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Data Quality Act
The New York Times has a heads-up about a little-noticed add-on to a massive appropriations bill, signed into law by Clinton but taking effect in October. The amendment allows anyone to challenge data published by the Federal government and have it changed or deleted. The main proponents of the law are pro-business groups seeking to tie up environmental and similar regulations by challenging the government's data.
Given enough eyeballs, all your documents are shallow.
my other sig is a 500 page novel
I seem to recall people doing this kind of thing to try and get out of a speeding ticket too =)
--- I'll have a Bloody Mary, a Steak Sandwich and a uh Steak Sandwich.
Fabulous. Now lawyers will be the final framers of the scientific and technical truth. They've done such a spectacular job with the concept of "justice" that this is only the next logical step.
Lots of things have been described as "Orwellian" lately, and this just follows the trend...
Anyone that does not realize that such data is often willfully misrepresented or fabricated, or at best just a result of horrid incompetency and abuse by your friendly tax funded company/agency, has been asleep or is in a constant state of denial of reality. The question IMHO is not whether we should allow a reexamination of data from these organizations, but how that process is performed. At a bare minimum, the individual should have as much right as any formal organization (which includes lobbiests, companies, special interest groups, etc) Since there have been an increasing number of lies regarding environmentalism, it is important for a number of reasons to get the facts straight AND hold those responsible for misrepresentations accountable. Otherwise, the issue will continue to galvanize and polarize the positions and feelings of the very ones who are supposed to be the reason for all this... 'the Children[/people/future/etc]'. Maybe that is why honor and integrity are so important? Eco nazis that radiate nothing but irrational and inconsistent views, scorn, hate and malice have only given a weapon to those that would use that behavior as a weapon to gain more money and power. While the corporation is labled evil in a pavlovian jerking of the knee by those who lack gray matter and self thought, the fact that there will always be small to large companies who have people in them that WILL abuse such powers is the issue.
Wow, and I thought the government moved slow as it was. If they're having to devote staff to following up on any possible error pointed out by anyone they're either: a) going to grind to a complete halt or b) not post any information in the first place (which I guess is the point).
Does it really surpise anyone that the government is taking a similiar approach to the Internet as the RIAA?
Who wants to be the first to challenge the extraordinarily limited government data that video games are incapable of expressing ideas?
-Evan
Libel law states that if someone publishes false and damaging statements about you, they can be forced to retract the statements and/or publish a correction. (If they published the false material deliberately, they can also be required to pay monetary damages.)
This is just the logical extension of that: Instead of having to prove that the statements caused harm to you, it is merely necessary to prove that the statements are false.
This is a Good Thing. Yes, it will result in less material being published... but the material which doesn't get published will be primarily the material which wasn't defensible in the first place.
Tarsnap: Online backups for the truly paranoid
Maybe we can say goodbye to the myth of manmade global warming.
Anyone who has been following this stuff for years will remember the dire predictions of the "new ice age" back in the 1970s. The way things go, it is likely within 10 years that the Chicken Littles will be offering their perfect "scientific proof" that the same fossil fuels and greenhouse gases that are said to be causing "global warming" right now will freeze the earth.
So it is OK that political power groups would remain the final framers of scientific and technical truth?
I'm usually the last to defend lawyers, but in this case I have no problem with lawyers getting involved in damaging the power of the ruling class to control our lives and create whatever "truth" it wants to perpetuate its own power.
I mean, it's a step in the right direction, but to the /. crowd, it should seem pretty darn obvious - if someone points out a mistake, you have to fix it. Oddly enough, since the government is there to serve the people, if the people point out that the government is a bozo, this is exactly what *should* happen.
The problem with this bill is just what the article says - no one is going to be challenging the data where a minor functionary has his phone number listed incorrectly. The *big* companies that probably want this sort of ability to challenge data would be the tobbaco companies. After all, those surgeon general warnings are technically government data.
Theoretically, it will depend on how this data can be used, once changed. A whole hell of a lot of court cases have been won and lost through government researched data. If some important stuff gets debunked, appeals will flood the system more than they do now, digging up old cases from as far back as human memory.
As an aside - remember the FOIA? It turns out that if the paper you're writing is a draft, it's not FOIA-able. Which is why, (and I'm in government service, sorry to say) that I spend so much time stamping draft on things.
rm -i `find / -name \*truth\*`
vi `find / -name \*truth\*
Those who do not remember history are condemned to repeat it.
-- In the beginning was the WORD, and the WORD was UNSIGNED, and the main(){} was without form and void...
Good point, valentyn. With slightly different spin, the ability of anyone to challenge data would have been seen as a Good Thing. I have no idea why you were modded "Offtopic."
-- MarkusQ
Why? The information the SEC has is probably true.
No, this will have a major good effect. Right now, the US didn't sign the new greenhouse gas emission reduction treaty. Everyone else agreed to an 8% reduction, yet the US only agreed to 7%. This is a big deal. The EU is now saying that we don't make an adequate effort to protect the environment.
The United States EPA looks at automobile tailpipe emissions in a fundamentally different way than the rest of the world. Right now, the smog laws are quite out of whack, and the new CARB laws are making things even more difficult for enthusiasts. This new law will make it easier for many of us to play with our cars. According to CARB, almost any change made to an engine will cause it to produce more emissions. That is just not true; yet without this law, there really isn't any way for the enthusiast market to fight back. Right now, the only way to get an Executive Order(EO) to state that a new engine part does not increase emissions is a quite lengthy process and is far beyond the reach of most enthusiasts or shops.
Maybe, with the aid of this new act, tailpipe emissions will remain strict while allowing those of us who make cars our hobby to do what we want. I fear the abuse that many will use it for, but it does have many legitimate purposes and this is but one example.
You can't legislate goodness. Let each to his own destiny, by will of his freely made choices.
Fact of the matter is, half the environmental "data" that is produced by the federal gov't comes from private organizations who are already hell-bent on saving every last inch of nature at whatever expense is necessary (fraudulent/deceiptful data). It's bullshit.
Everyone knows 60% of all statistics are just made up - Homer J Simpson.
As x approaches total apathy I couldn't care less.
whoever mod'd this as interesting deserves a ban from moderation
The ultimate network admin tool needs HELP!
If the dataset is big enough, it *will* have errors in it. If it is the case that data must be pulled if it is found to contain errors, it's going to be a trivial exercise for anyone vaguely numerate to remove any kind to scientific data from consideration in say a legal case.
In many years of working with large datasets, I am yet to find one that doesn't have some kind of error in it. The key thing to remember is that most of the data is right and it usually doesn't matter if there's a few problems.
(hoping this legislation has some kind of sanity clause to prevent such abuses)
Xix.
"Everything is adjustable, provided you have the right tools"
You have accepted the Bush admin spin, oh sorry it was the Clinton whitehouse that did spin, the hero of Air Force One on 9/1 does not spin.
The real difference is that the Kyoto treaty mandates an actual reduction of greenhouse gases of 8% for the biggest polluters - which includes the US which is per capita the biggest polluter of all.
What the Bush admin 'committed' to was to reduce greenhouse emissions per unit of economic output by 7%. Why is this different? Well if we lived in the Victorian age when economic output was output of physical stuff the commitment might mean something. The US economy grew by 3-4% each year under Clinton but the actual manufacturing base was almost unchanged, the economic growth comes in industries that do not produce much in the way of greenhouse gases, mainly IT.
So in fact comparing like for like the EU is cutting emissions by 8% while the Bush admin is allow itself to increase them by 30%. So don't be suprised if the EU say that the US is not doing its share.
It will be interesting to see what the car industry does with this act since the recent increase in US steel tarifs will cost them (and consumers who buy cars) hundreds of millions. The data on which the tarif was justified is pretty flimsy, not all of the US steel industry is having dificulties. The mini-mill manufacturers in the US are as competative as the ones in the EU or anywhere and can sell steel to the auto industry for less than anyone because of shipping costs. The uncompetative steel producers are operating the old integrated plants
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Then again, as the man said, "If voting could change anything, it would be illegal."
Since a conclusion is derived from the originating data, it follows that it should be fairly easy disrupt the conclusion by making changes to the said data.
With all the flaws bureaucracy has, I would still trust a bureaucrat to be considerably more reliable and truthful in an analysis that affected the viability of any particular product or industry than any of the proponents of said industry.
Rememeber, at the end of the day, a civil servant is there to serve us. A business man serves the almighty dollar and the stockholders of his/her business.
Do not spread "09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0" over the internet, thank you.
I don't remember this, but it rings true. The one effect that this law can never have and will never have, is to control the massive social influence that scientific lies spoken by politicians have. We need a law against BS spoken by public figures. Scientific slander? If you can't find any scientific authority to back up your data or conclusions, then you go to jail.
It's rare that you're presented with a knob whose only two positions are Make History and Flee Your Glorious Destiny.
I agree with everything you've just said, except for this line:
The fact is that the US, like the other established, prosperous nations, is producing cleaner and cleaner all the time.
This statement, while arguably true, does not represent the "whole picture." Cars today pollute less than they did 20 years ago. But there is also an increase in the total number of cars! In a very general sense, it's like a stock split. Our cars pollute half as much, but there are twice as many of them. The net result is that total pollution from automobiles hasn't changed.
Now, I don't know the actual stats, and I'm not sure how we would come up with them, since there are so many oddities (like the hugely popular SUVs that aren't categorized as "cars" by certain gov't standards) but to simply say "Look, the average car is so much more efficient and less polluting than before, we're making great progress here" is only half the story.
The U.S. does deserve a pat on the back for having a decent environment and air quality. But the U.S. also needs to recognize there's still plenty of work to be done. Moreover, we should realize that the work will never be done, until we make it to the Rodenberry Utopian age. The article on SlashDot a month or so ago about computer waste is just one example of the new challenges we'll have to face as an ever-increasing American population continues to foul our own nest with the latest disposable plastic crap from Wal-Mart/China.
Here are some claims in the bill submitted by Sen. Hollings et. al. that could potentially be affected by this law (the interesting ones in bold):
The Congress finds:
(1) The lack of high quality digital content continues to hinder consumer adoption of broadband Internet service and digital television products.
(2) Owners of digital programming and content are increasingly reluctant to transmit their products unless digital media devices incorporate technologies that recognize and respond to content security measures designed to prevent theft.
(3) Because digital content can be copied quickly, easily, and without degradation, digital programming and content owners face an exponentially increasing piracy threat in a digital age.
(4) Current agreements reached in the marketplace to include security technologies in certain digital media devices fail to provide a secure digital environment because those agreements do not prevent the continued use and manufacture of digital media devices that fail to incorporate such security technologies.
(5) Other existing digital rights management schemes represent proprietary, partial solutions that limit, rather than promote, consumers' access to the greatest variety of digital content possible.
(6) Technological solutions can be developed to protect digital content on digital broadcast television and over the Internet. [OK, this is probably true since it does not mention the level of protection.]
(7) Competing business interests have frustrated agreement on the deployment of existing technology in digital media devices to protect digital content on the Internet or on digital broadcast television.
(8) The secure protection of digital content is a necessary precondition to the dissemination, and on-line availability, of high quality digital content, which will benefit consumers and lead to the rapid growth of broadband networks.
(9) The secure protection of digital content is a necessary precondition to facilitating and hastening the transition to high-definition television, which will benefit consumers.
(10) Today, cable and satellite have a competitive advantage over digital television because the closed nature of cable and satellite systems permit encryption, which provides some protection for digital content.
(11) Over-the-air broadcasts of digital television are not encrypted for public policy reasons and thus lack protections afforded to programming delivered via cable or satellite.
(12) A solution to this problem is technologically feasible but will require government action, including a mandate to ensure its swift and ubiquitous adoption.
(13) Consumers receive content such as video or programming in analog form.
(14) When protected digital content is converted to analog for consumers, it is no longer protected and is subject to conversion into unprotected digital form that can in turn be copied or redistribute illegally.
(15) As solution to this problem is technologically feasible but will require government action, including a mandate to ensure its swift and ubiquitous adoption.
(16) Unprotected digital content on the Internet is subject to significant piracy, through illegal file sharing, downloading, and redistribution over the Internet.
(17) Millions of Americans are currently downloading television programs, movies, and music on the Internet and by using "file-sharing" technology. Much of this activity is illegal, but demonstrates consumers's desire to access digital content.
(18) Piracy poses a substantial economic threat to America's content industries.
(19) A solution to this problem is technologically feasible but will require government action, including a mandate to ensure its swift and ubiquitous adoption.
(20) Providing a secure, protected environment for digital content should be accompanied by a preservation of legitimate consumer expectations reading use of digital content in the home.
(21) Secure technological protections should enable owners to disseminate digital content over the Internet without frustrating consumers' legitimate expectations to use that content in a legal manner.
(22) Technologies used to protect digital content should facilitate legitimate home use of digital content.
(23) Technologies used to protect digital content should facilitate individuals' ability to engage in legitimate use of digital content for educational or research purposes.
(I got the above text from the politechbot page.)
Now, I don't have a clue whether the above document falls under the new law or not. Certainly it makes a number of claims and conclusions without using statistics (except the vague "millions"), so perhaps it would be protected by its ambiguity. But: If it is subject to the new law, then that means that any citizen can challenge the veracity of any phrase in proposed legislation. Big can o' worms! And if it's not subject, then expect even less actual background information in future bills as they are made more and more ambiguous so they do not become subject to the new law.
He looked at me and said, "Kid, we don't like your kind, and we're gonna send your fingerprints off to Washington."
Look at the government lying about the "tonkin gulf attack" that lead to the nam war.
Actually the Gulf of Tonkin incedent may have been a mistake. As I heard it:
A US ship was cruising around to "show the flag" in the Gulf of Tonkin. Some small fishing boats were nearby. Sonar reported a pair of torpedoes coming at the ship from the direction of the fishing boats. The ship manouvered and was not hit.
The problem is that when a ship makes a turn, sonar reflecting from its wake looks like two torpedoes zeroing in on the ship. The sonar man SHOULD know about this effect and be able to discount it. But giving that they expected a possible attack (indeed, were serving as a shoulder-chip at the time), he might have reported it as a possible and had it blown out of proportion later.
So maybe an honest error. Or maybe a deliberate error. (Or maybe a story I heard that has no relation to fact - things were hectic back then.)
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Right on. At the end of the day, we're doing this to reduce damage on the planet. So, even if cars are more efficient, if the total ((pollution/per-car)*#_of_cars) is going up, we're still talking an increase in the damage we're doing.
... its to reduce the total amount of pollution!
It's really a catch-22 in many ways. As individual componants become less polluting, the population tends to engage in heavier use of those componants (hey, afterall, they dont pollute as much anymore), and you dont neccessarily benifit from a reduction in emmissions. It really just comes down to the bottom line. The purpose of making products and manufacturing processes pollute less is not to make the individual user feel better about the fact that their one thing (car, factory) now pollutes less
"Old man yells at systemd"
What battiness "libertarianism" produces!
Female Prison Rape in NY
If you are looking at the effect a given country has on the planetary ecosystem harm done per person does seem a reasonable way to measure things.
Dividing by 'economic output' is a deceit when the increase in economic output is in information products.
Comparing as the original post did the proposed 8% reduction in real terms by the EU with the 7% reduction per unit of economic activity by the US without stating the different basis is a deceit. The 'reduction' in output rate under the Bush plan comes exclusively from economic growth.
Constantly casting everything like the US is the Great Satan isn't going to be very convincing to the people who don't already agree with you.
Spot the straw man time, anyone who disagrees with US policy is anti-american, if not a member of Al-Qaeda! It is quite possible to be pro-US and anti-George W. Bush. The fact that the Bush camp constantly try shroud and flag waving makes them opportunists, not patriots. I don't think anyone needs lessons in patriotism from someone who hid from the draft in the National guard and was AWOL if not a deserter for much of it.
Since when did patriotism mean accepting without argument an energy policy written by Keneth Lay?
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there is no right to privacy as protected in the Constitution.
An argument along the lines "because the word 'privacy' is not mentioned in the Constitution, the Constitution does not protect privacy" is completely bogus. According to the Ninth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution: "The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people."
In addition, the Fourth Amendment protects "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures".
Will I retire or break 10K?
Actually believe it or not, the elimination of the Trabant alone Germany managed to meet its entire obligations for reductions in sulphur, nitrous oxide, Co etc. emissions. This is none too suprising when you learn that the Trabants output of pollutants were 10 to twenty times higher than those of Western cars, so the Trabants alone created as much of those types of pollution as all the cars in Western Europe put together.
However such anecdotes aside, better fuel efficiency is not just good for the environment, it is good for America. Making SUVs meet the same fuel efficiency standards as other cars would save more oil each year than the entire reserves in ANWR. If finding new oil resources is good for national security then so is conservice those we already have. Making air conditioners meet higher efficiency standards means lower running costs for owners and needing to build fewer power stations. Quite important in states like california where air conditioning is 30% of peak load and Bush affiliated companies like Enron have been gouging the state by manipulating the energy market.
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Female Prison Rape in NY
You know what the great thing about arguing on /. is? Well, in real life a person can say something stupid, and then deny that they said it a moment later, claiming you aren't remembering correctly what they said. But, on /., when you say:
I don't think that makes you "anti-american" or a member of "Al-Qaeda" or any of the other things you made up...
I can respond by simply by quoting your post thusly:
Constantly casting everything like the US is the Great Satan isn't going to be very convincing to the people who don't already agree with you.
and, with evidence unhindered by the frailties of memory, say that you're full of shit.
Have a nice day!
The enemies of Democracy are
Hasn't big business already destroyed almost all the environment we have? Preserving nature is not profitable and even costs money. The very act of growing the economy involved taking natural resources and turning them into products and services. As business grows nature will shrink. One is simply an outcome of the other.
War is necrophilia.
Maybe the idea of having a history of what you post is novel to you. It isn't to me. I've spent years posting to Usenet and mailing lists. I expect that people will have seen the earlier posts here at about the same time that they will see the later ones. The thing is, when I look at all the posts, I don't see an inconsistency.
/.? You can actually tell someone what was going on in your head when you posted something, but there will always be some tool, hindered by the frailties of intellect perhaps, who thinks that he knows what you meant better than you do.
Thanks for busting out the net credentials. And, having had similar experiences on both usenet and mailing lists for the past decade, I'll say that many people tend to forget that the stupid things they say can and will be brought back. Or at least they say the stupid thing and then still pretend they didn't say the stupid thing, as the case may be.
omfg... did I actually originally say he was casting his argument in such a way that the US is some great evil? Wow... not only was that justified by the way he cast his argument, it is also eerily consistent with what I said in every post after it. Wow... great example, you really showed me what I meant.
One way in which the net and reality don't differ is that when someone says something stupid, they will then say that what they actually meant was something not stupid. This actually works, so long as it is plausible that the person is as incompetent at expressing themselves as their claim suggests. Whatever. I'm not talking about what you meant. You can say you meant anything. I'm concerned with the words you typed. And those words were " Constantly casting everything like the US is the Great Satan isn't going to be very convincing to the people who don't already agree with you." Okay, so he's presenting the US as the Great Satan. If that already doesn't Don't agree with you about what? That the US policy is flawed? How does that make casting the US as the Great Satan a convincing argument? That would only make sense if disagreeing with US policy automatically meant they thought the US was the Great Satan, which clearly you don't believe. Unless you're claiming that when you think something, any argument no matter how flawed that supports that thought will be found "convincing", which is a ludicrousness I'm not going to assign to you without further evidence. So what else could they be agreeing with? That the US -is- the Great Satan, perhaps? Certainly the argument wouldn't chafe against them then. If they agree with him on that, that implies that he also believe that the US is the Great Satan. That he hates America. Thus the most clear meaning was picked and thence contradicted by your words later, seemingly.
But I'm forced to believe you nevertheless. If you say that what you -actually- meant was that his argument was unconvincing to people that didn't agree with the point about US policy he was trying to make, then I suppose that's what you meant. Though with the contradictions between how you characterized his argument, the statement that people who agree with his point on policy would find his argument convincing, and you not thinking that "anyone who disagrees with US policy is anti-american", I accept this explanation not without hesitation. This reluctance is certainly not mitigated by the following:
Do I believe you are choked with hatred? Yes, I do. Do I think you "hate America"? Actually, my guess is you just like to hate and spew bile in general.
Ah, so he doesn't hate America in specific, he just hates everything. Or are you saying he only thinks he hates America but really he just hates everything? If you don't mean the latter, you certainly left it open through conspicuous absence of denial. I would think deliberately, if the very topic of discussion wasn't the bifurcation of what you say and what you mean.
Really... I don't get your gripe. He interpreted the above to mean "anyone who disagrees with US policy is anti-american, if not a member of Al-Qaeda!" I assume you agree since you are taking issue with my defense against that interpretation.
A fine assumption, and one easy to argue against, except that it isn't based off of what I, or you, said. Which is, my sense of irony impels me to point out, a Straw Man. To refresh your memory again, you said "I don't think that makes you "anti-american" or a member of "Al-Qaeda" or any of the other things you made up..." You said you, not anyone who disagrees with US policy. I quoted that line, and the line where you mentioned him, his arguments, and his characterization of the US as the Great Satan. Thus "anyone who disagrees with US policy" isn't part of, nor necessary to, my accusation of bullshit. You need not make assumptions -- the lines I quoted directly contradict each other.
And yet, I had said nothing about US policy, the Bush administration, Republicans, or any of the other crap he came up with during his unsuccessful career of trying to find hidden meaning in my rather straightforward statements.
And neither did I. You should really expand your ability to detect what others did and didn't talk about to -other- people as well.
You're statements are straightforward, but the straightforward meaning isn't the one you're saying is the true one.
If you will look at the post you will see that all I actually said was that the way he presented a particular piece of data was misleading and I explained why I thought that. I also said I didn't think it was useful since it would only play well with people who already agreed with him.
Indeed, and -in particular- you said his argument would only play well with people who agreed with him because it portrayed the US as the Great Satan. Now, did you mean it would play well with people who agree with him that the US is the Great Satan? No, you said you didn't think that, despite saying it, so that can't be it. Did you mean it would play well with people who agree with him on US policy, because people who disagree with US police think the US is the Great Satan? No, you said that's not it either. So, do you think it would play well with people who agree with him on policy because people who agree with something will accept any argument that also agrees, even if that argument goes against some stronger belief, like the US -not- being the Great Satan? I do hope it is obvious why, given the evidence, I didn't naturally gravitate toward the last possibility.
I'm sorry that I'm not the kind of right-wing America First nut that you always dream of successfully arguing with when you are in the shower, but that's just the way it is.
I never thought you were, and I'm not covering what that other guy decided. I just call bullshit when I see it, and I saw it clear as day. I will admit that after you clearly indicated (whether such was your intent or not) that he considered the US the Great Satan, despite expressing nothing of the sort beyond a good deal of disgust with the misleading policy, I was tempted to believe such.
Want to know what sucks about arguing on
Again, you confuse (or presuppose a confusion on my part) regarding what you meant and what the words you typed meant. You alone know what it is you were thinking -- but it is critical to note that this authority does not extend to the -expression- of that thought. The words you speak have a meaning of their own, and the correlation of that meaning with your internal thoughts is provided not by your authority but by your choice of said words. The reason you see no inconsistancy is because you have either forgotten this, or because you cannot divorce yourself from what you meant to say when reviewing what you actually said. Either way, I feel confident that you will never have to worry about suffering from fraility of intellect.
If, OTOH, you want to tell me what I meant when I wrote it, even when I have already explicitly told you what I meant when I wrote it, then I can safely say that I can't possibly be full of shit...
Oh, surely you can be. After all, it would take a rather egregious lack of sense for what you claim to have meant to actually be what you meant, and thus it becomes rather plausible that indeed you are full of shit, and don't actually meant what you claimed. But that is a rather harsh interpretation. Since I speak of plausibility, isn't it much more plausible that you actually aren't full of shit? As they say, never attribute to malice what can be attributed to stupidity. And thus, I appologize. You aren't full of shit, you're just an idiot.
Have a nice day.
The enemies of Democracy are