got a further boost earlier this month when Virgin Atlantic announced it would offer the current, narration-free version as an in-flight movie choice. But just days later, it scrapped the idea. "After Virgin announced it, bloggers went nuts and there was so much negative feedback that [the airline] a few days later nixed it," the source said.

After we revealed Sheen's participation, the "Two and a Half Men" star told Extra: "It's a story that needs to be told. It's a story about the truth, and the truth needs to be exposed. It's not just me, not just the Hollywood community [that] is standing up saying what you have given us doesn't make sense. We just want better answers." As for Sheen now pulling his support, the star's flack, Stan Rosenfield, did not return calls over two days.

Another proponent of the "Loose Change" theory is Rosie O'Donnell, who trumpeted her feelings about it on "The View" and her blog, making ABC brass nervous and infuriating some viewers.

O'Donnell reportedly had booked the film's producers, Korey Rowe and Dylan Avery, on Thursday's show. But after getting into a fight with Elisabeth Hasselbeck Wednesday, and after her chief writer was caught defacing Hasselbeck's photos with mustaches, O'Donnell left the show.

"Loose Change" pushes the widely debunked "controlled demolition" theory, which claims the Twin Towers and 7 World Trade Center were blown up from within. It alleges the jet-fuel fires inside the towers weren't hot enough to melt the buildings' steel beams.

Those claims were soundly refuted by Popular Mechanics magazine, which meticulously shot down every single one.

In other Venezualian news, there is major political change afoot... the pictures tell the story better than the links do, but pay close attention to both:

CHAVEZ FORCES CLASH WITH DEMOCRACY PROTESTERS!

Venezuala continues its descent into hell.
** The Jungle Hut is following the clashes from Venezuala.
** Globovision has photos from the crackdown by the regime.
** Venezuela News and Views- Even in San Felipe we are hearing sirens and pot banging!
** Devil's Excrement- "Chavista thugs are attacking another private station!" -Photos
** Xeni Jardin has video links of the regime blasting the protesters with water cannons.
** Citizen Feathers has video of the "pot-banging" against the regime.

(ElPais)

Chavez warned (via BBC): "Venezuelan armed forces are ready. Anyone generating violence will regret it."

He even sent in the tanks for the first time on the opposition.

A supporter of Radio Caracas TV (RCTV) uses the Venezuelan flag to cover herself from tear gas during a protest outside the National Commission of Telecommunications (CONATEL) in Caracas May 27, 2007. (Reuters)

Venezuelan troops earlier today seized the broadcast equipment of the opposition television station.
Reuters reported:

Venezuelan troops have seized an anti-government television channel's broadcast equipment, the station said on Sunday, ahead of a controversial midnight EDT/0400 GMT takeover by President Hugo Chavez that will take the broadcaster off the air.

Supporters of Radio Caracas TV (RCTV) lie on the floor after being hit by tear gas during a protest outside the National Commission of Telecommunications (CONATEL) in Caracas May 27, 2007. RCTV is being forced off the air after President Hugo Chavez's administration refused to renew its broadcasting license which ends on Sunday. (REUTERS/Yuri Ferrioli)

Publius Pundit has several pictures from the protest earlier before the clashes.
Fausta has a podcast posted discussing the closure of the popular opposition news station.
FREERCTV.com has more on the shutdown.
This is very sad.

Actress Cynthia Lander cries during a live broadcast at RCTV station in Caracas May 27, 2007. The government is not renewing RCTV's license after 53 years on the air because of accusations that the broadcaster participated in a bungled 2002 coup against Chavez, incited violent demonstrations and aired immoral programming. (REUTERS/Carlos Garcia Rawlins)


Supporters of Radio Caracas TV (RCTV) clash with police during a protest outside the National Commission of Telecommunications (CONATEL) in Caracas May 27, 2007. RCTV is being forced off the air after President Hugo Chavez's administration refused to renew its broadcasting license which ends on Sunday. (REUTERS/Francesco Spotorno)

Previously:
Hugo Chavez Silences the Opposition- Sends Tanks In!

We had a huge discussion on the devolution of democracy in the UK, much to the chagrin of some of our British listeners:

UK: Police to Get Tough New Terror Powers
David Cracknell writes in The Sunday Times:

New anti-terrorism laws are to be pushed through before Tony Blair leaves office giving “wartime” powers to the police to stop and question people.

John Reid, the home secretary, who is also quitting next month, intends to extend Northern Ireland’s draconian police powers to interrogate individuals about who they are, where they have been and where they are going.

Under the new laws, police will not need to suspect that a crime has taken place and can use the power to gain information about “matters relevant” to terror investigations.

If suspects fail to stop or refuse to answer questions, they could be charged with a criminal offence and fined up to £5,000. Police already have the power to stop and search people but they have no right to ask for their identity and movements.

More here.

Turning to tech news, the whole blogosphere is buzzing with the Facebook stuff. Here's our token coverage:

MySpace v. Facebook: “It’s Not A Decision. It’s an IQ Test”

Venture capitalist Josh Kopelman rips into MySpace today as he applauds Facebook’s new developer platform.

Facebook’s timing is perfect. They just released an API that gives third party developers deep access to Facebook functionality and it’s 20 million users. Not only can these third party startups get a widget placed on people’s Facebook profiles, but they can also get viral distribution through users’ news feeds and access core Facebook features. Using the tools that Facebook made available, developers could build new versions of some of Facebook’s own applications, like Facebook Photos. Users can then remove those default applications and add the new ones. Like Microsoft with Windows, Facebook is now competing with application developers on its own platform.

This isn’t all just talk, either. The most popular third party application, iLike, has nearly 400,000 users just a couple of days after launching and 10x what they had just last Friday. That means nearly 5% of Facebook’s users have now included it on their profile.

Kopelman’s post looks at the new reality from the perspective of a startup. MySpace is a minefield - startups want access to their users but suffer from the very real possibility of being banned, either temporarily or permanently.

Facebook is viewing things from exactly the opposite position: they are giving startups access to Facebook’s core feature set, and allowing them to show advertising and conduct transactions with users without even asking for a cut. This is exactly why I called Facebook the Anti-MySpace last week. Kopelman goes on to say:

Think about it. If you ran a venture-backed company and had to decide whether you wanted to focus your effort on: (a) a property that welcomed you in and let you keep 100% of the revenue you generate or (b) a company with a vague policy that doesn’t let you generate any revenue, which would you choose? I don’t think it’s even a decision. It’s an IQ test.

Kopelman estimates that $250 million has been invested in widget companies in the last 18 months. When these startups think about where to spend their resources, they’ll be weighing MySpace’s relative size advantage (MySpace has 100 million users, growing by 300,000 or so per day. Facebook has 20 million users, growing by 100,000 per day) to the open and transparent nature of Facebook’s approach. On balance I agree with Kopelman. Startups can build a very large business on the back of Facebook. The MySpace path is much riskier.

And as a nod to a few of our listeners who have talked a bit about needing this kind of service, we present Gaboogie:

Conference calling is a $2 billion business in North America alone. But it’s not perceived to be a sexy space, and Gaboogie, which brings some next generation smarts to conference calls if making sexier. Gaboogie starts with a beautifully simple “why didn’t I think of that” solution to this problem: the service calls you. No password is needed because if you’re not supposed to be there, you don’t get called. Participants simply press ‘1′ to join, ‘2′ to decline, and ‘3′ for ‘later.’ The service makes the adjustments for time zones, too. And if you get disconnected, the number is on your caller ID to redial. Calls are setup through the website and it’s easy to check the schedule online. Moderators have a dashboard to monitor calls in progress. You can set participation in a call to “lecture” which lets you simply listen. Calls can be recorded and shared as RSS feeds or MP3 files, all with a single click. Attendees can be added on the fly by simply dragging them from the phonebook.

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Final Post of the Day

I'm running up on the end of my day, and I don't think I'll have enough time to really give this topic the amount of time it deserves, so I'll bottom line it up front, and then go into more depth until I absolutely have to leave the office and head home: I like Twitter.

I won't go into the whole history of how this stupid little service became popular. You can find a hundred other blog posts that talk about the birth, death, and re-birth (in terms of popularity) of this little Web 2.0 app. What I will say is that this simple little script is useful for a number of varied reasons, and has an added benefit of stirring a bit of nostalgia for the ol' Mr. Rizzn here.

Let me explain this.

Twitter is defined as status microblogging, in case your wondering. Essentially, if you're familiar with MySpace... imagine the bulletins system hooked into your Instant Message client or your SMS system for your phone, with RSS capabilities.

Twitter reminds me of my old Diaryland days... people reading and writing short (although in the case of Twitter, they are limited to 140 characters) blog posts about what they're doing and feeling, etc. You're exposed to your closest friends, and instead of being forced to channel your writing into a niche as in traditional blogging (for professional reasons), it's more stream of consciousness, more real.

That was the beauty of Diaryland. The format was unique, the sub-culture was limited in size, up until the end, and you were able to make and keep friends that were both geographically local to you as well as local to whatever mind-space you tended to inhabit. It tended to sate the voyeuristic nature we all possess.

I was talking to my friend Levontaun about it (one of my old D*land friends). He said:

So yeah, I thought about what you said about missing what Diaryland used to be, people writing short posts about what they are doing and feeling.

I feel the same way about BBSes. My online social life got started on Chrysalis BBS here in Dallas back in the mid 90s. Everyone was local, if you met someone on the computer, odds are that they were NOT from Virginia or South Africa. Talking to people from completely different cultures is great, but chances are that you're not going to hook up with them without serious effort. On the BBS, we had GTGs almost weekly. I still have many friends I met from there.

Diaryland was kind of the same, as there was a culture of us Dallas people that all became associated with each other. That's how I met Matt, Louis, Derrick, Amanda, Missy (Lapis) and a host of others. There were people from everywhere else, but not many.

Myspace has changed everything once again. You can browse local, but chances are most people you find are not computer nerdy-type people like us. Most of the people on there are your average computer illiterate assholes or wannabe hood rats.

I miss the old days. Does this make me old?

I definitely miss the BBS days though - never made the connection to Diaryland, but that's probably one of the things I liked about it.

If there were a way to bottle and repackage that culture, well, it probably would still be un-profitable, but I'd enjoy the heck out of it.

Podcasting is the closest thing I've come to recreating that feel, since it's such a narrow niche (or it was when it started) that it had that tight-knit feel to it where everyone's more or less on the same bleeding edge page, to mix some metaphors.

I think it may not make us old, but it definitely dates us. In internet years, we're old farts, though.

Still, and keep in mind I have no stake in Twitter or anything, I think you should check it out. It's like a low committment/involvement community thing that lacks the MySpace clunkiness. If I was able to populate my Twitter circle with the old crew, I think it might feel a bit like home. :)

RizWords - Daily Politics and Tech - EP35

RizWords - Daily Politics and Tech
Episode 35 - download now - subscribe now - iTunes subscribe

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This is a story that really cracks the vernier on Obama's plastic smile. Underneath all that shiny new unspoiled politician lies the heart of... just another backbiting politician:

The Battle to Control Obama's Myspace
By Micah L. Sifry, 05/01/2007 - 11:15pm
In November 2004, Joe Anthony, a paralegal living in Los Angeles, started a unofficial fan page for then-newly-elected Senator Barack Obama (D-IL) on MySpace.com. Inspired by Obama's keynote address at that summer's Democratic convention, Anthony had never been politically active before. "I was just blown away," he told me. He put time into the site every day, answering emails from people wanting to "friend" the page, pointing them to voter registration information, and, once Obama threw his hat into the ring, telling them where to find out more detailed positions taken by the candidate.

By the time of Obama's official campaign announcement in late January, Anthony's Obama profile--which had the valuable url of myspace.com/barackobama--already had more than 30,000 friends, well more than the other contenders. Over the following weeks, it continued to grow at a rapid pace, generating lots of headlines about Obama winning the "MySpaceurl has only about 12,000. And it's under new ownership. Joe Anthony, one of the super volunteers of the Connected Age, has lost control of the page he started to the professionals on Obama's staff.

How all this happened is a complicated tale that is still unfolding, and none of the parties involved--Anthony, the Obama online team, and the MySpace political operation--emerge from this story unscathed. Speaking on background, Obama campaign staffers are spreading word that Anthony just wanted a "big payday." Anthony in turn has posted a missive on his blog (that was originally sent to me as an email) accusing the Obama team of "bullying...[and] rotten and dishonest" behavior. However one parses those accusations (more below), the Obama campaign's reputation as the most net-savvy of 2008 has taken a big hit. And MySpace executives have been forced to take extraordinary action to resolve a dispute between two high-profile users of their invaluable site, one a passionate volunteer with a huge network of friends and the other a frontrunning presidential candidate who has helped make MySpace a new factor in the 2008 contest.

primary." Yesterday, the profile had just over 160,000 friends. Today, that This is more politics than tech, but it caught my attention, and I thought it deserved to be addressed:

Top Hamas official: Kill all Americans (Jerusalem Post)
Sheik Ahmad Bahr, acting Speaker of the Palestinian Legislative Council, declared during a Friday sermon at a Sudan mosque that America and Israel will be annihilated and called upon Allah to kill Jews and Americans "to the very Last One."

In "Advancing-New-Media" news:

Give bloggers Capitol access

This is the first article in a weekly series, exclusively in The Hill, exploring the recommendations of the Sunlight Foundation’s Open House Project, which advocates online transparency in Congress.

Members of Congress are increasingly turning to bloggers as a way to communicate about public policy. Yet these citizen journalists who cover Congress lack what most mainstream reporters in Washington take for granted: access to the U.S. Capitol.

According to the Sunlight Foundation’s Open House Project, a collaborative and bipartisan effort to increase the House of Representatives’ online transparency, Congress can take several simple steps to improve transparency and foster a new spirit of openness. Giving bloggers credentials to cover Congress would be a groundbreaking way to shed light on the inner workings of government.

The debate over bloggers and online journalists on Capitol Hill isn’t a new one. In recent years, they’ve clashed with congressional press galleries as the Internet has grown in popularity and prominence.

And in what is probably the biggest tech/politics story of the day:

Digg Surrenders to Mob

To say what happened today on Digg was a “user revolt” is an understatement. The Digg team deleted a story that linked to the decryption key for HD DVDs after receiving a take down demand and all hell broke loose. More stories appeared and were deleted, and users posting the stories were suspended.

That just got the Digg community fired up, and soon the entire Digg home page was filled with stories containing the decryption key. The users had taken control of the site, and unless Digg went into wholesale deletion mode and suspended a large portion of their users, there was absolutely nothing they could do to stop it.

Digg CEO Jay Adelson responded on the Digg blog earlier this afternoon but it was clear he did not yet understand the chaos that was coming. The post only added fuel to the fire. Just now, co-founder Kevin Rose posted yet again on the Digg blog, effectively capitulating to the mob’s demands: He says

But now, after seeing hundreds of stories and reading thousands of comments, you’ve made it clear. You’d rather see Digg go down fighting than bow down to a bigger company. We hear you, and effective immediately we won’t delete stories or comments containing the code and will deal with whatever the consequences might be.

If we lose, then what the hell, at least we died trying.

Until today, it seems, even Digg didn’t fully understand the power of its community to determine what is “news.” I think the community made their point crystal clear.

Vive La Revolution.

RizWords - Daily Politics and Tech - EP34

RizWords - Daily Politics and Tech
Episode 34 - download now - subscribe now

• A member of the TechPodcast Network @ techpodcast.com. If it's Tech, it's here.
  
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Here are the stories for today:

Google denies Viacom copyright charges
MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.—Google responded to Viacom's $1 billion copyright lawsuit on Monday, arguing that it has not infringed on the rights of the media company and that the lawsuit threatens the viability of its popular YouTube video-sharing Web site as well as others like it.

And in counter-Google news:

Panama Not Enough To Battle Google: Yahoo Acquires RightMedia

Yahoo announced today that it will acquire the 80% of advertising network RightMedia that it doesn’t already own for $680 million in cash and Yahoo stock.

Yahoo previously bought 20% of the company in a $45 million Series B round of funding announced in October 2006. The company has raised over $50 million to date.

This move counters Google’s acquisition of DoubleClick earlier this month for $3.1 billion, and signals that Yahoo wants more weapons in its arsenal to fight the ongoing online advertising war beyond their new Panama release.

RightMedia runs an advertising marketplace that allows for much more efficient advertsing pricing than older negotiated models (something still in the planning stages at DoubleClick). See our coverage of their RMX Direct product from August 2005.

RightMedia also tends to work with large intermediate ad brokers and addresses the short tail of the ad market (as does DoubleClick), whereas Overture and Adsense are definitely long tail products with many smaller advertisers and publishers.

In other slightly-related (in terms of acquisition) news:

Akamai Releases FoxTorrent 1.0 - Firefox BitTorrent Add-on

Red Swoosh (acquired by Akamai for $15 million earlier this month) released v1.0 of FoxTorrent today. This is a fully functional BitTorrent client for Firefox that works cross platform (Windows, Mac, Linux) and has a very cool additional feature - the ability to stream files as they are downloading.

This is no Azureus (my BitTorrent client of choice), but it does the job and saves time by allowing you to manage torrents directly from the browser. I tested it on a few (non-copyright infringing, of course) files and it worked great on the standard BitTorrent functionality. Streaming just didn’t work, although with the way the BitTorrent protocol breaks files into pieces and reconstructs them in a non linear way means you may have to wait until the file is mostly complete to even begin streaming. I’ll try it again once the files are nearly complete.

Webcasting Non-RIAA Music In Protest May Only Make The RIAA Wealthier

Following the latest webcasting rates that will likely put many webcasters out of business, one suggestion was that webcasters should simply play non-RIAA music. In theory this would help in multiple ways -- giving those independent musicians more publicity while avoiding the draconian webcasting rates. In practice... however, that won't work. Slashdot points us to an article dissecting the fine print, where you'll discover that SoundExchange, which is the RIAA's collection body, actually gets to collect money for non-RIAA members as well. In other words, even for independent artists who don't want webcasters to have to pay, webcasters will still need to pay up.

The story actually gets even worse. As we noted a few years ago, part of the deal is that SoundExchange and the RIAA get to keep any unclaimed money for themselves. Even better, SoundExchange can simply pretend not to be able to find the musicians (as they've done with a ton of big name musicians in the past). So, chances are, many independent artists have no idea that SoundExchange is hanging onto a bunch of money they didn't even want collected and there's almost no chance they'll claim it -- meaning that if you try to avoid the webcasting rates by playing non-RIAA music, there's a good chance you're actually enriching the RIAA even more.

Just for fun, why don't we compare two situations? The RIAA tells people that simply listening to music without paying for it is a terrible crime that people should be punished for. Yet... the RIAA getting money for non-RIAA music and not paying the deserving artists that money is perfectly legal? Damn, the RIAA lobbyists are good.

A related link to the aforementioned story (http://www3.capwiz.com/saveinternetradio/taf/confirm/?alertid=9631541&style=1&content_dir=). Now, be careful with your MySpace.

Be Careful In MySpace Or You May Get Denied A Degree

We've seen stories of people getting arrested for posting incriminating evidence of themselves on MySpace as well as people losing jobs over info posted to a MySpace profile... but what about losing a degree? techguy83 writes in to let us know of a lawsuit by a woman who was apparently denied an education degree and teaching certificate after school officials found a photo of the woman on her MySpace page from a Halloween party. In the photo (remember, this was a Halloween party), the woman was dressed as a pirate and the photo was captioned "Drunken Pirate." The school claims that the woman was encouraging underage drinking -- but the woman is 27 now and the photo was from 2005, meaning she was 25 (or close to 25) at the time. That's hardly underage. It's not clear why school officials were viewing the woman's MySpace page in determining whether or not she qualified for a degree -- but if other schools start doing the same, I'd imagine we're going to have an awful lot of students who have completed their qualifications, but have no degrees due to incriminating MySpace photos.

In political news:

The US says it has arrested one of al-Qaeda's highest-ranking operatives, as he was on his way home to Iraq to plan future attacks.

The Pentagon said Abd al-Hadi al-Iraqi was now in Guantanamo Bay.

He had been going to Iraq to take over al-Qaeda operations and possibly plot attacks on Western interests, it said.

He was accused of commanding attacks on coalition forces in Afghanistan, and of involvement in plots to assassinate Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf.

Pakistani Interior Minister Aftab Khan Sherpao described the arrest as a "welcome development".

An Afghan defence ministry spokesman said it was "a major success" that would "help to get to the high-ranking terrorist network figures and... have a deeply negative effect on the network".

According to information about him provided by the Pentagon, Mr Hadi was a key paramilitary commander in Afghanistan during the late 1990s, before taking charge of cross-border attacks against US and coalition troops from 2002 to 2004.

A US intelligence source told the BBC he was arrested late last year in an operation which involved the CIA. It was not clear where he was detained, or where he has been held since.

RizWords - Daily Politics and Tech - EP30

RizWords - Daily Politics and Tech
Episode 30 - download now - subscribe now

• A member of the TechPodcast Network @ techpodcast.com. If it's Tech, it's here.
  
• Remember, if you're listening on the podcast recording, you can call into the show live if you tune in through TalkShoe.com at 2:30 PM EST every weekday.
• If you like the podcast (and you haven't already given us a rating), head over and do so, and don't forget to sign up for the discussion list.
• Other Podcast Plugs:
  
• TalkGirls comes on Tuesday nights. Check out the TalkGirls Podcast ... it's good times!
• Cotolo Chronicles: Frank is a good friend of the show, and an associate of the late great Wolfman Jack. Check out his podcast.
• NewsReal: Good friend to Art and I - has one of the best hours of news podcast each week.
  
• Sponsors:
  
• Try GoToMeeting for 45 days! Visit www.GoToMeeting.com/podcast to start your free trial today.
  
• Want $10 for free? Try Google Checkout today! Visit http://oblongbox.net/checkout/ to create your account and start with $10 off your first purchase.

There's this really interesting meme running through the blogosphere right now... Essentially the Drama Pot was stirred by who else? Jason Calacanis. The headlines and blurbs from different perspectives tell the story:

Technorati all a'twitter over telephone interview

From Jason C.: WIRED journo won't do email interviews—ironic. — A WIRED journalist pinged me for some comments on Michael Arrington and his A-list blogger status. I told the journalist to send me the questions by email and he refused. He said Dave Winer did the same thing.

From Dylan Tweney: Calacanis Won't Do Phone Interview — Cowardly — Jason McCabe Calacanis is complaining about a Wired reporter who wants to do an interview with him, but refuses to do it via email. He says it's "ironic" that a magazine covering the digital age refuses to use email for its interviews. — Ironic?

From David Winer Transcription errors — Jason Calacanis was contacted by the same reporter who contacted me. I'm mentioned in Jason's post, but somewhere along the line there was a transcription error. I did not offer to do the interview via email, I made a different offer. — Here's what I said: "Not generally doing interviews these days.

Good laws, bad laws, laws as big as your head... Art cut me off on this story... said I was boring. You decide:

Wait, There Are Good Internet Laws?
Law professor Eric Goldman has written up an article where he wanted to list out the best and worst internet-related laws out there. Coming up with "good" ones turned out to be a challenge, with just the law banning new internet access taxes and section 230 of the CDA making the list. Of course, you could argue that the safe harbor afforded by section 230 (protecting sites from the actions of their users) is based on so much common sense that there shouldn't need to be a law to back it up. Of course, when it comes to the "bad" list, there were way too many to choose from. The DMCA makes a couple of appearances (for different parts) and there are some other blasts from the past as well. It's pretty frustrating to read through the list, in part because so many of the "bad" laws aren't just bad, but were obviously bad from when they were proposed. Lots of people have pointed out why those laws would do more harm than good, but so far, politicians don't seem interested in correcting the mistakes they made with them. They passed the laws so they could claim they stopped some "bad" thing from happening online, even if the law did no such thing. It would be nice if politicians were actually held accountable for the unintended consequences of their bad laws -- especially when those laws do little to actually achieve what they were proposed to do.

MySpace Turns it's Lonely Eyes to Washington:

Law professor Eric Goldman has written up an article where he wanted to list out the best and worst internet-related laws out there. Coming up with "good" ones turned out to be a challenge, with just the law banning new internet access taxes and section 230 of the CDA making the list. Of course, you could argue that the safe harbor afforded by section 230 (protecting sites from the actions of their users) is based on so much common sense that there shouldn't need to be a law to back it up. Of course, when it comes to the "bad" list, there were way too many to choose from. The DMCA makes a couple of appearances (for different parts) and there are some other blasts from the past as well. It's pretty frustrating to read through the list, in part because so many of the "bad" laws aren't just bad, but were obviously bad from when they were proposed. Lots of people have pointed out why those laws would do more harm than good, but so far, politicians don't seem interested in correcting the mistakes they made with them. They passed the laws so they could claim they stopped some "bad" thing from happening online, even if the law did no such thing. It would be nice if politicians were actually held accountable for the unintended consequences of their bad laws -- especially when those laws do little to actually achieve what they were proposed to do.

And speaking of social networking:

Social Networks Are The New Porn

Since the rise of the internet in the 1990s, pornography has ruled the internet. While difficult to measure accurately, the online pornography industry

is estimated to be worth about $1 billion, and counts for about 13% of website visits in America (compared to search engines, which account for 7%). But it appears that new uses are about to overtake pornography in terms of online popularity.

The Economist is reporting that according to Hitwise data, pornography-related web activity is decreasing in America (as a proportion of total visits), as more and more people are opting to participate in social networking sites such as MySpace, Bebo and Facebook. Since the data presented is limited to February, a definitive conclusion is hard to make, but traffic to these social networking sites may have already overtaken traffic to sex-related sites, and if not, will probably do so any day now.

...pornographic content is often the first to take advantage of new media, from photography to videocassettes to satellite television. "Sex is a virus that infects new technology first," as Wired put it back in 1993. Once a new medium becomes popular, its usage is no longer dominated by porn.

The resulting implication is that the internet has matured as a medium for disseminating information, and therefore people are switching from using the internet for pornography to other uses.

Start the rejoicing, another loudmouth silenced:

It's True -- Rosie will leave the "View!!"
Filed under: TV, The View, Rosie O'Donnell TMZ has now confirmed the buzz that we exclusively reported last night: Rosie O'Donnell will announce on today's show that she is leaving "The View." And TMZ has confirmed that "View" honchos are already searching for her replacement.

Stay tuned!

Hackers Declaring Cyberwar on Facebook and Myspace

I've been seeing this headline pop up all over the place the last few days: Hackers Declaring War On MySpace, Facebook? My question is: who are these hackers? Is there a central organisation of hackers that have decided to declare this war? Should Facebook and MySpace fight back? The best defense, after all, is a good offense.

(SC Magazine) “If the hackers know you have a particular interest, this can be used to target you in a phishing attack. They know what you’re into and can exploit this to obtain more information from you such as credit card details,” he said. “People are putting far too much information online and into the hands of identity thieves. Young people in particular, need to be very careful as it may come back to haunt them.”

Those of us with an above average IQ know the vulnerability MySpace, Facebook, and other social networking sites present to our identity. Still, all this hubub begs the question: where are these hackers?

Furthermore, should I join up? I've been a hacker for years, and there's apparently some money in harvesting this information. Do these hackers have an HR department I can apply to?

It's simply ridiculous to use terms like CyberWar and hackers when it comes to stories like this, but still the media persists.

/rizzn

ModernOpinion/OblongBox: New Code Snippets

Today has been a day of catchup - it seems to be the theme of the week.  Another theme of the week seems to be fights with PHP.  If it weren't that the best RSS management script was written in PHP, I'd not be writing this. Magpie, the codebase for most of ModernOpinion, is written in PHP, so here we are.

Still, I've gotten a number of interesting little bits of code written this week:

• A program to take blog posts from MySpace and post them to Blogger blogs (hence no more hounding of Kate and Jeff to post to their .coms anymore).
• A program that will automatically update the front page of ModernOpinion with breaking news stories.
• A program that will take headlines from any RSS enabled blog and post them to a MySpace profile - a code I've been trying to crack for literally six months.

The take-away is that after this week, and a maturation period of about three months, I've got at least three viable blog properties that will hopefully be generating another $2400 monthly gross for the OblongBox network.  This is good news in that this will provide a fulltime salary for the two managing editors, and make everything run a lot more smoothly for the writers as well as giving us a marketing budget (say hello to large numbers of readers, everyone!).

Hopefully, as I apply the scripts in some new, experimental ways, I'll be able to create a few more viable income producing properties that will get PoddedMeat and ASradio back on it's feet.  Both projects are suffering a severe lack of funding at the moment, and thus a lack of movement.  With a little bit of money behind them, they will be up and running again, I have no doubt.

That's all I have for tonight.  Talk to you folks tomorrow.
--
/mark "rizzn" hopkins
For my blog, profile, wikipedia and digg entries, simply Google "rizzn"
Check out Season 1 of Podded Meat, my new Vodcast Network (SFW): http://poddedmeat.com
Check out: http://ModernOpinion.com

Geezer Hacker FAQ v1.0

You know what DOS is.
You know what ProCOMM is.
You know who Kevin Mitnick is and what he did.
You remember when Internet access was charged by the hour.
You know what L.O.R.D is.

You remember thinking how bad you wanted a 56K dialup modem.
You've ever been "Kicked by SYSOP".
You've know what a password hash is and have attempted to crack one at least once.
You have heard of Cult of the Dead Cow.
All your ____ are belong to us.
You've used Newsgroups.
Either you hate trolls, or you enjoy trolling.
You've ever considered yourself the King of IRC.
You've always hated AOL.
You would greatly enjoy a piece of Alienware.
You know why it's bad to be a script kiddie.
You've cussed your compiler.
You know why Intellivision was better than Atari.
You're afraid to calculate just how many quarters you spent at the Arcade.
Y2K had the potential to wipe out your social life.
You've fragged someone.
You hate spawn campers.
Leroy Jenkins is your hero.
You have at least one cracked EXE or Keygen on your computer.
Every program you own is illegal.
You cheered for Napster and hated Metallica.
You know what Limewire, Morpheus, Kazaa and Bittorrent are good for.
You've ever considered yourself "leet", or made fun of someone who did.

....Compiled by Levontaun.C

Theivery: Activity or Crime?

My buddy Kevin, from MySpace, sent me an article today that made me ponder my position on the nature of some crimes. Read the summary of the original article here, and my comments afterward

136 stolen cars, 1 suspect: "He enjoyed driving"
He had fun, fun, fun -— until the police took his screwdriver away.

Until that happened, Seattle police say, 23-year-old Liam Moynihan had been on a one-man crime wave, stealing more cars than anyone in King County history. Armed with only a screwdriver and hammer, they say, he jimmied his way into at least 136 vehicles during a six-month joyride of epic proportions.

From last November until his arrest in May, Moynihan allegedly stole enough cars to stock a good-sized dealership, averaging one theft every 32 hours.

And unlike many car thieves, Moynihan didn't sell the stolen cars for parts, say detectives in Seattle's Major Crimes Task Force, which investigates car thefts. Instead, they say, Moynihan simply liked to drive, often taking a stolen car out for a spin for a few hours, sometimes until the gas tank ran dry, and then stealing another.

"He'd just drive around, deciding to go to Kenmore or Tukwila one day. He needed to get from Point A to Point B - he enjoyed driving," said the undercover detective who investigated the case. Police have requested the detective not be identified because of ongoing undercover work.

"He was a nice kid, very forthright, intelligent. But he knew how to do this certain thing, and he was good at it," the detective said.

Many of the cars were either stolen or recovered in the Ballard-Crown Hill area of Seattle, near where Moynihan lives. In some cases, the cars were recovered just blocks from where they were stolen.

Moynihan was charged Thursday in King County Superior Court with 25 counts of first-degree theft. Police think he actually stole 153 vehicles during that six-month period, and many more in his lifetime.

King County Prosecutor Norm Maleng said he planned to send a message to other car thieves by pursuing an exceptional sentence of 10 years for Moynihan. The maximum sentence range for the charges would normally be 3 ½ to 5 years. A jury would have to agree that the crime had aggravating factors to award the higher sentence.

Moynihan is being held in jail in lieu of $150,000 bail and is scheduled to be arraigned Wednesday.

Even if Moynihan is found guilty and sentenced to 10 years, he is eligible to have half that time shaved off for good behavior. "Those laws need to be reformed," Maleng said.

Okay. I look at this and think: "Is this really the type of criminal we need to put behind bars?" I mean, granted, this is a crime, and crime deserves punishment, but this is the sort of thing that we romanticize and make movies about as a culture: A smart fellow with a crazy girlfriend who is impressed by stolen cars. It's a life of adventure, romance, and action. Only the ending is slightly different from the movie: he goes to jail for 10 years, and recieves nothing but derision from the authorities.

Take Catch Me (If You Can) subject Frank Abignale. They made a movie about him, sent him to jail pending a trial, and then hired him at the FBI. Or take, for instance, the shoulda-been-a-James-Bond-movie The Thomas Crown Affair. This is the sort behaviorour we love as a country and a culture. Should we really discourage it and heavily penalize it like we did to this guy:

Map Thief Caught: Edward Forbes Smiley III was once one of the most respected dealers in antique maps in the country but that was all taken away from him after he was caught stealing maps from Yale University's rare-book library. Saddled with a need for extravagant living and rising debts, Smiley started stealing maps about 7 ½ years ago from some of the most prestigious libraries in the world including British Library, the New York and Boston public libraries, the Harvard and Yale university libraries and a Chicago library. In total he stole more than $3 million worth of maps. After being caught Smiley was facing 6 years in prison but after cooperating with federal authorities to retrieve most of the maps that he stole, the judge gave him leniency and lowered his sentence to just three and a half years along with a fine of $1.9 million in restitution for the theft of 98 maps.

I'm just saying. Let's not be hypocritical.

/rizzn

Late Night; Productive Night

I've been up late working on the major Oblong Box site redesigns.

The upside is after extensive testing, we'll now be able to completely deviate our web designs from each other, and still maintain branding. That is to say, there will be a persistent navbar on top of everyone's web page, but it will not detract from the overall design, and still maintain continuity between everyone's pages.

The downside is that while I have the mockup and the concept work done, it's going to take several more days of development to get this project done.

To go into more boring detail that no one will probably care about besides me: The navbar will allow for editors to maintain payment information for the different writers, auto-update the blogs for those that insist on updating their MySpace blogs, but not their dot-com blogs (you know who you are!), as well as possibly in the future allowing the writers themselves to look at their balances and see how much money they have coming to them.

These things will take a while to develop, but as soon as they are done (and I really am predicting a matter of days here, not weeks), things are going to start looking up for the network aesthetically.

On the finance side of things, several of our writers were just accepted to the tier two PR placement program, so we'll start seeing a lot more money going out to writers... and Wendy will be likely be doing a lot more typing!

All of these are good signs, because it means the network is finally making enough money for me to focus on developing it full-time. I was worried for a while that it would continue a sort of back-burner status for a few more months, what with me having to focus on paying gigs all the time. But patience of the current writers has won out, and we've got something we can actually work with here. We've started to tear through the threshhold of obscurity into something that will be noticed very shortly.

Additionally, I'd like to mention that I appreciate every writer's continued work through these lean times, and I especially want to send out some major kudos to Wendy, who has labored very long for not a lot on the promise that this is going to go somewhere. Everyone send a note of thanks to your tireless assistant editor. She deserves it.

/rizzn

Support the Gays

I recieved a bulletin on MySpace entitled "Support the Gays." It was a fairly humorous top ten list that was meant to provide some sort of support to the "gay cause." Those of you who know me know I hold some interesting views on the gay debate - views that will be re-iterated here.

As a note to you non-MySpacers, don't think that this sort of intelligent discourse happens all the time on MySpace. This is a pure anomaly.

The original post is noted by italics and responses after that.

I'm in a typing mood today. I saw this post from Mel, one of my very dear friends (and a lesbian herself), and I had to comment. I ask that you read everything I write before you flame the crap out of me (especially the part at the end. I'm not writing to defend gay-haters).

1) Being gay is not natural. Real Americans always reject unnatural things like eyeglasses, polyester, and air conditioning.

Being gay is not technology, either. Gay is a term for a behavior pattern. A more apt comparison would be suicide as an unnatural thing that "Real Americans" reject. Suicide is a behavior, and it is inherently unnatural, and most Americans currently reject it, polls show.

Incidentally, air conditioning was rejected as a 'dumb idea' when it was first invented. That's neither here nor there, though.

2) Gay marriage will encourage people to be gay, in the same way that hanging around tall people will make you tall.

Again, gay marriage, an activity people engage in, is a behavior or a symptom of behavior. Being tall is not a symptom of anything in particular. You cannot encourage someone to be tall. You can encourage other people to engage in certain behaviors just by being around them. Everyone has a sociological need to be accepted, and if being gay is accepted by the whole of society, it will eventually encourage others to be gay for the acceptance value of the activity.

Being a punk or a goth isn't a socially accepted norm, yet tons of youth fall into that category because they can't find acceptance in other social circles. I'm not saying this is a negative or positive thing, it just is.

Besides, we all know a few 'poser' lesbians, if you're in the Tyler scene. Case in point!

3) Gay marriage will change the foundation of society; we could never adapt to new social norms. Just like we haven't adapted to cars, the service-sector economy, or longer life spans.

Marriage is one of the principal foundations of law and order. The family unit is the smallest social group, and the building block of society. By changing the definition of our legal foundations, we are by definition changing the foundation of society.

The same thing happenned in the 50s when America defined the 'nuclear family.'

4) Straight marriage has been around a long time and hasn't changed at all; women are still property, blacks still can't marry whites, and divorce is still illegal.

In many states, it's very easy to trace the way the law treats men and women differently because it may not seem like it now, but as recently as 50 years ago, these laws were still on the books, and most judges we have today were alive 50 years ago.

As recently as 20 years ago, I'm told, it was still legal to arrest someone for being a Gypsie (which is an actual race of people). If we still have legislated racism in the books in some places, then yes indeed its going to be a tough road to re-define the social building block of America, especially when the majority doesn't have the political will to do so.

5) Straight marriage will be less meaningful if gay marriage were allowed; the sanctity of Britney Spears' 55-hour just-for-fun marriage would be destroyed.

To most Americans, we value marriage for what it is - the ultimate committment you can make to another individual you truly love.

Some Americans, however, see it as a gift from God, and as it is a gift from Him, it is defined by Him, and how dare we re-define it?

These are the same people who tend to oppose there being laws allowing for divorce except in the most extreme of circumstances. Many of you are too young to realize this, but before Gay Marriage was a buzzword, during the 80s and 90s these same people fought for a strengthening of marriage laws and heavy legislation on divorce laws.

They lost, of course.

And these same people see their definition of marriage being dilluted further. You can sort of understand their slippery slope concept now, yes?

6) Marriages are valid because they produce children. Gay couples, infertile couples, and old people shouldn't be allowed to marry because our orphanages aren't full yet, and the world needs more children.

There are very few, if any, orphanages in America. Most children are adopted straight from birth. There are long lines of people wanting to adopt children so that the agencies get to set the rules on who adopts, without laxening their standards.

7) Obviously gay parents will raise gay children, since straight parents only raise straight children.

The problem some people have with gay parents raising children isn't a matter of the children being brought up gay, but rather being brought up with the idea that it's ok to be gay. To many Americans, being gay is one of the worst sins one can commit, and to have institutionalized sin is definitely not a good thing in their minds.

8) Gay marriage is not supported by religion. In a theocracy like ours, the values of one religion are imposed on the entire country. That's why we have only one religion in America.

No, but we live in a representative democracy here in America. When you live in a representative democracy, the rules of law should reflect the values of those who live there.

9) Children can never succeed without a male and a female role model at home. That's why we as a society expressly forbid single parents to raise children.

No, but studies show that children raised outside of a situation where there is a 'traditional family', i.e. one with a strong male and strong female influence, that children have a much harder time of life and achieving success by secular measures (i.e. high paying jobs, higher education, and fulfilling family life).

There are always exceptions to the rule. I'm sure you can think of several people, just like I can, who break that mold.

10) Legalizing gay marriage will open the door to all kinds of crazy behavior. People may even wish to marry their pets because a dog has legal standing and can sign a marriage contract.

Again, refer to my previous response on the slipery slope idea.

Final Thoughts: I know I'm taking a huge risk of being fire-branded here by writing these things, but it's a topic everyone's afraid to tackle in polite company. These days you can say just about anything in defense of a minority group and it's written off as 'oh they're just supporting (insert minority here)."

I write to illustrate the point to people who want to really support minorities of two things:

1) Know your facts if you engage in debate.

If you engage in the debate for or against anything, and you throw up completely humorous or not very well thought out reasoning, you give the other side the opportunity to knock down your arguments with great ease, and make your side look worse for the wear.

More than likely, you end up enflaming the other side, and lose any chance to convince anyone, because you'll both end up name calling by the end of the day. I've seen it happen a million times.

2) Don't assume just because you're right that you're right about everything. The other side may be right about somethings, too.

This is just as important. If you're wrong on something - concede it! If you think they're wrong, try to prove how they're wrong (like I have above). But don't go into a debate 100% convinced you can't be wrong. Chances are, you are wrong about a lot of stuff. I know I am all the time.

The trick is to recover with grace and aplomb.

My Solution to This Debate
If you've read this far, you might as well finish. I personally am opposed to Gay Marriage, and my religious beliefs tell me that being Gay is wrong.

I DON'T believe that the government should have authority to tell people that. In fact, I don't believe the government should have the authority to regulate marriage at all - the only reason they do currently is so that they can collect money for licenses, assign tax breaks for certain kinds of families and to look good on election day.

Marriage is a religious and social contract. From a legal perspective, it is no different than entering into a business partnership - the only true meaning it has is spirtual. Spiritualism is not the realm of law, it is the realm of religion. If you can find a religion that will marry you and your cat, go for it. If you can find a religion that will marry you and your gay lover (there are plenty of them out there), do it.

Don't legislate it though. Don't put it in the constitution. And don't tell me how I can and cannot get married. As a Freedom Loving American - I respect your right to get married to whomever or whatever you want.

But we must change our laws to reflect this. There is no way that America will pass laws regulating or allowing gay marriages. But there is a chance that the Gay lobby and the Christian lobby will unite to put the power of marriage back where it belongs - in the hands of religious institutions.

On a side note, this is a theory supported by most Libertarians, and is one of the minor issues my friend T. Evan Fisher is running on this year for state congress. He recently spoke at a gay rally and brought up these issues and the need for de-regulation of marriage.

Just some random thoughts after the fact: I really expected to be flamed hardcore for this (and I still might get it), but I did get several letters from people saying that they appreciated the 'sanity' being injected into the debate.

As for my religious beliefs, which I briefly mentioned, I think it bears explanation the root of my belief in that, because I could still quite easily be branded a hate-monger (I have lost friends over this topic as well as jobs, and I want to make quite clear that I am not).

I believe it's pretty easy to find in the Christian Bible some words from God on homosexuality - I don't need to provide references on that, I think the very fact we call it sodomy (named after a town God destroyed) should speak to what the Bible teaches about homosexuality.

However, I allow for the fact that I may be wrong on that. In fact, there are only three things in the Christian belief structure that I don't allow for being wrong on:

1) That you must love the Lord your God with all your being.
2) That you must love your neighbor as yourself.
3) That you must know that Salvation through Jesus Christ is the only way to God.

These are the tenants to what I refer to as the Christian Covenant. I think that debate on any of the other topics that Christians hold as dogmatic beliefs is a healthy and good thing, because popular opinion on what is or isn't a sin can very well change by popular opinion or what is a societal norm, sometimes.

But the only person's behavior I'm personally accountable for is my own. If asked my opinion on what is or isn't a sin, I will tell it, and say why. But I don't think the government nor the church has the right to enforce punishment for said sins. Vengence is Mine, sayeth the Lord. Not Rizzn's or Joe Blow's. It belongs to the Lord. He's the final judge, not me.

In that vein, it is how I can remain friends with, and love people as friends and family even if I don't agree with their lifestyle choices or their behavior patterns.

All that said, I'm getting back to work. Lots to do.

/rizzn