Kiwiblog

Arstechnica reports:

The importation of copyrighted goods made abroad has been an increasingly contentious issue in recent years. Easy access to Internet resale markets like eBay and Amazon have made it possible for a new breed of entrepreneurs to buy low and sell high in a wide array of areas. The Supreme Court handed these resellers a major victory today, issuing a decision [PDF] that makes it clear that the “first sale” doctrine protects resellers, even when they move goods across national boundaries. 

Those upstarts have peeved a lot of corporations, and some of them used copyright law to fight back. Textbook maker John Wiley & Sons sued a Thai student-entrepreneur named Supap Kirtsaeng, who had been buying cheaper (but non-pirated) versions of various textbooks in his home country, bringing them to the US, and selling them to his fellow students stateside on eBay. The price differentials were so big that there was quite a bit of money to be made; at trial, the publishing company’s lawyers hammered home the fact that they had counted up $1.2 million in receipts over the life of Kirtsaeng’s business.

Wiley argued those profits should be barred by copyright law. Their right to control prices abroad was actually part of their copyright grant, they argued. The textbook company won a jury verdict against Kirtsaeng, which was upheld by the US Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit, and Kirtsaeng appealed to the Supreme Court, arguing that his business was protected by the “first sale” doctrine.

Today’s decision vindicates the “first sale” doctrine, which allows the owner of a particular copy of a work to do whatever she wants with it after purchasing it. It overrides first sale losses in both the 9th and 2nd Circuits and makes it clear that digital commerce can flourish in the Internet era, even when it crosses borders.

This is good news. Once you purchase something you own it, and that ownership should include resale rights.

The world is increasingly becoming a global market. The days of different prices for different countries is crumbling under the Internet.

Michael Field at Stuff reported:

The United States and New Zealand have announced they are planning to create the world’s largest marine protected area.

The 4.9 million square kilometre Ross Sea MPA in Antarctica would be nine times the size of New Zealand.

The plan has been announced in Washington by new US Secretary of State John Kerry and the New Zealand ambassador to Washington, Mike Moore.

They were speaking at the screening the National Geographic Museum of The Last Ocean by New Zealand film-maker Peter Young. …

The US, the European Union and 23 other countries including New Zealand will decide in July whether to approve permanent protections for the Ross Sea and for a second area in East Antarctica, or to allow large-scale industrial fishing to continue.

An attempt last November to create the MPA at a meeting of the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources, failed. …

Key areas to protect include a full range of marine habitats; from the ice edge to deep oceanic basins. The proposal protects the ecologically important features and habitats, including winter ice-free areas, the entire Victoria Coast from McMurdo Sound to Cape Adare, the Balleny Islands, and almost the entire Ross Sea continental shelf.

The large bulk of the MPA, the general protection zone, will be a no-take area.

Under the proposal the toothfish fishery would continue in areas outside the MPA.

It is good to have the US and NZ in agreement, as previously there were different proposals.

And it is good they are proposing a vast marine reserve for most of the Ross Sea.

But there is still an issue of whether the marine reserve should include the entire Ross Sea – just as all of Antarctica is protected for scientific research, not just some of it.

I don’t think there is a shortage of other areas to fish. Some ecosystems should be left undisturbed, and Antarctica is one of them.

Peter Cresswell responds to my earlier blog on patent trolls:

He says:

Thomas Edison was a “patent troll.”

So was Nikola Tesla.

So was almost every great inventor in the last 200 years*.

So is any inventor who licenses their invention rather than produce it themselves.  Unlike the ignoramuses who attack them, these people aren’t trolls. They’re benefactors:

Not every person who patents something they don’t produce is a patent troll. But patent trolls don’t actually come up with inventive ideas. Their inventive idea is to just file a patent over anything they can think of, even if it is not a true invention. Once they get the patent, they’ll find victims who will pay them a fee rather than go to court to get the patent over-turned.

PC quotes a Judge:

Judge Michel,  former head of the CAFC, the US court that hears all patent appeals, points out that the number of patent suits filed each year has remained constant at less than three thousand.  Only about 100 of these suits ever go to trial.  In a technology based economy with over 300 million people and 1 million active patents this is trivial.

Of course they don’t go to trial. If you want to try and fight a patent claim you need US$1 to US$2.5 million generally. What small business can afford that?

The proposed law change mooted in the US doesn’t ban patent trolls. It just changes the economic incentives so that the trolls have to post a bond to cover the defendant’s costs in case they lose. So you can’t just set up a $500 shell company and threaten patent lawsuits. The problem for the defendent is that even if they win, they will never recover the cost of defending the lawsuit. So of course they settle.

Jordan Weissmann writes at The Atlantic:

It’s hard to think of any business more inherently obnoxious than a patent troll. These are the tech-world parasites that buy up troves of intellectual property, not so that they can make a product, but so that they can turn around and sue successful companies for patent infringement with the aim of nabbing a quick and profitable settlement. They’ve infested the courts over the last decade, and by one count are now responsible for more than half of all U.S. patent cases, potentially costing American businesses some $29 billion a year.

So kudos to Oregon congressman Peter DeFazio, who Thursday morning introduced a bill aimed squarely at putting the trolls out of commission. His smart and simple legislation, called the SHIELD Act, would force trolls that lose in court to reimburse the companies they sue for their legal fees, which can amount to millions of dollars. That might not sound particularly bold. But it’s a carefully calibrated step that could go a long way to containing the the troll problem by driving up the cost — and risk — of bringing flimsy patent cases. 

I like it.

Trolls have flourished over the last few years largely because it’s now easier and cheaper to bring a patent case than it is to defend against one. Much like personal injury lawyers who advertise on TV, the attorneys who represent trolls often work on contingency, meaning they only take a cut of what they win. Defense lawyers, on the other hand, ask for their pay up front, and usually bill by the hour. As a result, a single troll can file a barrage of lawsuits without putting much skin in the game, while the small companies they tend to target – about 55 percent of the businesses sued make less than $10 million a year — are forced to mount a costly defense that saps their finances with each passing day. 

We’re lucky that generally we’re too small to target, but we have had a few.

There’s also a more subtle way DeFazio’s bill throws a kink into the troll business model. At the start of each patent suit, the plaintiffs will have to show that they are either a university, the original inventor of the patent, or a company sincerely trying to turn it into a commercial product. If they can’t, they will be officially deemed a troll, and be required to post a bond to cover the defendant’s costs, should they lose a case. That will tie up their money, which in turn will make it more cost-intensive to bring lots of suits while simultaneously cutting their return on investment. 

Hopefully he can get it past Congress.

This is a real letter written by a father who overheard his son talking about how to come out to his parents. Nate took a photo of it and sent it to FCKH8. On Facebook it has had around 81,000 likes and 49,000 shares.

Rob Portman is a Republican US Senator. He was short-listed to be the Vice-Presidential candidate in 2008 and 2012 and is seen as a credible contender for the GOP nomination in 2016. He has held numerous senior executive roles in the US Government and is an influential figure.

He has just become the first Republican US Senator to back same sex marriage. He explains why in his own words:

Two years ago, my son Will, then a college freshman, told my wife, Jane, and me that he is gay. He said he’d known for some time, and that his sexual orientation wasn’t something he chose; it was simply a part of who he is. Jane and I were proud of him for his honesty and courage. We were surprised to learn he is gay but knew he was still the same person he’d always been. The only difference was that now we had a more complete picture of the son we love.

At the time, my position on marriage for same-sex couples was rooted in my faith tradition that marriage is a sacred bond between a man and a woman. Knowing that my son is gay prompted me to consider the issue from another perspective: that of a dad who wants all three of his kids to lead happy, meaningful lives with the people they love, a blessing Jane and I have shared for 26 years.

I wrestled with how to reconcile my Christian faith with my desire for Will to have the same opportunities to pursue happiness and fulfillment as his brother and sister. Ultimately, it came down to the Bible’s overarching themes of love and compassion and my belief that we are all children of God.

Love and compassion is far more attractive than bile and hate.

One way to look at it is that gay couples’ desire to marry doesn’t amount to a threat but rather a tribute to marriage, and a potential source of renewed strength for the institution.

Absolutely.

I’ve thought a great deal about this issue, and like millions of Americans in recent years, I’ve changed my mind on the question of marriage for same-sex couples. As we strive as a nation to form a more perfect union, I believe all of our sons and daughters ought to have the same opportunity to experience the joy and stability of marriage.

Nicely put.

Portman’s change of view is sincere, I have no doubt. There is a wider political aspect to this though. If the Republicans don’t moderate their positions on some of these issues, then they will find it harder and harder to win elections.

In the US, support for same sex marriage is:

• 18 – 29 70%
• 30 – 39 60%
• 40 – 49 55%
• 50 – 64 48%
• 65+ 32%

Now I can near guarantee you that those 70% of under 30s who support same sex marriage will not decrease as they get older. If anything, it will increase. So in just 10 years I expect we’ll see something like:

• 18 – 29 75%
• 30 – 39 70%
• 40 – 49 60%
• 50 – 64 55%
• 65+ 45%

A terrifying op ed in the NY Daily News by a Marion Nestle:

Barring any late legal surprises, Mayor Bloomberg’s 16-ounce cap on sugary sodas goes into effect on Tuesday, March 12. After that, restaurants, movie theaters, sports venues and food carts will not be permitted to sell extra-large portions of sugar-packed drinks.

Stay calm. This does not signal the end of democracy in America. This is not the nanny state gone out of control.

Actually is is the precise definition of nanny state out of control.

If we want Americans to be healthy, we are going to have to take actions like this – and many more – and do so soon. It’s long past time to tax sugar soda, crack down further on what gets sold in our schools, tackle abusive marketing practices, demand a redesign of labels – and extend the soda cap, no matter how controversial it may seem. This must be the beginning, not the end, of efforts toward a healthier America.

Be scared, be very scared

I’m amazed she doesn’t just advocate making soda drinks illegal.

The soda size cap is a nudge in that direction. You will still be able to drink all the soda, and down all the sugar, that you want. The cap on soda size makes it just a tiny bit harder for you to do so.

That “tiny bit harder” is its point. If you have to order two sodas instead of one, maybe you won’t. If you have to add sugar to your coffee drink yourself, maybe you will only add one or two teaspoons instead of the 10 or more someone else put in there for you.

Oh, so she also wants it to be illegal to sell coffee with sugar in it?

So-called “nanny-state” measures – like bans on driving while drunk, smoking in public places and, now, selling absurdly large sugary drinks – help to level the playing field. Such measures are about giving everyone an equal opportunity to live a safer and healthier life.

Again, she can’t see any difference between measures about preventing harm to others (killing people while drink driving, passive smoking effects) and measures to control how people live their own lives.

Fix the price differential. A 7.5-ounce can of soda costs twice as much per ounce as a two-liter bottle, and you can’t buy just one; it comes in an 8-pack. Price determines sales. If a 16-ounce soda costs a dollar, a 32-ounce soda should cost two dollars.

They should also abolish large chocolate bars being not the same price per kg as small chocolate bars. In fact let’s just regulate all food pricing. No volume discounts for any food except broccoli.

Actions like these will evoke ferocious opposition from the soda industry, and it will spare no expense to make sure such things never happen. We would surely hear more and more howls of “nanny-state” from those who insist Bloomberg has led us to the brink of a public health police state. Polls say that many New Yorkers oppose the 16-ounce cap and would oppose measures like this, too.

But I can’t tell whether the opposition comes from genuine concern about limits on personal choice or because soda companies have spent millions of dollars to protect their interests and gin up histrionic, misinformed opposition.

That’s easy. Its is genuine concern about personal choice – something that the author seems to regard as having no weight at all.

Hat Tip: Eric Crampton

UPDATE: Great news. A Judge has invalidated the ban on large soda drinks. The NY Post reports:

“[The city] is enjoined and permanently restrained from implementing or enforcing the new regulations,” New York Supreme Court Judge Milton Tingling ruled.

The judge said Bloomberg and the Board of Health overstepped their bounds, to enforce rules that should be established by the legislative bodies.

“The rule would not only violate the separation of powers doctrine, it would eviscerate it,” Tingling wrote. “Such an evisceration has the potential to be more troubling than sugar sweetened drinks.”

“It is arbitrary and capricious because it applies to some but not all food establishments in the city, it excludes other beverages that have significantly higher concentrations of sugar sweeteners and/or calories on suspect grounds, and the loopholes inherent in the rule, including but not limited to no limitations on refills, defeat and/or serve to gut the purpose of the rule,” Tingling wrote.

The regulations are “fraught with arbitrary and capricious consequences,” the judge wrote.

A defeat for the nanny statists. But they will try again and again.

Jeffrey Tucker writes at Not PC:

Twitter began by calling it “libertarian porn” — the longest and most sustained attack on the State leviathan from the U.S. Senate floor in modern history. But then it became more. And more. It went on for 13 hours. It was about halfway through when the junior senator leaned over to an aide and whispered: “Can I get a candy bar?” 

He deserved it. Before the end of the night, the significance of what he was doing was being described as “epic.” What began as a surprise political move became a bipartisan cry against all the evils of our times, which somehow all come down to the egregious power of the executive state and its omnipotent power over our lives and property. It became political theatre unlike any we’ve seen in many years. The target: all terrible things. 

In short, it was a beautiful day on Capitol Hill. 

It all came courtesy of Senator Randall Paul, the man who has brought truth, excitement, fun, and the appearance of real-life morality back to the Senate. …

Senator Paul’s action began just before noon. He started by standing alone against the nomination of John Brennan for the head of the CIA. This Brennan guy is the top advocate of the drone program and the White House’s super-creepy claim of the right to kill American citizens on American soil using unmanned aircraft.

Sen. Paul seemed to break the taboo. He finally said it: This winner of the Nobel Peace Prize is asserting the right to kill citizens right here, without any recourse to courts or law or anything related to the dead letter called the Constitution. …

Again, his one question: Why won’t the president say that he won’t kill non-combatants with drones on American soil? The White House pretended none of this was happening. …

Just before noon yesterday, Rand Paul stood alone. Then others joined him. Still others. Rand talked and talked. He went on and on. The online crowd began to grow. And grow. The tweets grew and grew. Facebook went nuts. It went on all day. The Senate chamber filled up by the evening. The fracas became frenzy and then became a mania. Hashtag #StandWithRand became the Internet meme of the night.

The drone debate has been fascinating. Obama has used drones to kill hundreds or thousands of targets (and collateral casualties) in Pakistan and other countries. Most Americans support the use of drones (83% in February 2012). The opposition has been a few muted liberals. I suspect if Bush had been carrying out the same numbers, there would have been massive protests.

I personally have no problem with using technology to kill people at war with you. However in one recent case a drone was used to kill a US citizen and for some that was a significant step – maybe one too far.

Now wars are no longer between states, but between states and loose groups of militias or terrorists, I think drone strikes are a sensible way to fight such wars. There are some risks of course – namely that it becomes “too easy” to kill – an issue some US Generals have said is why drone use should be limited.

But wars are basically against foreigners. Should a war power be used against a citizen of your own country born in this case in the United States?

The argument in this case is he was based in Yemen and actively advocating attacks on the US by Muslims living there. And if you look at his history, you can see why he was seen as a danger. But it means the line has gone from killing foreign combatants to killing US citizens overseas.

And then that raised the question – what if a US citizen is in the United States and thought to be a terrorist. Can the President add his name to the list and send a drone in to kill him? If US citizens can now be killed by drones – does it matter where they live?

To my mind, it does. If they are in the US then you can arrest them and should try to do so (if they surrender peacefully). It is impractical to think you can fly into Yemen and try and arrest someone in the middle of the mountains.

But the Obama administration when asked by Rand Paul would not rule out using drones in the US. The Attorney-General said:

Mr Holder stressed in his letter that the prospect of a president considering the assassination of an American citizen on US soil was “entirely hypothetical” and “unlikely to occur”.

Yet “it is possible, I suppose, to imagine an extraordinary circumstance in which it would be necessary and appropriate under the constitution and applicable laws of the United States for the president to authorise the military to use lethal force within the territory of the United States,” he wrote.

Appearing in front the Senate judiciary committee on Wednesday, Mr Holder reiterated that “the government has no intention to carry out any drone strikes in the United States”.

That response is what led to Rand Paul to do his filibuster of the CIA nomination. And it worked. After 13 hours the Obama Administration then clarified:

“It has come to my attention that you have now asked an additional question: ‘Does the President have the authority to use a weaponized drone to kill an American not engaged in combat on American soil?’ The answer to that question is no.”

So the filibuster is over. But the issue of the limits of drone strikes is now mainstream, and occurred not due to any Democrats but the libertarian Republican Senator from Kentucky.

Stuff reported:

A 6-year-old girl with violet hair has become the unlikely poster child for the transgender people’s rights after her United States school barred her from using the girls’ bathroom.

The family of Coy Mathis has filed a civil rights lawsuit against her Colorado school over the issue, which has become a cause celebre since hitting the headlines last week, CNN reported.

Coy was born a boy but according to her mother she started expressing herself as a girl at the age of 18 months.

When the behaviour continued, the parents sought medical advice and were told that their child was transgender – a little girl in a boy’s body.

Though they diagnosed Coy as having a gender identity disorder, doctors recommended against surgery until she was older.

Which is the correct decision. Any decision on surgery should be made by Coy when she is older, not her parents.

When the child was in kindergarten at Eagle Elementary School in Fountain, Colorado there was no problem because Coy was allowed to use the girls’ bathroom.

But in December school officials told the family Coy could no longer use the girls’ facilities and would have to use the boys’ or nurse’s bathroom instead.

“That wasn’t a safe environment for her,” said Coy’s mother Kathryn Mathis, a nurse.

“It set her up for a lot of harassment and it wasn’t a place where we were able to let her be because we want her to be safe and we want her to be healthy.” …

The school said its decision “took into account not only Coy, but other students in the building, their parents and the future impact a boy with male genitals using a girls’ bathroom would have as Coy grew older”.

Kathryn Mathis is not blind to the possibilities but fears the district will stigmatise her daughter at a crucial stage in her development.

The sad reality is that life is going to pretty difficult for Coy Mathis regardless. I can see the school’s point about concerns for other students. It’s pretty difficult to explain to six year olds about trans-gender. But whichever set of toilets she uses, it means you have to explain to the other kids why, and it is likely she’s going to face some teasing or worse.

Which is why in the end, when both choices are imperfect, I’d go with what the family wants.

Wall Street has an article with the estimated net worth of US Presidents in current dollars. These are the ones that were worth over $50 million.

1. John F Kennedy $1,000m (family trust)
2. George Washington $525m
3. Thomas Jefferson $212m
4. Theodore Roosevelt $125m
5. Andrew Jackson $119m
6. James Madison $101m
7. Lyndon Johnson $98m
8. Herbert Hoover $75m
9. Franklin Roosevelt $60m
10. John Tyler $51m
11. Bill Clinton $50m

I wonder what the NZ equivalent list would look like!

Hank Schouten at Stuff reports:

United States embassy staff are to be protected behind blast walls built as part of a major upgrade of the Wellington complex, costing up to $60 million.

The walls, designed to protect against missiles and bomb blasts, will further beef up security at what is already one of the most heavily protected diplomatic posts in New Zealand.

They’re spending $60 million on walls to protect against missiles??

I have to say I don’t see a lot of missiles in Thorndon.

Embassy spokesman David Edginton said the upgrade work followed a seismic-risk assessment.

Whenever work was being done at an embassy, the State Department required it be brought up to worldwide standards for safety and security.

It’s their money, but personally I think it is rather stupid. The security needs in Thorndon are rather different to Kabul.

The State Department’s bureau of overseas building operations is looking for suitable contractors.

Good for the NZ economy though!

The New York Post reports:

Nanny Bloomberg unleashes his ban on large sodas on March 12 — and there are some nasty surprises lurking for hardworking families.

Say goodbye to that 2-liter bottle of Coke with your pizza delivery, pitchers of soft drinks at your kid’s birthday party and some bottle-service mixers at your favorite nightclub.

They’d violate Mayor Bloomberg’s new rules, which prohibit eateries from serving or selling sugary drinks in containers larger than 16 ounces.

Absolute fucking madness.

This is what some taxpayer funded lobby groups push for in New Zealand. It isn’t the thin end of the wedge – it is the thick end.

Typically, a pizzeria charges $3 for a 2-liter bottle of Coke. But under the ban, customers would have to buy six 12-ounce cans at a total cost of $7.50 to get an equivalent amount of soda.

Imagine how many cans you will need to drink 10 litres a day!

Jack Tame writes in the HoS:

There’s more to health than just his fat, Christie retorted this week. He appeared on late night TV smashing a doughnut. Unless the doctor gives him a physical or examines his family history, Christie says Mariano should “shut up”.

But surely the doctor has a point.

It’s true Obama continues to struggle with cigarettes, and that his nicotine addiction could one day spell his end. But one need only look at Christie to know he probably risks a much more sudden departure.

If tax returns, birth certificates and religious leanings are considered fair fodder for Presidential nominees, I don’t think it entirely unreasonable for a pulse to be a prerequisite, too. Being obese might not stop a person doing the job, but being dead would be a hindrance.

David Letterman makes Chris Christie fat jokes almost non-stop, so it was hilarious when Christie went on the show and after a few minutes pulled out a donut and ate it, saying he didn’t realise how long the interview would be. People love someone who can mock themselves.

Christie’s weight and health will be issues if he stands for President. However the chance of Christie departing from office prematurely is hugely overblown by commentators such as Tame.

Paul Campos at Time writes:

In January 2017, Christie will be 54, while the current Democratic front runner for her party’s presidential nomination, Hillary Clinton, will be 69. It is true that with all other things being equal, compared with normal-weight people like Clinton, very obese people like Christie have an elevated mortality risk. Specifically, the most recent, detailed and sophisticated study of the question, published last month in the Journal of the American Medical Association, found that people as heavy as Christie have a 29% increase in mortality risk vs. otherwise similar people of normal weight.

Now, 29% may sound like a significant elevation in risk, but let’s compare it with another factor, one that has a vastly more powerful effect than body weight: age.

Government actuarial tables reveal that with all other things being equal, the odds that a 69-year-old woman will die between January 2017 and January 2021 are 115% higher than the odds that a 54-year-old man will die during that four-year period. In other words, age poses almost exactly four times the mortality risk to Hillary Clinton as weight does to Chris Christie, in regard to the chances that either would die during a first presidential term.

So Clinton’s age is four times greater a mortality factor than Christie’s weight. How many pundits will write on the possibility that Clinton would die in office?

Pat Pilcher writes at NZ Herald:

Every once and a while a law is passed that really gives you pause for thought. One such example is an inexplicable piece of legislation about to come into force in the US that will see smartphone users unlocking their phones with the permission of their mobile service provider running afoul of the law.

This bizarre situation came about because the US government applied the same sort of loopy wisdom that you’d associate with walkshorts, cardigans and the public sector.

In a nutshell they worked out that smartphones could contravene the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Bizarrely this then resulted in laws being drafted so that while it is legal to jailbreak smartphones, it will become illegal to jailbreak tablets and even more annoyingly, illegal to unlock phones without permission from the telco you bought your phone from.

How ridiculous.

Whilst most telcos would argue that there is a solid commercial reason for this legislation, in that they’re wanting to ensure that the cost of a subsidised and heavily discounted handset is recovered from the duration of the customers mobile contract and don’t want the customer exiting their plan prematurely.

If they do, then you may have breach of contract. That is what they do in NZ – you have to pay more to change providers early on if you got a discounted handset. There is absolutely no need to have this as criminal law.

This is almost an abuse of law making powers. It will I am sure be widely ignored.

Stuff reports:

The United States has warned the tiny Caribbean nation of Antigua and Barbuda not to retaliate against US restrictions on internet gambling by suspending copyrights or patents, a move that would authorise the “theft” of intellectual property like movies and music.

“The United States has urged Antigua to consider solutions that would benefit its broader economy. However, Antigua has repeatedly stymied these negotiations with certain unrealistic demands,” Nkenge Harmon, a spokeswoman for the US Trade Representative’s office, said.

The strong statement came after Antigua said it would suspend US copyrights and patents, an unusual form of retaliation, unless the United States took its demands for compensation more seriously in a ruling Antigua won at the World Trade Organisation.

“The economy of Antigua and Barbuda has been devastated by the United States government’s long campaign to prevent American consumers from gambling on-line with offshore gaming operators,” Antigua’s Finance Minister Harold Lovell said in a statement.

“We once again ask … the United States of America to act in accordance with the WTO’s decisions in this matter.”

Antigua, a former British colony with few natural resources, has knocked heads with the United States since the late 1990s, when it began building an Internet gambling industry to replace jobs in its declining tourist industry.

The gambling sector at its height employed more than 4000 people and was worth more than US$3.4 billion to the country’s economy, but it has shrunk to less than 500 people because of US restrictions, the Antiguan government says.

The United States said it never intended as part of its WTO commitments to allow foreign companies to offer online gambling services. In 2007, it began a formal WTO procedure to withdraw the gambling concession and reached a compensation package with all WTO members, except Antigua.

Antigua argued in a case first brought to the WTO in 2003 that US laws barring the placing of bets across states lines by electronic means violated global trade rules.

It won a partial victory in 2005 when the WTO ruled a US law allowing only domestic companies to provide online horse-race gambling services discriminated against foreign companies.

When the United States failed to change the law, the WTO in 2007 gave Antigua the right to retaliate by waiving intellectual property rights protections on some US$21 million worth of US goods annually, which was far less than the US$3.44 billion the island country requested.

The key thing here is that Antigua won in the WTO. It is hugely disappointing that the US broke the commitments it agreed to, when it joined the WTO. Australia lost the NZ case on apples access, and they have done the right thing and now allowed access. The US should have accepted the WTO ruling. By choosing not to, they owe Antigua compensation.

If the US wants countries to sign trade agreements with them, especially ones with intellectual property requirements in them, then they need to show that they will honour the commitments they agree to. Otherwise there isn’t much incentive for other countries to conclude an agreement.

And in my final look at a Gallup poll, it is the issue of guns. They tested the nine proposals put forward by Obama and found each one had majority support – in some cases overwhelming. In order they are:

1. Require criminal background checks for all gun sales 91%
2. More spending on youth mental health 82%
3. Increase training for Police etc on responding to armed attacks 79%
4. Increase penalties for buying a gun for someone not authorised to own one 75%
5. $4 billion on 15,000 more police officers 70%
6. $30 million to help schools develop response plans 69%
7. Ban armour-piercing bullets except for military and police 67%
8. Reinstate and strengthen assault weapon ban 60%
9. Limit sale of ammo mags to 10 rounds or less 54%

Only the first one and the last three are really about gun controls or restrictions. The background checks has huge support. The last three majority support but some significant opposition – 30% or more.

So does this indicate Obama will get it through Congress? Not a lot. Why? Because they do not ask how strongly people feel on an issue. Let’s say 60% are in favour and 30% against. But what will impact politicians is will those 60% in favour change their vote based on how they vote on this issue and will the 30% against change their vote?

And the reality is that those pro gun control feel pretty strongly on it, but are unlikely to vote for a Representative or Senator just because they voted for gun control. However those anti gun control regard it as a deeply personal issue where it is their rights being taken away. They will never vote for you if you vote against them on it.

The same logic applied in NZ on nuclear ships visit. It was possible to get a 50/50 split on the desirability of allowing nuclear powered (not not armed) US ships to visit. However repealing the ban would not gain you a single extra vote while for 5% to 7% of the population (mainly women) it would shift their vote. So a passionate minority can trump a majority.

Also of interest is the partisan split, on the nine issues. The per cent agreement from Democrats and Republicans on each is:

1. Require criminal background checks for all gun sales 97% and 92%
2. More spending on youth mental health 93% and 67%
3. Increase training for Police etc on responding to armed attacks 87% and 71%
4. Increase penalties for buying a gun for someone not authorised to own one 81% and 75%
5. $4 billion on 15,000 more police officers 81% and 63%
6. $30 million to help schools develop response plans 81% and 61%
7. Ban armour-piercing bullets except for military and police 80% and 49%
8. Reinstate and strengthen assault weapon ban 80% and 56%
9. Limit sale of ammo mags to 10 rounds or less 74% and 39%

So of the nine issues, Republicans only really oppose the last one around size of mags.

Also of interest is given a choice of priorities, 65% of Americans said the focus should be on school security and mental health system and 30% on gun laws. So they support the measures but don’t think gun law reform is the priority.

When I was at the Gallup site, there was quite a few interesting polls on issues. This is their Roe v Wade graph over time.

Not a lot of change for 25 years of heat. Of course this is not the same as asking views on abortion laws, as you can be pro-choice and think Roe v Wade was a very bad judicial decision (as I do). But they ask on specifics:

• Abortion legal under any circumstances 28%
• Abortion illegal in all circumstances 18%
• Abortion legal under certain circumstances 52%

So in fact only 18% of Americans think abortion should be illegal in all circumstances. And while I am pro-choice I’m not sure even I would quite tick the  box legal under any circumstance as I would not support an eight month abortion unless the mother’s survival was an issue. Most Americans are actually in the fairly sensible middle.

So how about when abortions can happen. the results are:

• 1st trimester 61% say should be legal
• 2nd trimester 27% say should be legal
• 3rd trimester 14% say should be legal

I’d be interested in seeing a similar question in NZ. The results might not be vastly different. I can’t imagine a huge number of people would say they support third trimester abortions. I note the official NZ stats indicate only 5% occur after the first trimester and that after 20 weeks, they will only occur if necessary to save life or stop serious permanent injury.

The point I’m trying to make is that while the issue is very political and volatile in the US, I’m not sure the overall opinion on legality is vastly different from NZ.

Finally they ask US respondents if they would call themselves pro-choice or pro-life and it is 48% pro-choice and 44% pro-life. What is interesting is the demographic differences of those who say they are pro-choice. They are:

• No religion – 80% pro-choice
• Democrat – 63%
• Income > $75k – 58%
• Under 30 – 54%
• Women 50%
• Men 47%
• Catholics 48%
• Republicans 28%

The small difference between men and women is unexpected (for me).

T

This graph is from Stats Chat. It’s amazing how much views have changed over 50 years. In 1958 only 4% of Americans approved on interracial marriage. That implies both a majority of white and black Americians were against interracial marriage.

The poll is from 2011, but I was fascinated enough by the chart to look up the source data. As Stats Chat pointed out, still a bit alarming 14% don’t approve of interracial marriage, but what I found interesting was the breakdown of the approval rate by age. It was:

• Under 30s 97%
• 30 to 50 91%
• 50 to 64 88%
• Over 65s 66%

So almost one in three Americans aged over 65 disapprove of interracial marriage. Very interesting when you consider the opposition in NZ to same sex marriage is primarily (but of course not exclusively) over 65s.

Tomorrow Barack Obama gets sworn in for a second term as President of the United States.

43 men have served as President of the United States. Of the 43:

• Elected twice, served full terms – 12 (including Obama)
• Elected once, defeated – 8
• Elected once, died in office – 5
• Succeeded to office, retired – 4
• Elected once, retired – 4
• Succeeded to office, re-elected – 4
• Elected twice, died in office – 2
• Elected, defeated, elected – 1
• Elected four times, died in office – 1
• Elected twice, resigned – 1
• Succeeded to office, defeated – 1

Worth noting that many of those who retired after one term, wanted to stand again but failed to gain their party’s nomination. However some were genuine retirements.

Stuff reports:

US President Barack Obama is proposing a new assault weapons ban and mandatory background checks for all gun buyers in a bid to channel national outrage over the Newtown school massacre into the biggest gun-control push in generations.

Personally I have no problem with either of those measures. You don’t need assault weapons for legitimate purposes such as hunting, target practice or even self-defence.

Obama’s plan calls on Congress to renew the prohibition on assault weapons sales that expired in 2004, a requirement for criminal background checks on all gun purchases, including closing a loophole for gun show sales, and a new federal gun trafficking law – long sought by big-city mayors to keep out-of-state guns off their streets.

He also announced 23 steps he intended to take immediately without congressional approval. These include improvements in the existing system for background checks, lifting the ban on federal research into gun violence, putting more counsellors and “resource officers” in schools, and improved access to mental health services.

Again, none of this looks bad to me. However I would note that I doubt any of these measures would have prevented any of the recent mass shootings.

The White House has a policy of responding to any online petition that gets more than 25,000 signatures. This one got almost 35,000.

Those who sign here petition the United States government to secure funding and resources, and begin construction on a Death Star by 2016.

By focusing our defense resources into a space-superiority platform and weapon system such as a Death Star, the government can spur job creation in the fields of construction, engineering, space exploration, and more, and strengthen our national defense.

I would have thought the left would be fully in favour of this, as the ultimate fiscal stimulus. It would create jobs for every American!

The Chief of the Science and Space Branch at the White House Office of Management and Budget has responded:

The construction of the Death Star has been estimated to cost more than $850,000,000,000,000,000. We’re working hard to reduce the deficit, not expand it.

Actually they are working hard to spend more than ever. They could just print some more money to pay for it!

The Administration does not support blowing up planets.

Heh. Not even Pluto which isn’t even a real planet now?

Jason Hart at Red State writes:

Dennis Van Roekel was paid $389,620 in fiscal year 2012 as president of the National Education Association (NEA), America’s largest labor union. Van Roekel was one of 14 NEA bosses paid more than $250,000 with dues taken from teachers in Ohio and other forced-unionism states as a condition of employment.

Incredible. Compulsory unionism in the US. We are somewhat better here, but not entirely. You can’t get a collective contract unless you join a union, and in the public sector, public servants are often effectively paid by taxpayers to join a union.

As current union contracts expire, Michigan’s new workplace freedom law will make Michigan the 24th state to protect the right of educators to choose whether they contribute to the following NEA paychecks.

24 states done, 26 to go!

Stuff reports:

The US Senate has passed legislation early New Year’s Day to neutralize a fiscal cliff combination of across-the-board tax increases and spending cuts with a lopsided 89-8 vote.

Senate passage set the stage for a final showdown in the House of Representatives, where a vote was expected later Tuesday or perhaps Wednesday, which raises tax rates on wealthy Americans.

The Senate vote came hours after the White House reached a compromise deal with Senate Republicans.

The spending cuts are delayed just two months. The Republican compromised significantly on the revenue side (as did the Democrats to a degree). The real crunch will be whether the Democrats can agree to reduce some of the spending the Government is unable to pay for.

The Washington Post looks at the winners and losers to date:

Winners

• Joe Biden – may set him up for 2016
• Mitch McConnell – saved the Republicans from being blamed for tax increases for everyone
• Obama – got a deal he can sign

Losers

• John Boehner – couldn’t get the votes from his own team
• Obama – his last minute campaign rally alienated votes he needs

The House has yet to vote on the deal, but the massive vote in the Senate suggests it should pass the House fairly comfortable. I’d guess 80% of Democrats and 50% of Republicans may vote for it.

It looks like there will be an agreement to avoid the so called fiscal cliff. That is good in the short term for Americans, but the deal looks like it will do little to reduce the deficit – which is why such an unpalatable fiscal cliff was designed – to force the President and Congress to make their own steps to reduce the deficit.

AP reports:

The contours of a deal to avert the ‘fiscal cliff’ are emerging early today (NZ time), with Democrats and Republicans agreeing to raise tax rates on family income over US$450,000 a year, increase the estate tax rate and extend unemployment benefits for one year, officials familiar with the negotiations said.

That side of the deal seems like a reasonable compromise on both sides. In reality come 1 January all the Bush tax cuts had expired anyway, so for the Republicans they are no longer voting for any tax increases – they are just voting for what tax cuts to reinstate. There is a significant difference. They can not get the numbers to reinstate all the tax cuts – so the tax side of the compromise seems okay.

But with a midnight deadline rapidly approaching, both sides were at an impasse over whether to put off automatic, across-the-board spending cuts set to take effect on January 1, and if so, how to pay for that. Democrats want to put off the cuts for one year and offset the so-called sequester with unspecified revenue.

The Republicans are proposing just a three month deferral of the spending cuts. I think a year delay means they will never get agreement on a sustainable plan to reduce spending, so the US Government can live within its means. They need the pressure of a looming deadline.

Greg Ansley at NZ Herald reports on some interesting Australian views during the US and NZ stand off on nuclear ships.

“Several Nato and Asean countries have said to us that, while disturbed by New Zealand’s policies, they regard the Americans as having over-reacted and as running the risk of creating a ‘laager’ mentality in New Zealand,” it said.

This is basically correct. The NZ policy was wrong, yet the US reaction was over the top.

Canberra did not accept New Zealand’s belief that it was not affected by a global superpower threat and that regional security did not require a nuclear capability.

With more than 40 per cent of its combat ships nuclear-powered – and “almost all would assuredly be nuclear-capable” – the US could not be expected to maintain two navies, one for global security and another for regional stability.

A fair view.

The Cabinet was reminded that the (former) Soviet Union was trying to gain a foothold in the Pacific and had turned New Zealand’s policies to its propaganda advantage.

The USSR was delighted by the anti-nuclear policy. It weakened the western alliance, and gave them hope the West would crumble. As it turned out, it was the USSR which crumbled as it was unable to keep pace with the West.