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Peter J. Quinn Investigated for Travel Omissions
tadelste writes to tell us O'Reilly is reporting that a recent story in the Boston News about Peter J. Quinn is nothing more than a desperate attempt to slant public opinion in the Massachusetts OpenDocument frenzy. While we have documents showing Microsoft's lobbyists paying for big trips for the former House Majority Leader and his family to go to England and Scotland, Mr. Quinn seems to be getting the spotlight for incomplete travel records. From the article in question: "On most of the trips, Quinn said, his travel and other expenses were paid for by the sponsors of the conferences. On two of the trips -- to Tucson and Washington, D.C. -- Quinn paid his own way, according to state records and an interview with Quinn."
At worst, if Quinn got free vacations at OSS conferences paid by OSS corporations, it will show that at least OSS corporations are fighting proprietary corporations like Microsoft in an arena where victories are won every day: buying political decisions. The OSS revolution is a practical one, not an ideological one (though some ideologues like Stallman can be useful). Maybe once the tiny sector of government that is its technology formats and software is open and transparent, we'll have some luck fixing the political part. Until then, I remember the fortune cookie "it's best not to know how laws and sausages are made".
--
make install -not war
It's news for nerds because it's about free software in the government - Linux, Openoffice.org, Firefox. It's also sad because Microsoft has to stoop to dirty tricks and can't accept it's loss like men.
Unfortunately that is the way of most politicians these days. The need to constantly raise compaign funds has made most of them little more than paid whores. Most citizens are left with voting for "their" paid whore and against the other guy's.
This was a political thing.. some reporter thinks they're smearing somebody... they waited for a long weekend to even report it when he can't respond... this is editorial abuse, heads should be rolling... and not his.
Except, as it has been pointed out elsewhere, it's not obvious he actually broke the law.
He went to a couple of trade shows on his own dime, and maybe didn't file every little slip of paperwork required. It happens. Was it a major ethics violation? No, it doesn't appear to be.
Far from the two felony convictions Microsoft has recieved. If you, personally, recieved two felony convictions, you'd be disbarred from even bidding on projects with the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Why is Microsoft seemingly the sole exception to just about every state's "felons cannot provide services to the state" statutes?
Next time you go 5 MPH over the speed limit, I expect you to duly walk into the nearest police station and demand they write you a citation. After all, the law is the law.
here a quote from Bernard Golden of IDG: Microsoft has reached out to a couple of politicians in Massachusetts and gotten them to object to the process of this decision. The politicians have raised issues that mandating ODF would also mandate use of OpenOffice and that OpenOffice's open source license would mean that any commercial product that attempted to comply with the mandate would also become open source.
Wow, two FUD-bites in one quote: (1) mandating ODF would mandate (i.e., force) use of OpenOffice; and (2) vendors that create products compliant with ODF are forced to become open-source. Obviously 200% bull, but an impressive serving of it.
Not that I doubt the veracity of what you're saying, but do you possibly have a link for this quote? Really, it belongs in a FUD gallery somewhere.
If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
We are talking about lazy documentation on what probably will amount to a couple of thousand dollars by someone who probably makes well over 100k/year. Would you honestly risk a high paying job, one you have invested a great deal of time and effort in, over a couple free trips to CONFERENCES?
If this were real fraud, he would have crossed every t and dotted every i to avoid attention. No, this looks like a case of a really busy, dedicated individual who was a bit careless with some mundane, tedious paperwork.
There are probably millions of government employees who never have this problem because all they do is paperwork and never risk anything based on principles of what is best for the public.
It would be much more interesting to trace the paper-trail for how this article came to existence. . .
Sdelat' Ameriku velikoy Snova!
George Radwanski resigned as Privacy Commissioner of Canada over dubious expense claims. Unfortunately, an investigation did back up the charges. I say unfortunately because Radwanski was an effective champion of our privacy rights.
All of this is to say that Peter Quinn may be a good person doing good things but, there is a line that may have been crossed... as PJ points out in her article: It is too bad that 3 time Pulitzer winner Stephen Kurkjian didn't wait until he had the full story before publishing his article.
Bill? Is that you?
We complain about not having good candidates to vote for, but what sane person is going to run for office in this sleazy poliical climate?
Yes, Mass. was proposing an open document format. That would make him a good choice as a keynote speaker at OSS conferences. And they break this on a weekend? This stinks like yesterday's diapers.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
This story is a caricature of a purposefully leaked, politically motivated hatchet job that -- to the glee of the "unnamed sources" who served it up -- got past the Thanksgiving rag tag staff and onto Page One.
It's unclear what this very public investigation about is even about. Misuse of taxpayer dollars? Quinn paid *his own way* to attend two of these technical conferences and was an invited expenses-paid speaker for others. Cozy relationships with corporate sponsors? The article notes that his expenses-paid conferences were sponsored by a "galaxy of computer companies" -- e.g. the free market. Not filling out the proper paperwork? Since when is improper paperwork Page One material? (Maybe Quinn never got the memo about those TPS reports).
So what is Peter J. Quinn guilty of? Being a political liability for Governor and Presidential Hopeful Mitt Romney. Having one of your employees piss off the bosses of the world's richest software company is no way to kick off your 2008 campaign fundraising drive.
"I have approximate answers and possible beliefs and different degrees of certainty about different things." -R.P.Feynma
Nobody lists all the fsckin' companies that sponsor a conference when they are being paid by the conference. If I got funded by a tv station, I would list the tv station but not all of its sponsors (advertisers). What you say makes no sense and is not how the real world operates.
The guy didn't fsck up at all. The Boston Globe was trying to raise muck where there wasn't any muck to be found. They published this crap and now they are being ridiculed.
We don't see the world as it is, we see it as we are.
-- Anais Nin
If the state law says you have to list who paid for the trip, and you list the conference, then where is the problem? If you go to E3 as a speaker, EA did not pay for your trip, the E3 conference did. If you are an Olympic athelete, the Olympic committeee pays for your trip, not Coke.
When you ask for reimbursement, you document why and where you went, the costs, mileage (if applicable), and the applicable code. Often the agency will reimburse you, and then the event will reimburse the agency.
I really doubt that this is anything but The Globe making stuff up on this one.
The Boston Globe method was to 1) ask what the disclosure rules are because they didn't know, and then 2) print an article on the front page that says the Governor's administration has launched an inquiry into possible ethics violation by Quinn. Note that the big pile of #2 the Globe put on page one came before they knew what the rules are, or without giving Quinn a chance to respond because they couldn't reach him on THANKSGIVING DAY.
If you can't smell this smear job, you should see a doctor and let him count the holes in your head. It's not about what "side" anyone is on, it's about ethics, and the Boston Globe has demonstrated that they have none.
3 things about computers: they're alive, they're self-aware, and they hate your guts.
Nothing more.
The Globe is owned by the New York Times, which is Sultzberger being used by Bush and cronies to sell the Iraq War. Now we have the Globe being used by Microsoft to attack the Open Document Format decision in Massachusetts.
Once a sellout, always a sellout.
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!