19 July 2007
Sympathies To Marty
Marty at the Trademark blog had a day that was just a bit too exciting yesterday when an old steam pipe blew up right next to his NYC office. I send my congratulations that he escaped the situation unscathed and my sympathies to similarly situated New Yorkers.
18 July 2007
Why Do Wars Happen?
Wars happen for essentially only one reason: The legitimacy of a particular regime at a particular time is in doubt.
People do not fight wars because taxes are too high, or they disagree with the way money is allocated in the national budget, or for any other of the multitude of public policy sins that a government can commit. Public policy issues are relevant to which contestants in a war receive support of various kinds while it is waged, and to crafting solutions that will bring legitimacy to a new regime after a war, but are for the most part unimportant in cause wars to arise.
This fact alone illuminates a variety of important empirical facts regarding war.
1) Civil wars are far more common than international wars. This is because a simply succession dispute can create a civil war, while an international war requires something that causes people to re-evaluate the nature of the political community a regime governs. International wars generally involve either a border dispute, or a claim that nationality or some other principle overrides the status quo boundaries of nations.
2) Some of the worst regimes in the world face no serious risk of civil war. North Korea and Saudi Arabia, for example, are almost entirely undemocratic and in their respecive ways, treat their people horribly, and yet, neither is at any serious risk of civil war so long as there are orderly and nearly universally accepted handovers of power within the respective regimes from one individual leaders to the next.
3) We have a civil war in Iraq now because the U.S. led invasion disrupted the continuity of the Baathist regime irrevocably, and because a boycott of the elections for the constitution and the distrust of the military force that implemented the process has prevented the democratic regime put in place by Coalition forces from being viewed as legitimate. Sunni Muslims correctly saw the constitution as a way to deprive them of power permanently, by aligning the other 80% of the nation, against their 20% of the nation, so they had no reason to buy into the arrangement. Yet, preventing a civil war requires much more than 80% of the population to buy into the notion that a particular regime is the legitimate government of a country.
Usually, legitimacy arises from an orderly succession of leaders within a particular regime. For legitimacy purposes, it really doesn't matter what the method of succession happens to be, so long as there is near universal agreement regarding who the successor will be when the process is completed. Heredity, a constitutional succession of leaders in the absence of an election or between elections, or an election with a clear winner, are among the possible ways for this to happen.
Even the establishment of a new regime, like many of the successions of regimes in France and Germany, will not create a civil war, if the transition is cloaked in the appearance of an orderly and lawful succession from one regime to another.
The succession theory of legitimacy is, of course, incomplete. It fails to discuss either how a legitimate regime is established from scratch (suffice it to say for the moment that it is exceedingly difficult, and is basically a form of nation building), and it also fails to discuss how legitimacy can be undermined apart from confusion in the succession process.
Nation building is a very slow thing, unless it happens with the consent of all predecessor regimes. For example, 142 years later, it isn't uncommon to see only grudging acceptance of the legitimacy of the federal government in the former Confederate States of America. There is enough acceptance of that legitimacy that civil war isn't a viable possibility any longer there, but that wasn't true for, at least, a decade or two after the Civil War.
Similarly, the "Indian Wars" in the United States, which involved sovereignty disputes between Native American regimes and the United States of America lasted almost a century, despite the fact that the United States vastly overwhelmed the Native American peoples in numbers and resources, because civil wars persist until there is essentially no organized group of people who deny the regime's de facto legitimacy. Even then, the Indian Wars ended only when the Native American population had reached a historic low, and all the viable Indian tribes received recognition and some sovereignty over some territory. Even a small percentage of the total population can prevent a regime from gaining legitimacy is that percentage of the population is discrete and has some manner of organization.
Ironically, however, an organized insurgency is often essential to ending a civil war, as it gives the proto-regime attempting to assert suppremacy someone to come to terms with who will be accepted by the insurgents as their legitimate representative in such matters. The near absence of an insurgency in post-World War II Japan, for example, owe a great deal to the fact that the Emperor of Japan was retained and had sufficient legitimacy to agree to a change of Japanese regime on behalf of the Japanese people. Similarly, the legitimacy that the monarch of Thailand lent to a political deal to end a civil war there was crucial to the deal's success. New research of the incredible expansion of the Islamic empire in its first couple hundred years, shows that a strategy of co-opting, rather than outright fighting by brute force, local elites, was key to its success. A perceived treat that an acquiring regime could obliterate a nation entirely if it does not accept a conquering regime, is more important than the actual execution of that threat. Of course, once a legitimate succession of leadership is established, the original reasons that legitimacy was achieved hardly matter.
This also explains why it is not uncommon for heinous crimes committed during a war, and grave disloyalty, for which insurgent leaders face death sentences, are so often commuted in exchange for public loyalty oaths to the new regime, which seem like mere pieces of paper. But, loyalty oaths from insurgent leaders to a new regime dramatically and symbolically undermine any shred of legitimacy than an insurgent regime may have had, and thereby prevents further war. Hence, those seemingly empty and symbolic acts can actually save countless lives by preventing a war from continuing longer with predictable casualties. That benefit is often worth more than justice for the individual insurgent, who usually wouldn't have behaved in a deviant or criminal manner in the absence of a legitimacy dispute.
Religion has figured prominently in the history of war, largely because, prior to the widespread adoption of democratic norms, national leaders attributed their legitimacy to a divine right of kings to rule, and religous disputes impacted the legitimacy of the religious stamp of approval that validated their divine right to rule. Religion, like nationalism, is also a basis for casting aside existing arrangements regarding national definitions.
The way legitimacy is undermined is also a difficult part of the theory. A mere percenption that a leader is incompetent, or pursues bad policies is not enough, at least until that leader's legitimacy has been seriously called into question. But, orderly succession, while sufficient to excuse a multitude of sins, is not the exclusive reason that a regime can lose its legitimacy. Suffice it to say that in a constitutional system of government, disrepect for another institutions perogatives in that system undermines the very constitutional system upon which you rely for you own authority to act.
People do not fight wars because taxes are too high, or they disagree with the way money is allocated in the national budget, or for any other of the multitude of public policy sins that a government can commit. Public policy issues are relevant to which contestants in a war receive support of various kinds while it is waged, and to crafting solutions that will bring legitimacy to a new regime after a war, but are for the most part unimportant in cause wars to arise.
This fact alone illuminates a variety of important empirical facts regarding war.
1) Civil wars are far more common than international wars. This is because a simply succession dispute can create a civil war, while an international war requires something that causes people to re-evaluate the nature of the political community a regime governs. International wars generally involve either a border dispute, or a claim that nationality or some other principle overrides the status quo boundaries of nations.
2) Some of the worst regimes in the world face no serious risk of civil war. North Korea and Saudi Arabia, for example, are almost entirely undemocratic and in their respecive ways, treat their people horribly, and yet, neither is at any serious risk of civil war so long as there are orderly and nearly universally accepted handovers of power within the respective regimes from one individual leaders to the next.
3) We have a civil war in Iraq now because the U.S. led invasion disrupted the continuity of the Baathist regime irrevocably, and because a boycott of the elections for the constitution and the distrust of the military force that implemented the process has prevented the democratic regime put in place by Coalition forces from being viewed as legitimate. Sunni Muslims correctly saw the constitution as a way to deprive them of power permanently, by aligning the other 80% of the nation, against their 20% of the nation, so they had no reason to buy into the arrangement. Yet, preventing a civil war requires much more than 80% of the population to buy into the notion that a particular regime is the legitimate government of a country.
Usually, legitimacy arises from an orderly succession of leaders within a particular regime. For legitimacy purposes, it really doesn't matter what the method of succession happens to be, so long as there is near universal agreement regarding who the successor will be when the process is completed. Heredity, a constitutional succession of leaders in the absence of an election or between elections, or an election with a clear winner, are among the possible ways for this to happen.
Even the establishment of a new regime, like many of the successions of regimes in France and Germany, will not create a civil war, if the transition is cloaked in the appearance of an orderly and lawful succession from one regime to another.
The succession theory of legitimacy is, of course, incomplete. It fails to discuss either how a legitimate regime is established from scratch (suffice it to say for the moment that it is exceedingly difficult, and is basically a form of nation building), and it also fails to discuss how legitimacy can be undermined apart from confusion in the succession process.
Nation building is a very slow thing, unless it happens with the consent of all predecessor regimes. For example, 142 years later, it isn't uncommon to see only grudging acceptance of the legitimacy of the federal government in the former Confederate States of America. There is enough acceptance of that legitimacy that civil war isn't a viable possibility any longer there, but that wasn't true for, at least, a decade or two after the Civil War.
Similarly, the "Indian Wars" in the United States, which involved sovereignty disputes between Native American regimes and the United States of America lasted almost a century, despite the fact that the United States vastly overwhelmed the Native American peoples in numbers and resources, because civil wars persist until there is essentially no organized group of people who deny the regime's de facto legitimacy. Even then, the Indian Wars ended only when the Native American population had reached a historic low, and all the viable Indian tribes received recognition and some sovereignty over some territory. Even a small percentage of the total population can prevent a regime from gaining legitimacy is that percentage of the population is discrete and has some manner of organization.
Ironically, however, an organized insurgency is often essential to ending a civil war, as it gives the proto-regime attempting to assert suppremacy someone to come to terms with who will be accepted by the insurgents as their legitimate representative in such matters. The near absence of an insurgency in post-World War II Japan, for example, owe a great deal to the fact that the Emperor of Japan was retained and had sufficient legitimacy to agree to a change of Japanese regime on behalf of the Japanese people. Similarly, the legitimacy that the monarch of Thailand lent to a political deal to end a civil war there was crucial to the deal's success. New research of the incredible expansion of the Islamic empire in its first couple hundred years, shows that a strategy of co-opting, rather than outright fighting by brute force, local elites, was key to its success. A perceived treat that an acquiring regime could obliterate a nation entirely if it does not accept a conquering regime, is more important than the actual execution of that threat. Of course, once a legitimate succession of leadership is established, the original reasons that legitimacy was achieved hardly matter.
This also explains why it is not uncommon for heinous crimes committed during a war, and grave disloyalty, for which insurgent leaders face death sentences, are so often commuted in exchange for public loyalty oaths to the new regime, which seem like mere pieces of paper. But, loyalty oaths from insurgent leaders to a new regime dramatically and symbolically undermine any shred of legitimacy than an insurgent regime may have had, and thereby prevents further war. Hence, those seemingly empty and symbolic acts can actually save countless lives by preventing a war from continuing longer with predictable casualties. That benefit is often worth more than justice for the individual insurgent, who usually wouldn't have behaved in a deviant or criminal manner in the absence of a legitimacy dispute.
Religion has figured prominently in the history of war, largely because, prior to the widespread adoption of democratic norms, national leaders attributed their legitimacy to a divine right of kings to rule, and religous disputes impacted the legitimacy of the religious stamp of approval that validated their divine right to rule. Religion, like nationalism, is also a basis for casting aside existing arrangements regarding national definitions.
The way legitimacy is undermined is also a difficult part of the theory. A mere percenption that a leader is incompetent, or pursues bad policies is not enough, at least until that leader's legitimacy has been seriously called into question. But, orderly succession, while sufficient to excuse a multitude of sins, is not the exclusive reason that a regime can lose its legitimacy. Suffice it to say that in a constitutional system of government, disrepect for another institutions perogatives in that system undermines the very constitutional system upon which you rely for you own authority to act.
Big Business Criminals
The Department of Justice has convicted 1,236 big business executives of corporate fraud in the past 5 years.
17 July 2007
Finality v Justice
The habeas corpus debate is a classic slippery slope argument. Make the standards too loose, and the floodgates of frivilous collateral attacks on convictions open. Make the standards too tight, and innocents rot forever in jail.
What room is there for middle ground?
What if it was possible to revisit the validity of a conviction say, once every seven years? The vast majority of sentences would never be eligible for review and most that we eligible for review would be eligible only once, limiting a flood gates effect (the de facto federal habeas corpus reality now). But, this would simplify cases by reducing the procedural complexity involved.
What room is there for middle ground?
What if it was possible to revisit the validity of a conviction say, once every seven years? The vast majority of sentences would never be eligible for review and most that we eligible for review would be eligible only once, limiting a flood gates effect (the de facto federal habeas corpus reality now). But, this would simplify cases by reducing the procedural complexity involved.
Same Actions, Different Results
In Colorado, when someone believes God has bestowed on honor on him, and that causes him to dress up and kill people, he ends up dead.
In Washington, when someone believes God has bestowed on honor on him, and that causes him to dress up and kill people, he draws a federal paycheck.
In Washington, when someone believes God has bestowed on honor on him, and that causes him to dress up and kill people, he draws a federal paycheck.
16 July 2007
Historical Connections?
I suspect that Colorado's capitol hill shooter wasn't motivated by historical dates, but July 16 does have some potential significance.
*Ivan IV of Russia murdered (1764)
*Mark Annius Florianus of Rome murdered (276)
The death of an emperor, of course, is followed by the ascension of a new one.
More plausible might be a connection to Emperor Norton I, an eccentric in San Francisco who purported to dissolve the United States on July 16, 1860.
*Ivan IV of Russia murdered (1764)
*Mark Annius Florianus of Rome murdered (276)
The death of an emperor, of course, is followed by the ascension of a new one.
More plausible might be a connection to Emperor Norton I, an eccentric in San Francisco who purported to dissolve the United States on July 16, 1860.
Cease and Desist E-Mail Received
I found this e-mail in my box this morning:
I have added a disclaimer to that post in an abundance of caution as a response.
My response:
Also notable:
* The registered mark is not simply of the words "Mr. Trademark" but of a "(3) DESIGN PLUS WORDS, LETTERS, AND/OR NUMBERS" which consists of a drawing of a cute little man next to the words "Mr. Trademark" and includes the disclaimer: "NO CLAIM IS MADE TO THE EXCLUSIVE RIGHT TO USE "TRADEMARK" APART FROM THE MARK AS SHOWN". Of course, my post had no drawing of a cute little man in it (the cute little man, by the way, looks nothing like Leo Stoller).
* The name of the registrant differs from the name of the company trying to enforce the mark. The enforcing party is not: "(REGISTRANT) VARNER, ELLEN INDIVIDUAL UNITED STATES 263 OLD MAIN STREET CLIFFSIDE NORTH CAROLINA 28024", although, of course, this could have been licensed, but I'm not sure that the person sending me the e-mail is the true owner of the mark.
His response to my response (emphasis and spaces between paragraphs added editorially):
I reply:
and he writes back:
In short, it looks like it will get ugly.
Background
On April 18, 2007, the authorized practice committee of the North Carolina bar issued the following letter of caution:
The North Carolina corporation Mr. Trademark, Inc. with Ellen Varner as registered agent was dissolved in 2004. The casts doubt on the website claim that:
Despite this the firm appears to advertise as a law firm.
Mr. Strahl is also apparently affiliated with "www.dontneedalawyer.com", a company incorporation service which appears to be defunct at this time.
A February 13, 2006 profile here states that (absence of circle (r) after "Mr. Trademark" name in the original):
The Prison Life Website appears to be defunct, but a surviving reference calls it "a U.S. magazine by and for cons and ex-cons, archived back to October 1996. The hard copy edition also includes a Canadian Page." According to an article published when the magazine came out "publisher Joe Strahl, who came up with the idea for the magazine one day at 2 a.m., has five years of experience working in an Illinois prison commissary."
Also, the claim to use the "Mr. Trademark" name from 1997 appears to be a bit late. A trademark lawyer named Edward Vandenburgh was known as Mr. Trademark decades earlier.
Mr. Strahl is listed in the top 50 of trademark attorneys based upon the number of trademark applications he is named in, but it isn't clear whether or not he is really an attorney. This source notes PTO litigation reference claiming that he was not.
I'll keep you updated if there are further developments.
From: JOE STRAHL [mailto:joe@mr-tm.com]
Sent: Friday, July 13, 2007 7:15 PM
To: Andrew Oh-Willeke
Cc: Attorneys
Subject: BLOG POSTING 7 JULY 07 ON BLOGGER
Blog Name Wash Park Prophet
ANDREW OH-WILLEKE
Registration Number: 2342923
This posting is in violation of the TOS and CONTENT policy.
Mr. Trademark® Inc. is a registered trademark in the USA and several countries.
Registration Number: 2342923
Mr. Trademark® registered trademark is being associated with a Mr. Leo Stoller who has been involved in what might be considered illegal or criminal proceedings. Mr Stoller is not associated with, retained by, or known by Mr. Trademark ® Inc. The posting gives clear association with Mr. Stoller by the use of Mr. Trademark® registered trademark in your post. Mr. Trademark's ® 10 year reputation as a trademark search company and agent is being harmed by the defamatory and libelous post. Mr. Trademark® Inc. has hundreds of law firm customers that could wrongfully associate Mr. Trademark ® Inc. with Mr. Stoller.
Googles policy is very clear. "Defamation/Libel. Users should not publish any content that is unlawful, defamatory, and fraudulent."
We want the post and any other posts removed immediately and the name of Mr. Trademark® in the title removed or legal action will be taken.
Thank you,
Joe Strahl VP
Mr. Trademark® Inc.
POSTING
09 July 2007
Mr. Trademark Abuse
Leo Stoller is the poster child for trademark abuse. Most recently, he received a rebuke in the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals, in a decision so lacking in traditional judicial opinion style that it is tolerable only because Stoller's conduct is so egregious and needs to be stopped.
The bigger problem, of course, is how he managed to get so many frivilous trademark applications past the patent and trademark office. These need to be cancelled not piecemeal, but en masse, and accompanying by criminal prosecutions for filing false trademark applications.
Posted by Andrew Oh-Willeke at 7/09/2007 04:05:00
POLICY
Defamation/Libel. Users should not publish any content that is unlawful, defamatory, and fraudulent. Note that an allegation of defamatory expression, in and of itself, does not establish defamation. The truth or falsehood of a bit of expression is a key element in establishing defamation, and we are not in a position to make that sort of fact-based judgment. That said, if we have reason to believe that a particular statement is defamatory (a court order, for example), we will remove that statement.
Copyright. Using copyrighted material does not constitute infringement in all cases. In general, however, users should be careful when using copyrighted content without the permission of those who created it.
It is our policy to respond to notices of alleged infringement that comply with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act ("DMCA"). If we remove a blog/post or disable access to a blog to comply with the DMCA, we will make a good-faith attempt to contact the owner or administrator of each affected site so that they may make a counter notification pursuant to section 512(g)(2) and (3) of the DMCA. It is our policy to document all notices of alleged infringement on which we act. A copy of the notice, with any personally identifying information removed, will be sent to a third party who will make it available to the public.
I have added a disclaimer to that post in an abundance of caution as a response.
My response:
I have received your e-mail and have posted a disclaimer in the post in an abundance of caution. Never the less, I believe that you cease and desist e-mail is off base. I will not remove the post or change the title as you have requested.
1. I am not trying to sell trademark services in this post.
2. I have made no false statements of fact.
3. I clearly identify the factual basis of my statements.
4. You, like Mr. Stoller, seem to fail to appreciate that a registered trademark is not a monopoly on use of certain words, it is merely a ban on marketing goods or services in a confusing fashion.
5. From context, it is clear that “Mr. Trademark Abuse”, the title of my post, is something very different, indeed the opposite of, “Mr. Trademark.”, which you have registered.
6. Also, from context, it is clear that I am not using the words in a manner intended to have secondary meaning.
7. I seriously doubt that your registered trademark would withstand court scrutiny as it is merely descriptive of the services you provide. Descriptive trademarks are inherently weak. In the same way, it is impossible to get a valid trademark on “Liquor Store” or “Dry Cleaner” for a liquor store or dry cleaner respectively. Your own trademark verge on frivolous itself.
Please refrain from taking further unreasonable action.
Also notable:
* The registered mark is not simply of the words "Mr. Trademark" but of a "(3) DESIGN PLUS WORDS, LETTERS, AND/OR NUMBERS" which consists of a drawing of a cute little man next to the words "Mr. Trademark" and includes the disclaimer: "NO CLAIM IS MADE TO THE EXCLUSIVE RIGHT TO USE "TRADEMARK" APART FROM THE MARK AS SHOWN". Of course, my post had no drawing of a cute little man in it (the cute little man, by the way, looks nothing like Leo Stoller).
* The name of the registrant differs from the name of the company trying to enforce the mark. The enforcing party is not: "(REGISTRANT) VARNER, ELLEN INDIVIDUAL UNITED STATES 263 OLD MAIN STREET CLIFFSIDE NORTH CAROLINA 28024", although, of course, this could have been licensed, but I'm not sure that the person sending me the e-mail is the true owner of the mark.
His response to my response (emphasis and spaces between paragraphs added editorially):
I understand your position.
Your post title "Mr. Trademark abuse" and mentioning Mr Stoller in the next sentence would not lead the average consumer to relate the two.
I am in a narrow field with a narrow channel of trade and my clients which may or may not read your ramblings COULD confuse the two. I have many law firms and in-house counsels as clients that might assume that they are related which would damage me it it remains,
I contend that your post is confusing to anyone that is in the IP business.
Thank you for adding a disclaimer but I see no reason for you to allow it to stay up.
I have reported it to Google and it may be boarder-line in your legal opinion but in my lawyers opinion it it not.
I want it removed.
Your opinions in regard to the descriptive nature of my registered trademark are not relevant. It is in fact a registered trademark on the principal register so the USPTO seems to disagree with your assessment.
I protect it and that is the process and the law.
I am asking you in a nice manner. No threats just asking to remove it or I will have not choice but to defend it. I have to.
Joe Strahl
I reply:
1. How do I know you have a right to enforce the mark? You are not the registered owner of the mark. You are also not an attorney authorized to act on behalf of third parties in legal matters.
2. The mark you referenced is not to “Mr. Trademark”. The mark is a logo containing a picture of a little man next to “Mr. Trademark.”, and disclaims all rights to the word “trademark.
and he writes back:
No it is in my wife's name.
No I am not a lawyer. I have never held myself out to be one.
I just search a great deal of names for companies and law firms.
We do many things in that area including in over 80 other countries.
I don't want to discuss the merits of your post. I just do not want any of my clients present or future to somehow think or link that Mr. Stoller is associated with our company. That is all plain and simple. He is a hot topic on INTA and other places. I can't afford the connection.
Your title Mr. Trademark give the impression or association that Mr. Stoller is Mr Trademark. Why would you use that title? Is Mr Stoller aka Mr. Trademark? No. Would people in this small IP world connect the two with your post? Yes, we did and so did others. I don't want to draw attention to it I just want it gone. What is so hard to understand about that? I don't want to waste time and money on going to war over this.
I would hope that you do not have enough time to get into this. I know I don't as we are very busy and in the process of branding the name and expanding into more countries and registering in more countries.
I can't afford the connection to that dirt bag. Please take it down or change or drop the MR part of it. Please?
Joe Strahl
In short, it looks like it will get ugly.
Background
On April 18, 2007, the authorized practice committee of the North Carolina bar issued the following letter of caution:
06AP0107 – Ellen Varner and Joe Strahl dba Mr. Trademark: Business offers web based trademark searches, opinions, and application preparation.
The North Carolina corporation Mr. Trademark, Inc. with Ellen Varner as registered agent was dissolved in 2004. The casts doubt on the website claim that:
All material herein Copyright © 2007 Mr. Trademark Inc.,
All Rights Reserved
MrTrademark.com and Mr. Trademark are service marks of Mr. Trademark Inc.
Despite this the firm appears to advertise as a law firm.
Mr. Strahl is also apparently affiliated with "www.dontneedalawyer.com", a company incorporation service which appears to be defunct at this time.
A February 13, 2006 profile here states that (absence of circle (r) after "Mr. Trademark" name in the original):
Joe Strahl, the founder of this business, was formerly the owner of Prison Life magazine. When copyright issues related to the magazine arose, Strahl found that rather than pay a lawyer, he could research existing trademarks for free through a database that was available at the New York Public Library. After completing this work, Strahl realized that the basic research to determine the existence of any trademark conflicts does not require a lawyer. He concluded that he could build a profitable business around this research service. The benefits Mr. Trademark offers include far lower costs than those of lawyer-guided trademark investigation services and guaranteed 24-hour turnaround.
The Prison Life Website appears to be defunct, but a surviving reference calls it "a U.S. magazine by and for cons and ex-cons, archived back to October 1996. The hard copy edition also includes a Canadian Page." According to an article published when the magazine came out "publisher Joe Strahl, who came up with the idea for the magazine one day at 2 a.m., has five years of experience working in an Illinois prison commissary."
Also, the claim to use the "Mr. Trademark" name from 1997 appears to be a bit late. A trademark lawyer named Edward Vandenburgh was known as Mr. Trademark decades earlier.
Mr. Strahl is listed in the top 50 of trademark attorneys based upon the number of trademark applications he is named in, but it isn't clear whether or not he is really an attorney. This source notes PTO litigation reference claiming that he was not.
I'll keep you updated if there are further developments.
A Dangerous And Intelligent Man
Adrian Vermmeule is a dangerous and intelligent man. He is a professor at Harvard Law School. His background is in administrative law, and his most politically notable work has been to argue for judicial deferrence not just to the executive branch generally in many circumstances, but in particular during states of emergency.
For example, in "Emergencies and Democratic Failure" (2006), he argues against the majority view of the judicial role in national emergencies, instead makes a case for greater judicial deference in emergencies arguing that:
He is a leading academic proponent of the "ticking time bomb" justification for coersive interrogation (read torture), in his article "Should Coercive Interrogation Be Legal?" (March 2005), the abstract of which argues understatedly:
In one of his most recent works, Holmes on Emergencies (July 2007), he argues that the common law strategy for dealing with emergencies espoused by renowned jurist Oliver Wendell Holmes includes the notion that: "during emergencies there are no non-derogable rights - government can do anything if circumstances warrant[.]"
He previously taught at the University of Chicago Law School, probably the most conservative prestigious law school in the nation, and his work has frequently been supported by the conservative Olin Foundation. A partial bibliography of his scholarly works can be found at SSRN.
While there are many proponents of strong executive branch powers, and tolerance of authoritarian excess, few have the credentials or intelligence of Vermmeule. And, most of the others have a far larger profile among political elites, so he might evade the kind of allergic reaction that other less thoughtful or better known authoritarians might receive if he was, for example, nominated for a post on the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, which has an unusually strong role to play in administrative and public law.
Even absent a formal position on a powerful appellate court, solicitor general's office, or White House counsel position, his academic writings, which are very much in touch with the views of Dick Cheney, expressed through the Bush Administration, lend respectability and intellectual backbone to deplorable acts by government.
In short, he is someone worth keeping an eye upon.
For example, in "Emergencies and Democratic Failure" (2006), he argues against the majority view of the judicial role in national emergencies, instead makes a case for greater judicial deference in emergencies arguing that:
Democratic failure is no more likely during emergencies than during normal times, and courts are in a worse position to correct democratic failures during emergencies than during normal times. The related arguments that during emergencies courts should protect aliens, and should be more skeptical of unilateral executive actions than of actions that are authorized by statutes, are also of doubtful validity.
He is a leading academic proponent of the "ticking time bomb" justification for coersive interrogation (read torture), in his article "Should Coercive Interrogation Be Legal?" (March 2005), the abstract of which argues understatedly:
If coercive interrogation is ever justified, and the benefits outweigh the risks of error and unintended consequences, it should be legal, albeit strictly regulated.
In one of his most recent works, Holmes on Emergencies (July 2007), he argues that the common law strategy for dealing with emergencies espoused by renowned jurist Oliver Wendell Holmes includes the notion that: "during emergencies there are no non-derogable rights - government can do anything if circumstances warrant[.]"
He previously taught at the University of Chicago Law School, probably the most conservative prestigious law school in the nation, and his work has frequently been supported by the conservative Olin Foundation. A partial bibliography of his scholarly works can be found at SSRN.
While there are many proponents of strong executive branch powers, and tolerance of authoritarian excess, few have the credentials or intelligence of Vermmeule. And, most of the others have a far larger profile among political elites, so he might evade the kind of allergic reaction that other less thoughtful or better known authoritarians might receive if he was, for example, nominated for a post on the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, which has an unusually strong role to play in administrative and public law.
Even absent a formal position on a powerful appellate court, solicitor general's office, or White House counsel position, his academic writings, which are very much in touch with the views of Dick Cheney, expressed through the Bush Administration, lend respectability and intellectual backbone to deplorable acts by government.
In short, he is someone worth keeping an eye upon.
Spot On IP Analysis
[T]he origins, philosophical foundations, and economic ramifications of real and intellectual property are quite distinct and that uncritically basing intellectual property law on a real property analogy is likely to cause more harm than good.
Via the PropertyProf Blog.
Feds Screw Up KPMG Criminal Tax Shelter Case
The federal government indicted 19 people in connection with allegedly criminal tax shelter activities by mega-accounting firm KPMG. It also pressured KPMG not to provide legal defenses for its employees, and declined to indict (and in turn destroy) the firm as payback. The trial court judge in the criminal case has now dismissed the federal criminal cases against 13 of those defendants as a result of the federal government's attempt to prevent KPMG from helping to fund the employee's criminal defense counsel.
One defendant pleaded guilty. Cases against 3 ex-KPMG employees who likely wouldn't have gotten legal defense assistance from KPMG anyway, and 2 non-employees remain, but a huge part of the prosecution case has now been destroyed. More intelligent commentary, suggesting that Justice may have screwed up a shot at an appellate review they were trying to get of the trial judge's decision may be found here.
The defeat is more than a mere defeat in one case for the government. It repudiates a major strategy of the federal government which is a Justice Department policy, for prosecuting white collar cases.
Bottom line: 13 people who might very well have been guilty, but had a fighting chance at trial are off the hook; 5 more are in a better position than they were before, and the government has egg on its face.
I don't know how parallel civil proceedings (and I assume that they exist) fared.
One defendant pleaded guilty. Cases against 3 ex-KPMG employees who likely wouldn't have gotten legal defense assistance from KPMG anyway, and 2 non-employees remain, but a huge part of the prosecution case has now been destroyed. More intelligent commentary, suggesting that Justice may have screwed up a shot at an appellate review they were trying to get of the trial judge's decision may be found here.
The defeat is more than a mere defeat in one case for the government. It repudiates a major strategy of the federal government which is a Justice Department policy, for prosecuting white collar cases.
Bottom line: 13 people who might very well have been guilty, but had a fighting chance at trial are off the hook; 5 more are in a better position than they were before, and the government has egg on its face.
I don't know how parallel civil proceedings (and I assume that they exist) fared.
Desegregation Not All Black and White
San Francisco began considering factors like family income, instead of race, in school assignments when it modified a court-ordered desegregation plan in response to a lawsuit. But school officials have found that the 55,000-student city school district, with Chinese the dominant ethnic group followed by Hispanics, blacks and whites, is resegregrating.
The number of schools where students of a single racial or ethnic group make up 60 percent or more of the population in at least one grade is increasing sharply. In 2005-06, about 50 schools were segregated using that standard as measured by a court-appointed monitor. That was up from 30 schools in the 2001-02 school year, the year before the change, according to court filings.
Many of the dominant race schools are majority Chinese.
From the New York Times (the school district is about one-third Chinese).
Efforts at desegregating by income, rather than race have had mixed success. Raleigh had dramatic success described below. So did Cambridge, Massachussetts (an example always to be doubted on the grounds that it might rely on exceptional circumstances present only when world class Ivy League schools are nearby). Charlotte-Mecklenburg, San Francisco, and San Jose, California, offered more mixed outcomes.
For seven years the district has sought to cap the proportion of low-income students in each of the county’s 143 schools at 40 percent.
To achieve a balance of low- and middle-income children, the district encourages and sometimes requires students to attend schools far from home. Suburban students are attracted to magnet schools in the city; children from the inner city are sometimes bused to middle-class schools at the outer edges of Raleigh and in the suburbs.
The achievement gains have been sharp, and school officials said economic integration was largely responsible. Only 40 percent of black students in grades three through eight in Wake County, where Raleigh is located, scored at grade level on state reading tests in 1995. By the spring of 2006, 82 percent did.
The Bell Policy Center has done research indicating that economic integration improves school performance in Denver schools.
School choice in Denver increases, rather than decreases school segregation. Most black students who use school choice pick just a couple of schools. Most white students who use school choice pick about half a dozen different schools.
By all accounts, parents allowed to choose different schools are happier with their choice than the neighborhood school. But, by co-opting dissatisfied and vocal parents by allowing them to chose new schools for their children, school choice also reduces the political pressure on the district to improve neighborhood schools.
Morning Quote
I don't think people of conscience can stand on the sidelines.
- Zack de la Rocha (Rage Against the Machine frontman), Interview on 93.3 FM this morning.
14 July 2007
Small Town Louisiana Still Racist
The criminal cases of the Jena 6 show how little has changed in small town Louisiana.
Designer Gene Therapy for Pancreatic Cancer
Scientists have come up with a new approach to treating pancreatic cancer. A bubble of fat sneaks the invading genes through cell walls. Part of the invading genes are designed so that it only activates inside a pancreatic cancer cell. The rest of the invading gene tells the cell to commit suicide. It worked well in mice who had previously received transplanted human pancreatic cancer cells that had developed into tumors.
Given the good results, work on scaling up the treatment to human sized tumors comes next. It marks a breakthrough because: "More than 37,000 people in the United States will be diagnosed with pancreatic cancer this year, and nearly all of those cases will be untreatable."
Via Science News, original research from here.
Treatment with the gene therapy shrank the tumors, and 50 percent of the treated mice survived at least 120 days with no detectable cancer. All the untreated mice died in less than 45 days. The researchers found no evidence of toxic side effects from the treatment[.]
Given the good results, work on scaling up the treatment to human sized tumors comes next. It marks a breakthrough because: "More than 37,000 people in the United States will be diagnosed with pancreatic cancer this year, and nearly all of those cases will be untreatable."
Via Science News, original research from here.
13 July 2007
Jose Padilla Prosecution Rests
From the AP:
Keep in mind that in July 2000, al-Qaida and Osama bin Laden were names known only to national security specialists, the United States was not contemplating military involvement in Afghanistan which was embroiled in a civil war that had almost been won by the Taliban, and Bill Clinton was President.
Prosecutors rested their case Friday after nine weeks, 22 witnesses and dozens of FBI wiretap intercepts played at trial, most of them in Arabic with written translations for jurors. Defense lawyers for Padilla and his two co-defendants begin presenting their case next week. . . .
Padilla's voice was heard on only seven intercepts, a tiny fraction of the 300,000 collected by the FBI during the nearly decade-long investigation.
Padilla was never linked to any specific acts of terrorism or murder and, unlike his co-defendants, he was not accused of using purported code words like "tourism" for "jihad" or "eggplant" for "rocket-propelled grenade." . . .
The key to the case against Padilla . . . is how much weight jurors give to the five-page "mujahedeen data form" he allegedly filled out in July 2000 to attend an al-Qaida training camp in Afghanistan. Seven of Padilla's fingerprints are on the form, which was recovered by the CIA in Afghanistan in December 2001. . . .
The form also serves to link Padilla co-defendants Adham Amin Hassoun and Kifah Wael Jayyousi, both 45, to al-Qaida. Most of the other evidence and wiretap intercepts concern actions Hassoun and Jayyousi supposedly took to benefit Islamic extremists in global hotspots such as Chechnya, Somalia, Kosovo and Lebanon.
There's little evidence linking any of the three to specific acts of violence but there are ties to groups involved in Islamic jihad. For example, an associate of Jayyousi's was killed in fighting in Chechnya in 1995 and Jayyousi once got a fax signed by al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden. . . .
The three face life in prison if convicted on all charges, which include providing material support to terrorists and conspiracy to murder, kidnap and maim people overseas.
The defense says its case will focus on expert witnesses who can provide an alternate view of history, Islamic principles and global politics for the jury. The trial is scheduled to continue into August. . . .
Padilla's attorneys have said he went to Egypt in 1998 to study Islam more intently and hoped to become an imam. Merely traveling to places like Pakistan, they say, isn't proof of ties to terrorism.
Keep in mind that in July 2000, al-Qaida and Osama bin Laden were names known only to national security specialists, the United States was not contemplating military involvement in Afghanistan which was embroiled in a civil war that had almost been won by the Taliban, and Bill Clinton was President.
Excellent Discussion Of The SAT
The article I'm citing if by Charles Murray, a co-author of the notorious and controversial Bell Curve. This doesn't mean that it isn't a worthwhile discussion and it is replete with interesting facts.
The Little Debate: SATs vs. Subject Matter Tests
The first part of a careful analysis of the SAT college admission tests sticks to a relatively boring conclusion: Given high school grades and SAT subject matter tests, you can predict college success virtually as well as you can with high school grades, the SAT, and the SAT subject matter tests. The SAT and the SAT subject matter tests are highly corollated, and the subject matter tests are slightly better.
Specifically, a University of California study found that:
Big deal, one set of tests by a company is slightly better than another. Of course, an ordinary SAT and high school GPA are almost as good as SAT subject matter tests and high school GPA. Pick your poison. In his view, he favors the subject matter tests primarily because "[T]he image of the SAT has done a 180-degree turn. No longer seen as a compensating resource for the unprivileged, it has become a corrosive symbol of privilege."
Bigger points
1. Test coaching is only modestly effective:
2. The SAT and related tests are not ethnically biased:
3. Smart people have smart kids (emphasis added):
4. Meritocracy has culled dumb money and the underprivileged from elite colleges:
Analysis
He concludes that college admissions are not driving the growing divide between the haves and have nots in our society by being unmeritocratic:
He doesn't take the next logical step to ask if it is possible to solve the gaps by improving schools. But, if he had, tests like the CSAPs would show that profound and persistent ethnic and income based achievement gaps in standardized tests are firmly in place by 3rd grade (the link starts the analysis at 4th grade test results, but the gaps are present in 3rd grade tests to a similar degree) and persist at about the same magnitude through the tenth grade, across all subjects, despite significant institutional efforts to close those gaps.
The public schools in Colorado aren't materially aggravating the achievement gaps that are there in 3rd grade, but the public schools also have only the slightest impact in closing those achievement gaps.
The data show persausively that no modest effort to reform K-12 education, or make college admissions more meritocratic, will make much difference in social stratification. There are essentially three possible ways to reduce social stratification which aren't precluded by what we know:
1. Very early intervention (well before age 9) designed to improve academic achievement.
2. Radical and intense overhaul of how K-12 education is run that puts intense efforts into helping kids who have fallen behind catch up and learn the academic skills that upper middle class kids pick up by osmosis.
3. A departure from an academically oriented meritocratic ideal.
The Little Debate: SATs vs. Subject Matter Tests
The first part of a careful analysis of the SAT college admission tests sticks to a relatively boring conclusion: Given high school grades and SAT subject matter tests, you can predict college success virtually as well as you can with high school grades, the SAT, and the SAT subject matter tests. The SAT and the SAT subject matter tests are highly corollated, and the subject matter tests are slightly better.
Specifically, a University of California study found that:
Achievement tests [ed. the subject matter tests] did slightly better than the SAT in predicting freshman grades. High school grade point average, SAT scores, and achievement test scores were entered into a statistical equation to predict the grade point that applicants achieved during their freshman year in college. The researchers found that achievement tests and high school grade point each had about the same independent role—that is, each factor was, by itself, an equally accurate predictor of how a student will do as a college freshman.
But the SAT’s independent role in predicting freshman grade point turned out to be so small that knowing the SAT score added next to nothing to an admissions officer’s ability to forecast how an applicant will do in college—the reason to give the test in the first place. In technical terms, adding the SAT to the other two elements added just one-tenth of a percentage point to the percentage of variance in freshman grades explained by high school grade point and the achievement tests. . . .
For schools in the bottom quintile of the ratings . . . the achievement tests did slightly better than the SAT in predicting how the test-takers would perform as college freshmen. . . . after controlling for parental income and education, the independent role of the SAT in predicting freshman grade point disappeared altogether. The effectiveness of high school grade point and of achievement tests to predict freshman grade point was undiminished. . . .
[The study] broke down its results by college campus (an A at Berkeley might not mean the same thing as an A at Santa Cruz) and by freshman major (an A in a humanities course might not mean the same thing as an A in a physical science course). The results were unaffected. Again, the SAT was unnecessary; it added nothing to the forecasts provided by high school grades and achievement tests. . . .
[T]he correlation between the SAT Verbal and the Literature Achievement test was a very high 0.83 (a correlation of 1.0 represents a perfect direct relationship). The correlation between the SAT Math and the Math IC achievement test was 0.86.
Big deal, one set of tests by a company is slightly better than another. Of course, an ordinary SAT and high school GPA are almost as good as SAT subject matter tests and high school GPA. Pick your poison. In his view, he favors the subject matter tests primarily because "[T]he image of the SAT has done a 180-degree turn. No longer seen as a compensating resource for the unprivileged, it has become a corrosive symbol of privilege."
Bigger points
1. Test coaching is only modestly effective:
From 1981 to 1990, three separate analyses of all the prior studies were published in peer-reviewed journals. They found a coaching effect of 9 to 25 points on the SAT Verbal and of 15 to 25 points on the SAT Math. In 2004, Derek Briggs, using the National Education Longitudinal Study of 1988, found effects of 3 to 20 points for the SAT Verbal and 10 to 28 points for the SAT Math. Donald Powers and Donald Rock, using a nationally representative sample of students who took the SAT after its revisions in the mid-1990s, found an average coaching effect of 6 to 12 points on the SAT Verbal and 13 to 18 points on the SAT Math.
2. The SAT and related tests are not ethnically biased:
To determine whether a test is biased, just compare its predictive validity for different groups. This has been done for the SAT in multiple studies over the decades, and the results have shown that the SAT predicts college performance as well for poor test-takers as for rich test-takers, as well for ethnic minorities as for whites, and as well for women as for men. The caveat to this conclusion is a tendency for the SAT to overpredict, not underpredict, the college performance of African Americans. On average, it indicates they will do better than they actually do.
3. Smart people have smart kids (emphasis added):
Extrapolating from the 2006 data on means and standard deviations reported by the College Board, about half of the 700+ scores went to students from families making more than $100,000 per year. But the truly consequential statistics are these: Approximately 90 percent of the students with 700+ scores had at least one parent with a college degree. Over half had a parent with a graduate degree. . . . [T]he test isn’t the problem. The children of the well educated and affluent get most of the top scores because they constitute most of the smartest kids. They are smart because their parents are smart. The parents have passed their smartness along through parenting practices that are largely independent of education and affluence, and through genes that are completely independent of them.
4. Meritocracy has culled dumb money and the underprivileged from elite colleges:
Harvard offers an easy way to summarize the revolution that accelerated after World War II. As late as 1952, the mean SAT Verbal score of the incoming freshman class was just 583. By 1960, the mean had jumped to 678. In eight years, Harvard transformed itself from a college with a moderately talented student body to a place where the average freshman was intellectually in the top fraction of 1 percent of the national population. But this change did not mean that Harvard became more socioeconomically diverse. On the contrary, it became more homogeneous. In the old days, Harvard had admitted a substantial number of Boston students from modest backgrounds who commuted to classes, and also a substantial number of rich students with average intelligence. In the new era, when Harvard’s students were much more rigorously screened for intellectual ability, the numbers of students from the very top and bottom of the socioeconomic ladder were reduced, and the proportion coming from upper-middle-class backgrounds increased.
The other high-ranking schools have similar stories to tell. In a sample of 11 of the most prestigious colleges studied by William Bowen and his colleagues between the mid-1970s and the mid-1990s, the proportion of students in the top SES quartile rose from about a third to a half of all students, while the share in the bottom quartile remained constant at one-tenth. And these were schools such as Princeton and Yale that get first chance to admit the scarce and sought-after candidates of high ability from poor backgrounds.
When, in 2003, Anthony Carnevale and Stephen Rose expanded the definition of top-tier colleges to include 146 schools, fully 74 percent of the students came from families in the top SES quartile, while only 3 percent came from the bottom quartile. Ethnic diversity has increased during the last half century, but not socioeconomic diversity.
Analysis
He concludes that college admissions are not driving the growing divide between the haves and have nots in our society by being unmeritocratic:
From 1907 to 2007, the correlation between intellectual ability and socioeconomic status (SES) increased dramatically. The socioeconomic elite and the cognitive elite are increasingly one. . . . Because upper-middle-class families produce most of the smartest kids, there is no way to reform the system (short of disregarding intellectual ability altogether) to prevent their children from coming out on top. We can only make sure that high-ability students from disadvantaged backgrounds realize that the nation’s best colleges yearn for their applications and that their chance of breaking out of their disadvantaged situations has never been better—in short, that the system is not rigged.
He doesn't take the next logical step to ask if it is possible to solve the gaps by improving schools. But, if he had, tests like the CSAPs would show that profound and persistent ethnic and income based achievement gaps in standardized tests are firmly in place by 3rd grade (the link starts the analysis at 4th grade test results, but the gaps are present in 3rd grade tests to a similar degree) and persist at about the same magnitude through the tenth grade, across all subjects, despite significant institutional efforts to close those gaps.
The public schools in Colorado aren't materially aggravating the achievement gaps that are there in 3rd grade, but the public schools also have only the slightest impact in closing those achievement gaps.
The data show persausively that no modest effort to reform K-12 education, or make college admissions more meritocratic, will make much difference in social stratification. There are essentially three possible ways to reduce social stratification which aren't precluded by what we know:
1. Very early intervention (well before age 9) designed to improve academic achievement.
2. Radical and intense overhaul of how K-12 education is run that puts intense efforts into helping kids who have fallen behind catch up and learn the academic skills that upper middle class kids pick up by osmosis.
3. A departure from an academically oriented meritocratic ideal.
British Deny Using Bioweapon in Iraq
British forces have denied rumours that they released a plague of ferocious badgers into the Iraqi city of Basra.
Word spread among the populace that UK troops had introduced strange man-eating, bear-like beasts into the area to sow panic. . . .
UK military spokesman Major Mike Shearer said: "We can categorically state that we have not released man-eating badgers into the area."
From the BBC via the Huffington Post via Above the Law (with illustration).
What would you expect the British to say if they were introducing man-eating badgers? Yup, that was us?
These are the people who brought us the saying:
An Ambassador is an honest man sent to lie abroad for the good of his country.
Obviously a conspiracy.
Genralow Wilson DA Is A Creep
The District Attorney in Georgia, David McDade, who prosecuted Genarlow Wilson* didn't just abuse his prosecutorial discretion in that case, he is a creep. The fact that he was elected in Douglas County, Georgia when this happened doesn't speak well of the voters there.
The Case
McDade was sued for sexual harassment in his office, and those claims survived a motion for summary judgment, but were dismissed on an appeal to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals. The Plaintiff requests a rehearing en banc, which was denied. Here is what a dissenting judge in the rehearing en banc decision stated:
Lewis v. McDade, 250 F.3d 1320, 1321 (11th Cir. 2001) (Justice Barkett, dissenting from denial of rehearing en banc).
Here is the full statement of facts from the trial court decision appealed from:
Lewis v. McDade, 54 F. Supp. 2d 1332, 1336-1340 (D. Ga. 1999) (citations to dpeosition testimony and discovery documents omitted).
Hat Tips to AboveTheLaw.com and the Sentencing Law and Policy Blog.
*Genarlow Wilson is the Georgia boy who was sentenced to 10 years in prison for having consensual oral sex with a 15-year-old girl when he was 17 years old. The Georgia statute under which he was convicted has since been amended to make the same offense a misdemeanor, but the change was not made retroactive to Wilson's case. Under Georgia law at the time he would have not committed a crime if he had engaged in vaginal sex with her, rather than oral sex. The prosecutor is widely distributing videotapes of the sex act and appears to have improperly intimidated Wilson's mother as well.
The Case
McDade was sued for sexual harassment in his office, and those claims survived a motion for summary judgment, but were dismissed on an appeal to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals. The Plaintiff requests a rehearing en banc, which was denied. Here is what a dissenting judge in the rehearing en banc decision stated:
[T]he panel held that although District Attorney McDade "ran a DA's office rife with gender-discrimination," qualified immunity protects him from civil liability because there is no pre-existing case which would have put him on notice that: (1) berating his female employees with pejorative terms such as "hysterical female," "bitch," "blonde bombshell," "smurfette," and "bimbette," (2) photographing his female employees' buttocks, (3) throwing coins and other objects down his female employees' blouses, (4) telling a female employee to uncross and cross her legs again while he watched, (5) stating that the only thing women are good for is "making babies," (6) saying "women don't have the balls to be prosecutors," and (7) embarrassing his female employees with statements such as "you can't come in, Rita doesn't have her clothes on," constituted sexual harassment.
Lewis v. McDade, 250 F.3d 1320, 1321 (11th Cir. 2001) (Justice Barkett, dissenting from denial of rehearing en banc).
Here is the full statement of facts from the trial court decision appealed from:
Defendant McDade was elected District Attorney for the Douglas Judicial Circuit in the summer of 1990. Though persons employed in the District Attorney's office are paid by the State and/or Douglas County, the authority to hire, supervise, discipline, and terminate these employees rests with Defendant McDade.
Plaintiff Lois Gerstenberger was hired as an assistant district attorney by Defendant McDade's predecessor, Frank Winn, on November 1, 1986. After Defendant McDade was elected District Attorney, he allowed Plaintiff Gerstenberger to continue to work as an assistant district attorney in the office. Plaintiff Gerstenberger resigned on August 18, 1994, to be effective September 2, 1994.
In January, 1990, then District Attorney Winn employed Plaintiff Martha Carver as the first and only Victim-Witness Coordinator for the District Attorney's office. Defendant McDade also allowed Plaintiff Carver to continue in this position from January 1, 1991 until she submitted her resignation on September 26, 1994, effective two weeks later.
In March, 1990, then District Attorney Winn employed Plaintiff Rebecca Lewis as his office receptionist. In November, 1990, Plaintiff Lewis was transferred to the data entry position. Defendant McDade allowed Plaintiff Lewis to remain in this position until she submitted her resignation on September 23, 1994, effective October 8, 1994.
Then District Attorney Winn employed Plaintiff Linda Hughes as a county-paid secretary in August, 1990. In April, 1994, Plaintiff Hughes was appointed to a state-funded secretary position. Upon his election, Defendant McDade allowed her to remain in this position. By letter dated August 18, 1994, Plaintiff Hughes submitted her letter of resignation to Defendant McDade.
In January, 1979, Plaintiff Rita Smith was hired by then District Attorney Winn as a state-funded secretary in the District Attorney's office. Defendant McDade allowed Plaintiff Smith to continue in her employment in this position until she resigned on October 23, 1995. Plaintiff Smith functioned as the District Attorney's Office Manager from January, 1991 until February, 1995.
In July, 1988, Plaintiff Brenda Heath was appointed as the Douglas District Attorney's first and only investigator by then District Attorney Winn. Defendant McDade allowed Plaintiff Heath to remain in this position until he terminated her on February 3, 1995.
There is no evidence that during 1994 and 1995, the Douglas District Attorney's office employed more than fifteen (15) employees, as that term is defined at 42 U.S.C. § 2000e(f), for each working day in each of twenty (20) or more weeks during that calendar year.
The office of the District Attorney operated very informally. Employees often engaged in sexually suggestive language and activities. The Magistrate Judge has reviewed this conduct in detail in the Report and Recommendation which is incorporated herein. However, a brief summary of that evidence, construed in a light most favorable to Plaintiffs, follows.
Defendant McDade would tell a woman employee to walk down the hall so that he could watch her walk from behind. On occasion, he made comments about Plaintiff Lewis' legs and that her dress was a "turn-on." Defendant McDade would often throw coins down the blouses or bras of the female employees. Defendant McDade also shot rubber bands at the breasts and buttocks of the female employees. On several occasions, Defendant McDade lifted [*1337] Plaintiffs Gerstenberger and Smith off the ground. Defendant McDade lifted the suit jacket of Plaintiff Gerstenberger and looked and pointed at her buttocks. When someone would knock on his door while a woman was in his office, on occasion Defendant McDade would state, "You can't come in, she doesn't have her clothes on" or "Don't come in right now, I don't have my pants on." Defendant McDade told Assistant District Attorney Perrin (a female employed from November, 1991 through July, 1992) she would have to wear the office uniform (a bikini) while playing volleyball at the Prosecuting Attorneys Council Meeting. On an occasion when a man was being prosecuted who had obtained a penile implant, Defendant McDade carried the implant around the office proclaiming he was larger than the implant.
Plaintiffs also participated in the sexual games and conduct in the office. On one occasion, the female employees dressed as prostitutes. The female employees gave Defendant McDade a photo album with sexually-charged comments accompanying the photographs. On one occasion, the female employees presented Defendant McDade with an ice sculpture of breasts. Also, a tape recorded montage of sexual comments and innuendos was prepared for Defendant McDade. (The Plaintiffs also gave Defendant McDade a number of cards and notes praising him as a boss. At times, Plaintiffs were unoffended by Defendant McDade's conduct and willingly joined in it. At other times, they found his conduct demeaning. Though at times certain of the Plaintiffs may have mildly intimated displeasure with some of the sexual comments or activities, no Plaintiff lodged any type of formal complaint concerning the same.
Defendant McDade also used language and conduct which, while not sexual in nature, was demeaning and abusive toward females. Again, this conduct is described in detail in Parts Three and Four of the Report and Recommendation, which have been incorporated herein, but a summary follows. Defendant McDade would often yell at the female employees and use abusive language. On one occasion, he loudly cursed Plaintiff Lewis in a courtroom filled with people. On another occasion, Plaintiff Lewis delivered a book for Defendant McDade to Detective Shaddix. Detective Shaddix was not in his office, and Detective Brumbalow took the book from Plaintiff Lewis for Detective Shaddix. When she told Defendant McDade what had occurred, he pounded his fist on the desk and said, "What in the hell did I tell you to do with the goddamn mother fucking book!?" When Plaintiff tried to explain that Detective Brumbalow had taken the book from her and placed it on Detective Shaddix's desk, Defendant stated, "Does Brumbalow sign your goddamn paycheck?" Plaintiff started trembling and was speechless. Defendant finally told her to leave his office.
When females would ask for time off for medical reasons, Defendant routinely stated that the employee was "having her annual nervous breakdown," or "sunbathing on the deck," or "PMS'ing." When a woman employee would make a statement or ask a question in front of visitors, Defendant McDade would often respond "that's not true" or "that didn't happen." When women employees would ask for a second of Defendant McDade's time, he would often say "not unless you've got an empty pocket, I [*1338] gotta pee!"
Defendant McDade required Plaintiff Heath to work on his campaign. Plaintiff Heath asked Defendant McDade if he wanted the other women in the office to help. He replied, "I don't want a bunch of stupid lazy women getting in the way but you be there at 6 p.m." Plaintiff Heath had to get the food, buy beer, cigarettes, etc. for the "men" who helped.
Immediately after Plaintiff Hughes began working in the District Attorney's office, she noticed Defendant McDade was disrespectful and insulting to women. During her first few days, Defendant McDade came into the secretaries' office and demanded loudly that he wanted somebody to "pick up this file" and do the work required. He then dropped the file in the middle of the floor and all three (3) secretaries immediately went to their knees to retrieve the file.
When Defendant McDade wanted to throw out something from his mail basket, he would drop it on the floor beside Plaintiff Hughes' desk. When she would move her trash can under his hand to catch the trash, Defendant McDade would deliberately move over causing the trash to fall on the floor and causing Plaintiff to get on the floor to pick it up.
Defendant McDade constantly pitted the women in the office against one another by telling them lies about the other women. Defendant McDade would have swimming parties at his home and require all of the women employees to come and to wear bathing suits.
Defendant McDade referred to women in the following terms: "that bitch," "blonde," "friggin idiot," "hysterical," "whiney," "squalling," "my baby," "a honey," "fucking bitch," "feather head," "bazumbas," "stupid bitch," "whoa baby!" He used these terms in reference to women lawyers, women in the District Attorney's and Clerk's offices, women victims, and women members of victims' families.
Defendant McDade referred to employee Rita Fitzpatrick as a "bleach blonde," "a hypochondriac," "money grubber," and a "hysterical female." Further, he stated that he thought she had breast implants. Fitzpatrick complained to Plaintiff Smith that she felt Defendant McDade's actions were discriminatory towards women. McDade told Smith that "she [Fitzpatrick] wouldn't last six months--that there was more than one way to skin a cat and he wanted her to resign." He then ignored Fitzpatrick's comments and questions and ordered her to carry big boxes of files upstairs even though she was ill. Ultimately, she resigned.
On two occasions, Defendant McDade hit Plaintiff Carver. On the first occasion, he hit her in the presence of the head of the Council on Battered Women in Atlanta. Defendant McDade said he did it to see what the reaction of the Director of the Council on Battered Women would be. Plaintiff Carver was shocked and did not laugh or think the matter was a joke. The second occasion occurred in the last year of Plaintiff Carver's employment. On that occasion, Defendant McDade simply walked up and hit her. He did not say anything, but the hit left a mark on her. Plaintiff Carver simply responded, "Ouch, that hurt." On another occasion, Defendant McDade grabbed Plaintiff Carver and told her that she did not know how close he had come to hitting her.
Plaintiff Gerstenberger asserts that, as a female, she was discriminated against in comparison to the males based upon her [*1339] greater case load, lesser salary, failure to obtain promotion to a state-paid position and less favorable benefits and vacation time. In 1990, Defendant McDade stated to Plaintiff Hughes that Plaintiff Gerstenberger was an idiot, and he was looking for a way to fire her. He asked Plaintiff Hughes to watch her and report anything to him for which he could fire her. Defendant McDade also remarked that if he fired her she would sue him for sexual harassment, that she had once "sicked her husband" on him about some joke in a lawyer's meeting. Defendant McDade refused to act on leave requests by Plaintiff Gerstenberger and directed Plaintiff Hughes that she was to put down no overtime on Gerstenberger's time sheets no matter how long she worked. Defendant McDade told Plaintiff Smith, as office manager, that he "had decided to not hire any more women assistant district attorneys because they don't have what it takes." He instructed her that if any resumes came in from women, Smith was to interview the woman and then send her a regret letter.
Assistant District Attorney Janet Perrin stated that Defendant McDade often denigrated women by stating "if you're a woman, you just don't have the 'kahonees' or … the 'stones' to be a prosecuting attorney." He also stated that Perrin and Gerstenberger, in particular, did not have the "balls" to prosecute criminals.
When Plaintiff Heath had to have surgery, she advised Defendant McDade she would require an extended period of leave. From the time she made this request, Defendant McDade refused to speak to her. Prior to Defendant McDade terminating Plaintiff Heath, he told Plaintiff Smith that he was going to fire Heath, and if Smith told Heath, Smith would be fired. When Plaintiff Heath was having physical problems because Defendant McDade had assigned her to work the phone, Plaintiff Heath sent Defendant McDade a memo requesting to speak with him. Instead, Beau McClain, the Chief Assistant District Attorney, met with her and informed her that her memo had made Defendant McDade furious, and she was lucky that Defendant McDade had not hit her.
In December, 1993, Plaintiff Carver submitted a letter of resignation to Defendant McDade. Defendant McDade asked what he had to do to get her to stay. Plaintiff Carver told him that he would have to get counseling for the way he treated women in the office.
Cathy Tatay, an employee in the District Attorney's office, complained about sexual harassment by Beau McClain. Defendant McDade stated that "Cathy Tatay's neurotic. She's got all kinds of mental problems, and I don't believe this about Beau." When McClain was on vacation, McDade reassigned Tatay to work for another attorney. When McClain returned and found that Tatay had been reassigned, he was upset. Defendant McDade then stated that the transfer was a stupid thing to do. He stated, "I don't know why I reassigned her. I should have left her right where she was. Beau doesn't have a right to be treated that way, he's Chief Assistant D.A., if he wants her as his secretary, by God, that's who he ought to have, and if she doesn't like it then she can just get out." Defendant McDade told Plaintiff Smith that he was going to force Tatay to resign because she complained about McClain. Defendant McDade moved Tatay from the secretarial area into the hallway outside McClain's office directly in McClain's line of vision and from where she could be easily overheard in McClain's [*1340] office. Tatay resigned.
Defendant McDade stated that any complaints about office matters which were made outside the office would be grounds for immediate termination. Plaintiff Hughes complained to the court administrator and a superior court judge about Defendant McDade but was told that she had no recourse but to resign.
Defendant McDade intimidated Plaintiffs by stating that as for anyone who embarrassed him with a lawsuit, he would "own all their houses and they will send all [his] children to college."
One day when several women in the office were discussing dreams, Defendant McDade stopped and listened. He stated that he had two recurring dreams. In one of those, he killed a woman by cutting her head off. When he would awake, he was never sure if it was real or a dream.
Douglas County issued sexual harassment policies which Defendant Smith distributed to all employees of the District Attorney's office. The policies provided that an employee who felt that he or she was a victim of sexual harassment should bring the matter to the immediate attention of his or her supervisor, the personnel director, or the county manager. No plaintiff ever filed a formal complaint pursuant to those policies. However, Plaintiff Smith reported Tatay's complaints to Gloria Turner, the Douglas County Personnel Director. She also told Turner there was a lot of employee dissension in the District Attorney's office, that the female employees were very upset about their treatment; that several women had left; and that Smith feared that others were going to leave because of what was going on in the office. Turner acknowledged that she had attended seminars on sexual harassment and the conduct appeared to be sexual and gender-based harassment. However, no action was taken.
Lewis v. McDade, 54 F. Supp. 2d 1332, 1336-1340 (D. Ga. 1999) (citations to dpeosition testimony and discovery documents omitted).
Hat Tips to AboveTheLaw.com and the Sentencing Law and Policy Blog.
*Genarlow Wilson is the Georgia boy who was sentenced to 10 years in prison for having consensual oral sex with a 15-year-old girl when he was 17 years old. The Georgia statute under which he was convicted has since been amended to make the same offense a misdemeanor, but the change was not made retroactive to Wilson's case. Under Georgia law at the time he would have not committed a crime if he had engaged in vaginal sex with her, rather than oral sex. The prosecutor is widely distributing videotapes of the sex act and appears to have improperly intimidated Wilson's mother as well.
12 July 2007
The Future of Wires
A decade ago, the fade for home builders who wanted to be at the cutting edge of the information age was to prewire the house with network cables for your home's computers and peripherals. In retrospect, they got it wrong. The rat's nest of wires associated with your typical computer system is on its way out.
The Demise of Talking Wires
Your keyboard and mouse may be wireless, with a blue tooth wireless connection to the unit that contains your CPU. The connection between your printer and your computer no longer needs a wire. Many people have replaced their fax machine with a number at some anonymous service center that converts a fax into an e-mail attachment and sends it to you over the Internet, and a scanner (which can also be wirelessly attached to your computer and is often part of your printer/copier/fax machine).
There is a good chance that as you read this post over the Internet that you are doing so over a local area wireless connection, and if you are in Cherry Creek North or the 16th Street Mall in Denver, you may even be doing so over a neighborhood wireless connection. Cell phones are, of course, wireless, and even if you still have a landline phone (many college dormitories are considering given up landlines as a standard feature of student rooms), the handset is probably cordless. There are speakers and headphones with wireless connections to your stereo. You might watch cable television, which is, of course, wired, but you might instead watch comparable satellite television, which is, of course, wireless.
Even my bedroom clock has wireless connections. It reads the outdoor temperature from a wireless transmitter in the backyard, and sets itself daily using a radio signal from an atomic clock in Fort Collins.
The basic trend is clear. Information transfer is overwhelmingly moving to a wireless standard. Even the holdouts from the wirless trend, like USB connections and "firewire" connections, prove the rule. They have held out largely because they transfer power as well as information.
Rethinking Power Outlets
Alternating current power systems won the "War of the Currents" back in the late 1800s, because it is easier to transform to high voltages for efficient transmission of power over long distances. But, some recent developments may lead to a direct current counter-revolution a century later.
Change Driving Developments
First, lots of things we power with electricity are becoming more efficient. Compact florescent bulbs and light emitting diodes use much less electricity to produce than same amount of light than traditional incandescent bulbs.
This impact isn't limited to light bulbs either. My cathode ray tube television from thirteen years ago draws 130 watts. My newest computer monitor, a flat screen LCD, draws just 18 watts and isn't all that different in size or function from the television. Computers are also growing less power hungry.
Second, lots of household electrical devices run on low voltage direct current, and require bulky converters to turn household 110 volt alternating current into something it can use. Almost every home computer, ever cordless razor, every cordless drill, every mini-vacuum cleaner runs on DC power. Your phone also runs on DC power transmitted through the phone lines. Everything electrical but the alternator in your car also runs on DC power, and there is a move on to switch car batteries from 12 volts to 36 volts to handle increased power loads in cars. And, every conversion from AC to DC results in lost energy, which is why recharging units get hot (and also a major reason that computers need fans).
In most homes the only electrical devices that still run on AC without converting it to DC power first are the kitchen appliances, the laundry appliances, the fans and the air conditioner.
Third, many of the DC powered electrical items need to be protected from power outs, brownouts and power surges, which are a fact of life if your power comes directly from the power grid. Thus, computer owners routinely purchase surge protectors and uninterruptable power supplies for their computers and peripherals.
In contrast, most of the AC powered electrical items in a typical house, which also tend to be the real power hogs, like ovens and dryers and air conditioners, are not nearly so sensitive to brief power interruptions and irregularities. If the power to your computer goes out for a minute and you don't have some form of battery backup, you lose all your work. If the power to your air conditioner goes out for a minute, you still receive 98% of the cooling you would have otherwise that hour, maybe more because thermostats keep air conditioners from working continuously anyway and it may just adjust the thermostat timing without changing the total cooling.
Fourth, as decades of gradual improvements in consumer and workplace safety have accrued, the danger associated with using high voltage household current AC outlets, instead of low voltage DC power connections, looms larger than it did a century ago when life in general was far more dangerous. Risk apply both to electricians and do it yourselfers working on the systems, and to children and fools at risk of electrocuting themselves through an unholy combination of household power outlets, conductors and water.
Fifth, wireless power supplies at anything more than a few millimeters distance (e.g. inductive heating elements) are pie in the sky technology.
Taken together these facts suggest that it might make sense to rethink how homes, offices and retail businesses are wired.
The Case For AC/DC dual power systems
Instead of a single AC household current system, most homes and businesses might benefit from a dual AC/DC power system. In this system, a couple of rooms, like the kitchen and utility room, would continue to have traditional AC power outlets. But, the rest of the house, would not.
A central household rectifer would convert AC power from the grid (or DC power from local solar panels or fuel cells or windmills or what have you), into DC power which would feed into an uninterruptable power supply for the entire household DC power system. Bedrooms, living rooms, dining rooms, and bathrooms would then have low voltage DC power outlets that would power computers, low watt lights, televisions, stereos, alarm clocks, shavers, mini-vacuum cleaners, electronic ignition systems for natural gas appliances, and the like.
The DC powered gadgets could be smaller, since they would no longer have to have AC to DC power converters or uninterruptable power supplies. The safety risk at DC outlets would be smaller, making child proofing easier. And, energy loss from AC to DC conversion would be eliminated. Yet, since the distances involved from the rectifier to the DC power outlets would be small and take place after local transformers had converted high voltage AC power to low voltage AC power, the transmission effiicency benefits associated with AC power would be largely irrelevant.
The Buried Wire Trend
The hottest issue before the city council in Denver this week was a fight over whether Xcel Energy, the local power company, should bury new lines in the Ruby Hill neighborhood, are put in new overhead lines at greater cost.
As population density increases (reudcing the cost per customer of buried lines), and new subdivisions mandate buried lines, the buried line camp is gaining ground. Overhead power lines are cheaper to put up in the first place (by almost an order of magnitude), but they are much more expensive to maintain through tree trimming and repairs required by weather conditions, and when overhead lines go down in storms, they put lives at risk and disrupt the power grid.
The X Factors
One development could dramatically impact the future of power lines. The holy grail for inventors these days is not a better mousetrap, but a better battery.
Better batteries are the key technology necessary to create competitive electric car, to allow ephemeral renewable power sources like wind and solar power to be useful for meeting base power needs, and to allow the easy development of off the grid homes. Better batteries would eliminate the need for many rooms in a home to be wired at all. Already, you can buy wireless lightbulbs that are battery powered -- you replace the battery when you replace the burnt out bulb.
A second development that could dramatically impact the future of power lines is the evolution of the high temperature superconductor.
Room temperature superconductors will probably never be developed. But, even the highest temperature superconductors today, with a well insulated cooling system, could allow utilities to generate power for the grid much further from the places where it will be used, with less energy loss in transmission, allowing utilities to engage in such tricks as turning solar power into a 24 hour a day energy source. Superconducting loops could also act as a form of energy storage. And, by eliminating the raison d'etre of AC transmission lines, which is low power loss during transmission through the use of easy transformations to high voltage, superconductors could even fundamentally upset the status quo in the war of the currents, making DC power more attractive in a wide range of applications.
Conclusion
Wired magazine may soon find that its name no longer captures the leading edge of technology. The only real question is how far the wireless trend will go.
The Demise of Talking Wires
Your keyboard and mouse may be wireless, with a blue tooth wireless connection to the unit that contains your CPU. The connection between your printer and your computer no longer needs a wire. Many people have replaced their fax machine with a number at some anonymous service center that converts a fax into an e-mail attachment and sends it to you over the Internet, and a scanner (which can also be wirelessly attached to your computer and is often part of your printer/copier/fax machine).
There is a good chance that as you read this post over the Internet that you are doing so over a local area wireless connection, and if you are in Cherry Creek North or the 16th Street Mall in Denver, you may even be doing so over a neighborhood wireless connection. Cell phones are, of course, wireless, and even if you still have a landline phone (many college dormitories are considering given up landlines as a standard feature of student rooms), the handset is probably cordless. There are speakers and headphones with wireless connections to your stereo. You might watch cable television, which is, of course, wired, but you might instead watch comparable satellite television, which is, of course, wireless.
Even my bedroom clock has wireless connections. It reads the outdoor temperature from a wireless transmitter in the backyard, and sets itself daily using a radio signal from an atomic clock in Fort Collins.
The basic trend is clear. Information transfer is overwhelmingly moving to a wireless standard. Even the holdouts from the wirless trend, like USB connections and "firewire" connections, prove the rule. They have held out largely because they transfer power as well as information.
Rethinking Power Outlets
Alternating current power systems won the "War of the Currents" back in the late 1800s, because it is easier to transform to high voltages for efficient transmission of power over long distances. But, some recent developments may lead to a direct current counter-revolution a century later.
Change Driving Developments
First, lots of things we power with electricity are becoming more efficient. Compact florescent bulbs and light emitting diodes use much less electricity to produce than same amount of light than traditional incandescent bulbs.
This impact isn't limited to light bulbs either. My cathode ray tube television from thirteen years ago draws 130 watts. My newest computer monitor, a flat screen LCD, draws just 18 watts and isn't all that different in size or function from the television. Computers are also growing less power hungry.
Second, lots of household electrical devices run on low voltage direct current, and require bulky converters to turn household 110 volt alternating current into something it can use. Almost every home computer, ever cordless razor, every cordless drill, every mini-vacuum cleaner runs on DC power. Your phone also runs on DC power transmitted through the phone lines. Everything electrical but the alternator in your car also runs on DC power, and there is a move on to switch car batteries from 12 volts to 36 volts to handle increased power loads in cars. And, every conversion from AC to DC results in lost energy, which is why recharging units get hot (and also a major reason that computers need fans).
In most homes the only electrical devices that still run on AC without converting it to DC power first are the kitchen appliances, the laundry appliances, the fans and the air conditioner.
Third, many of the DC powered electrical items need to be protected from power outs, brownouts and power surges, which are a fact of life if your power comes directly from the power grid. Thus, computer owners routinely purchase surge protectors and uninterruptable power supplies for their computers and peripherals.
In contrast, most of the AC powered electrical items in a typical house, which also tend to be the real power hogs, like ovens and dryers and air conditioners, are not nearly so sensitive to brief power interruptions and irregularities. If the power to your computer goes out for a minute and you don't have some form of battery backup, you lose all your work. If the power to your air conditioner goes out for a minute, you still receive 98% of the cooling you would have otherwise that hour, maybe more because thermostats keep air conditioners from working continuously anyway and it may just adjust the thermostat timing without changing the total cooling.
Fourth, as decades of gradual improvements in consumer and workplace safety have accrued, the danger associated with using high voltage household current AC outlets, instead of low voltage DC power connections, looms larger than it did a century ago when life in general was far more dangerous. Risk apply both to electricians and do it yourselfers working on the systems, and to children and fools at risk of electrocuting themselves through an unholy combination of household power outlets, conductors and water.
Fifth, wireless power supplies at anything more than a few millimeters distance (e.g. inductive heating elements) are pie in the sky technology.
Taken together these facts suggest that it might make sense to rethink how homes, offices and retail businesses are wired.
The Case For AC/DC dual power systems
Instead of a single AC household current system, most homes and businesses might benefit from a dual AC/DC power system. In this system, a couple of rooms, like the kitchen and utility room, would continue to have traditional AC power outlets. But, the rest of the house, would not.
A central household rectifer would convert AC power from the grid (or DC power from local solar panels or fuel cells or windmills or what have you), into DC power which would feed into an uninterruptable power supply for the entire household DC power system. Bedrooms, living rooms, dining rooms, and bathrooms would then have low voltage DC power outlets that would power computers, low watt lights, televisions, stereos, alarm clocks, shavers, mini-vacuum cleaners, electronic ignition systems for natural gas appliances, and the like.
The DC powered gadgets could be smaller, since they would no longer have to have AC to DC power converters or uninterruptable power supplies. The safety risk at DC outlets would be smaller, making child proofing easier. And, energy loss from AC to DC conversion would be eliminated. Yet, since the distances involved from the rectifier to the DC power outlets would be small and take place after local transformers had converted high voltage AC power to low voltage AC power, the transmission effiicency benefits associated with AC power would be largely irrelevant.
The Buried Wire Trend
The hottest issue before the city council in Denver this week was a fight over whether Xcel Energy, the local power company, should bury new lines in the Ruby Hill neighborhood, are put in new overhead lines at greater cost.
As population density increases (reudcing the cost per customer of buried lines), and new subdivisions mandate buried lines, the buried line camp is gaining ground. Overhead power lines are cheaper to put up in the first place (by almost an order of magnitude), but they are much more expensive to maintain through tree trimming and repairs required by weather conditions, and when overhead lines go down in storms, they put lives at risk and disrupt the power grid.
The X Factors
One development could dramatically impact the future of power lines. The holy grail for inventors these days is not a better mousetrap, but a better battery.
Better batteries are the key technology necessary to create competitive electric car, to allow ephemeral renewable power sources like wind and solar power to be useful for meeting base power needs, and to allow the easy development of off the grid homes. Better batteries would eliminate the need for many rooms in a home to be wired at all. Already, you can buy wireless lightbulbs that are battery powered -- you replace the battery when you replace the burnt out bulb.
A second development that could dramatically impact the future of power lines is the evolution of the high temperature superconductor.
Room temperature superconductors will probably never be developed. But, even the highest temperature superconductors today, with a well insulated cooling system, could allow utilities to generate power for the grid much further from the places where it will be used, with less energy loss in transmission, allowing utilities to engage in such tricks as turning solar power into a 24 hour a day energy source. Superconducting loops could also act as a form of energy storage. And, by eliminating the raison d'etre of AC transmission lines, which is low power loss during transmission through the use of easy transformations to high voltage, superconductors could even fundamentally upset the status quo in the war of the currents, making DC power more attractive in a wide range of applications.
Conclusion
Wired magazine may soon find that its name no longer captures the leading edge of technology. The only real question is how far the wireless trend will go.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)