How about this: A government project, conceived in the private sector and funded by the private sector, to improve the quality of government services. Reason: Success would mean big efficiency gains for the private sector. (You don't find many government projects like that, so this deserves some fanfare.)
Today (6/18/2007) the government is announcing an experiment to improve its patent process, which has recently been less than perfect, especially in the software arena. The new process is a cousin of the Wikipedia idea, because it invites anyone to come to the new website and help with the discovery of prior art.
This has been getting some notice in the mainstream press recently: Here are links to a Washington Post article, and a New York Times article.
And here's a link to the new site: PeerToPatent.org
One of the project's experts (see end note) had this to say about it:
...the main purpose of the site is to allow anyone to submit "prior art" (and discuss it, and research it, etc). The real challenge - now and ongoing - is to sort out the wheat from the chaff, to find the genuinely useful prior art. That's a hard problem and one that, for example Wikipedia took years to figure out.
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End note:
Pivotal Labs is making this happen, and the project expert I quoted above is Steve Conover, Jr. Yes, he's my son. It helps a lot when I have inside contacts like that.
A Great Week for Corpmerica
Well the Supreme Court ruled that the nonsensical “Bong Hits for Jesus” painted on a sheet by a high school kid is not free speech, but a multimillion dollar television advertisement by a corporation or special interest group in the waning hours of a campaign is? In the same week another one of those public television one liners swept past me tonight from the Lehrer (note all the corporate ads in the banner) News Hour on PBS. It went something like this “And also in the news today the Supreme Court overturned the decades old ban against businesses meeting to set minimum prices for their products.” That was it, nothing more. Then they went on to cover newer, deeper, more relevant issues like bald eagles, schools and race, and executive privilege over who can be the biggest political hack perverting our government and national interest. So in the same week that I am listening to pundits talk about the right of “FREE SPEECH” being upheld for a corporation or PAC? I learn that it is now legal for “businesses” to set production costs with a communist Chinese government and then collude on the price that will be charged to the American consumer. Well welcome home Lord Cornwallis and J.K. Morgan and thank you Supreme Court for looking out for American freedoms! After all, the thought of someone getting the idea of lip locking on a bong certainly is a lot more detrimental to our national interest than “money buying elections” or “price fixing.” Eternal vigilance protecting our freedoms, how patriotic!
There was a time when I thought it might be possible to prevent the hostile takeover of our democracy by the cash flush corporate interests. Tell me their coffers don’t run into these special interest groups when it suits their purposes. Now I think it is too late. Goodbye America you are now controlled by the elite of the 21st century. They’re not landed, they ain’t gentry, but they sure got power and privilege. I am just waiting for the powdered wigs to come back in fashion.
Tell me the difference between the Sons of an Earl of that time and these SOBs today. “The Supreme Court ruled in favor of free speech,” was a serious topic of discussion in our media this week. Well really? What is a corporation? Is it a citizen? Does it have to pledge allegiance to our flag? Does it have to swear an oath to our nation like immigrants do when they become citizens? Does it have to serve in a time of war? Does it go to church? Does it believe in a higher power or higher purpose? Can it vote? “The only ethical responsibility of a corporation is to the bottom line.” Was that sage advice or a warning, Milton? That aspiration, that purpose, that focus, and drive deserves the protection of free speech in our democracy?
If you do not believe in the power of PAC and corporate big money to shape our lives and minds, then look at the lunacy of the very debate over “Free Speech” this week. Our courts rule and our media report this issue like we are talking about the rights of “somebody” as opposed to “something.” Is this about some CEO or Board Member spending their own, personal, paid taxes on it, earned it by being somebody’s buddy, cash, to have their opinion heard? Like that student did for the paint and that sheet? Bet he took that out of a slush fund or got it from some well healed donors. Probably wasn't even a tax write off for advertising. No this is about a thing run by a group of guys using the power of their corporate purse or special interest machine to buy influence and preserve power. It is a megaphone and an amplifier for narrowly defined interests to enhance and preserve their status whether they deserve it or not by virtue of their accomplishments or ideas. Whose ideas can compete with theirs in the waning hours of a campaign? Those with big bucks, power competing against power and our citizenry are left sidelined. How good to return our country to 1750 and the House of Lords. All that’s left is for us to be ruled by folks on a different continent. Hmmmm, who did communist China buy this week?
Does anyone really believe that the framers of our democracy carved out the right of free speech for a godless, immoral, mechanistic, legal construct such as a corporation over a voting citizen. “Well only landed white men could vote in the 1700's so there is a tradition of the elite having more power in our country,” I heard one patriotic citizen say this week. Those privileged guys were citizens and "people." They were not a “thing”! What they did with “their” money was “their” own business. We discuss PACs and corporations like they are people. Is a corporation a journalist, an editor, a dissident, an author, a pastor, a poet, a person?
Watch the news, how much do you think you will hear about that minor Supreme Court ruling about price fixing today? I say that if a corporation has the right to free speech, then so does a rock or a dog, because they are equally human. Actually dogs are a lot more human than rocks or corporations, let’s protect their speech!
Well gee, I guess corporate America did get a little bloody nose this week. No guest workers and no 20 million illegal’s to catalogue and exploit. Too bad. Nevertheless, the on-shoring of the off-shoring movement will continue at a frenzied pace due to our leaders, by design, inaction. Watch the back door for more low wage green cards and visas in the legislative agenda. Bet that bill will be a little one liner on NPR too. Heaven forbid we help a working class kid get through college anymore in this country. And don’t hold your breath for those “controversial” issues around immigration to be addressed, like businesses being prosecuted for hiring undocumented workers, in violation of our “existing” laws, or for us to secure our borders in accordance with “common sense.” Yeah, bet those would be some wdge issues. Bet Americans are really divided on those topics. Just no payola in Latino votes or working stiff wage cuts to be had doing the business of American citizens and taxpayers over the billion dollar baby campaign financiers. So you can bet there will be no bill until the spin machine has thought up a new way to snooker the American voter. Corporate multi-nationals, American politicians one body, two faces.
Why enforce our immigration laws, more important to ensure Paris Hilton feels the cold hand of justice and occupies our “news” for weeks on end. Air time is valuable after all. Ask the guys booking the November 08 political ads this week after the “justices” have ruled. And the Atlantic Monthly, (a publication I actually thought understood that “journalism” has the responsibility of informing the public with facts) has joined the “Golly Gee, Globalization Frenzy” over China, without a peep about how they are violating international treaty agreements to low ball their currency, build their war arsenals, and suck the U.S. dry. What an amazing economic revolution! We should investigate it and write about it! If you have a nation of billions of people, totally under your control, with no rights and no concept of freedom, you can undercut anyone’s prices on goods produced and wages paid. Well praise the pundits, Ret Butler and the rebel flag, I recognize that economic model. By the way, how does the GDP graph look this week? I need to feel good.
Posted by: Harvey Farr | 29 June 2007 at 03:30