Politics Posts

Revolutions are a dirty business in every country they occur in. Libya is no exception. Moammar Gadhafi was a terrible human being. He was a thorn in the side of 5 US Presidents. He actually did pursue a WMD program, only giving it up in 2006. Under him, Libya was a state sponsor of terrorism and was behind the destruction of Pan Am flight 103. At home, he brutally repressed his population and ruled with an iron fist. In short, he was not a nice person. According to a report on the BBC that I was listening to on the drive home, he was found hiding in a drain pipe in Sirte. He begged for his life, and was shot in the abdomen and again in the leg. Supposedly he “died” en route to a hospital, but at least one report mentioned an execution-style shot to the head. Now, is this what happened? There’s no way to know, and I suspect we never will for sure. And yet, I find myself having some difficulty taking any “joy” in his death, especially a death such as that. No man who begs for his life should be killed, especially without due process. I would much rather have seen him turned over to ICJ authorities and tried for crimes against humanity. And yet, it may have been the best possible outcome. Libya is not a stable country at this time and probably lacks the facilities to hold Gadhafi securely. There would be months of negotiations that would have to happen before he even got to a trial. All that time, his continued defiant existence would continue to empower his dwindling base. With him out of the picture, the rebels / new government should have little problem establishing itself as the new legitimate government of Libya, thus drawing a close to this whole thing even faster. Revolutions are a dirty business.

I sit here watching Egyptians partying in Tahrir Square on the Internet. Mostly because Al Jazeera is the only group that hasn’t just totally halfassed the coverage of what has unfolded a half a world away. However, I did flip on CNN to watch some coverage on there. "No dictator, no invader can hold an imprisoned population by force of arms forever. There is no greater power in the universe than the need for freedom. Against that power, governments and tyrants and armies cannot stand." G'kar, Babylon 5 They interviewed several of the protesters and organizers. All of them young - even relative to me, and I ain’t exactly an old guy - and all of them taking the time to actually thank*for making the revolution possible. What were they thanking? Facebook and Twitter. One guy even said he hoped he could meet Mark Zuckerberg and thank him personally. "People with a passion can change the world for the better." Steve Jobs It occurs to me that these are the Digital Natives coming of age and taking power. To these people, the Internet is an integral part of their life, and have no memory a time before using the Internet to communicate. They think nothing of talking to people around the world. They’ve been exposed to worldwide ideas. Social and political borders mean nothing to them. They’re all old ideas. The ideas of their parents. We are just now beginning to grasp the social ramifications of a worldwide network that connects all people. The Internet is, for lack of a better analogy, like a virus that infects the world’s population. People can access the world’s repository of knowledge, and talk with people around the world with minimal effort. They can organize with minimal effort. This communication infects them with ideas of freedom and a desire to communicate. Now, to be sure, the Internet didn’t get out there and protest. The Internet didn’t physically stand in Tahrir Square and chant protests against Mubarak. The Internet didn’t take gunshots for freedom. But the Internet and social media did provide the tools and the framework in which the revolution could be organized. People will always be the ones taking action. But the ability to communicate - quickly, efficiently, and massively, in such a way that was unthinkable twenty years ago - is going to completely reshape the way the world works going forward. Iran was the warmup. Egypt and Tunisia are the warning shots to nations around the world: neglect your people at your own peril. Now, as for Egypt. The optimist in me hopes for a democratic republic. The pessimist in me fears a military dictatorship or, worse, an Islamic dictatorship. I guess we’ll know soon enough.

Those of you who follow me on Twitter might have noticed me railing against a company called FlightPrep. You may be wondering, what exactly is the big deal? The short of the story is, there were a bunch of websites out there dedicated to flight planning. Some of the best ones (SkyVector, Flyagogo, NACOmatc and, best of all RunwayFinder) allowed you to plot a course overlaying a VFR Chart the same way you would in Google Maps. You could modify your route simply by dragging it about, and click airports along the route to get current weather reports. It was kinda like Google Maps for preflight intelligence. Well, along comes this company called FlightPrep, who decided they weren’t getting rich enough (just ignore the owner’s $500k boat). So they convinced the USPTO to give them a patent on, bluntly, drawing digital lines on a digitized chart. The filed for the patent in 2005 (after a number of the sites above were already online), but used legal sleight-of-hand to get it backdated to 2001. Eventually, after a number of rejections, they were able to find a friendly clerk and were awarded the patent. They then immediately lawyered up and started going after all of these free flight planning websites, many of which were simply hobbies of some pilots who also happened to know how to program. They requested that these sites “license the technology” (what a ludicrous thing to say, being that the sites pre-dated FlightPrep’s patent) or face lawsuits with damage claims of $149 per unique IP per month. So what happened? SkyVector settled and “licensed.” NACOmatic, Flyagogo and RunwayFinder all shut down under threat of lawsuit. They’ve also gone after FlightAware, Jeppesen and the AOPA with no success, so far. It’s pretty clear that, instead of innovating, they’re litigating. Rather than develop some radical new technology, they’re abusing the patent system in an attempt to corner the market. Bluntly, I’m pissed because they robbed me of a tool (RunwayFinder) that I loved and that was highly useful for a student pilot. But, general aviation is a small community, and the backlash against FlightPrep has been a beautiful if small-scale example of what happens when you abuse your target market. Within the course of a week, they’ve become a pariah and the most hated company in general aviation. They had to close off their Facebook page because it was being overrun with people voicing their opinion, and their products are receiving highly negative reviews in all markets. But, while this is all great, it doesn’t bring back RunwayFinder. Even though Dave from RunwayFinder has decided to fight back, he faces a long uphill climb to have this asinine patent thrown out. In the end, it’s just sad. As I said, GA is a small community where nobody is getting rich. We’re all supposed to be on the same team.

I’m sure many of you have been following what’s been happening in Iran, right? Or maybe you haven’t because, like often happens in international events, the American media has dropped the ball in the most epic of fashions. And I’m talking Ed Scissum (God bless him) fumbling deep in Bama territory to give Auburn the win in the ‘97 Iron Bowl dropping the ball. It’s been that bad.

Today, the Supreme Court ruled that governments can seize private property for private development. What the supreme court has effectively done is given the power to wealthy corporations and businesses to stomp all over individual families and competition. Let’s play a little exercise, shall we… Let’s say you own a farm. It’s farmland that’s been in your family since the 1800s. Your great-great-grandfather worked this land, and everyone in your family has worked it since. At one time, it was way, way out from the city but in the years urban growth has sprawled out closer and closer to your land. Along with sprawl has come subdivisions and shopping centers. Now, Wal-Mart has seen fit to build a super-center in town, and has chosen your land. Under this new ruling, Wal-Mart can tap-tap-tap on the shoulder of the city council and say, “Hey, we want that land over there, look at all the tax money we’re going to bring in” and the city council can kick you off your land using eminent domain provisions that were once reserved for building roads and schools, and give you whatever arbitrary amount they decide is “market value” for your property. Instead of forcing Wal-Mart to compete and pay true value for the land, they can now leverage the city government against you and get the land for fractions of what it is worth. This is one of the worst rulings I’ve ever seen come out of the Supreme Court and a complete kick in the balls to individual liberty in this country.

Ladies and gentleman, I humbly submit to you that the terrorists have won. We need to just go ahead and hand our country over to Osama bin Laden, because we’ve already given up and given the terrorists exactly what they want. And if you don’t know, I’ll spell it out for you: WE’RE AFRAID! You can see it in how we talk and in how we act. Nascar dads and soccer moms all over the country get their knickers in a twist every time the terror alert level goes from chartreuse to polka dot because WE’RE AFRAID the terrorists might attack suburbia. People buying plastic bags and packing survival kits like we’re at the height of the Cold War again. For God’s sake, people! I don’t think I realized how bad it had gotten until this week. See, when I was a kid and I first came to Huntsville and visited the U.S. Space and Rocket Center, there was a lot more to it than there is now. In addition to the museum (which is still hella cool) and all the rockets outside, they used to have a tour of the Marshall Spaceflight Center. They put you on a bus and drove you around to see the nuts and bolts of how the real NASA functions. You got to see the old rocket test stands where Saturn V engines were tested. You got to see the “world’s flattest floor” in a clean room which they used to train astronauts on maneuvering objects in space and on the lunar surface. You got to see real astronauts training in the real neutral buoyancy simulator (the big pool) learning how to work in space. You got to see pieces of the International Space Station being assembled. I remember all this because it made a HUGE impression on me as a kid. Seeing all the grand history of NASA and the bold, forward looking vision of all these geeky engineers convinced me that it was okay to accept my geekiness and be a nerd. After all, these people put a man on the moon. What had jocks and cool people accomplished that could come even close to that? For all their nerdiness, surrounded by the best technology America could come up with and given a near impossible mission and an unforgiving timetable, these people accomplished the single greatest feat in human history. Even today they were working in the background on amazing things, and I was seeing it all happen right before my eyes! I weep now. I truly do. I weep for the nerdy kid whose parents bring him to the U.S. Space and Rocket Center today. Why? Because when Sarah and I went up there on Tuesday, we discovered the awful truth: they no longer conduct tours of the Marshall Spaceflight Center! Hanging on the front of each computer monitor at the admission area were the little white surrender flags that you see seemingly everywhere now: “Due to the events of September 11, 2001, tours of the Marshall Spaceflight Center are no longer conducted.” It just saddens me so that this country is so utterly terrified of terrorists that we have to protect the world’s flattest floor and some old rocket test stands from that evil terrorist little Johnny the geek.