My, Mrs. Cleaver, You're Looking Awfully Nice Today...

From Channel 9 News in Colorado (hat tip: Drudge)

ARVADA, Colo. (AP) - A 40-year-old Arvada woman who police say wanted to be seen
as a, "cool mom", is suspected of supplying drugs and alcohol to high school
boys, and having sex with them.
Sylvia Johnson faces charges of sexual
assault and contributing to the delinquency of a minor.
Police say she had
parties for the boys almost every week between October 2003 and October 2004.
She's accused of giving them marijuana, methamphetamine and alcohol.
Investigators said Johnson told them she wasn't popular in high school, but
recently felt like "one of the group."
Police began investigating her after
one of the boys told his mother about the alleged encounters.
A preliminary
hearing in the case is set for next month.

I knew that Eddie Haskell was up to no good.

Update:
On second thought, the horror---the horror!

Tech Sector: HP PhotoSmart 8150xi

I purchased an HP PhotoSmart 8150 photo printer today. I already own an HP OfficeJet G85 All-in-One printer (Printer/Copier/Scanner/Fax) and love it, but the PhotoSmart sucked me in with its ability to quickly process photo prints from a memory card and its built-in proof sheet and layout features.

Printer Features:

- Accepts input directly from CompactFlash, Microdrive, SmartMedia, xD-Picture Card, Memory Stick, MultiMedia Card and SecureDigital Card

- PictBridge camera port

- Bluetooth Wireless-ready

- Uses regular or photo printer paper, 8 1/2 X 11" or 4 X 6" from internal trays

- LCD screen to view and select photos for printing---no computer needed

- Prints in photo color up to 4800 dpi

- Functions as an inkjet printer when connected to a PC

Installation was a snap---I was up and running within 10 minutes, including installing the software suite on my Windows XP PC.

HP throws in some 4 x 6 and letter size photo sheets to give a taste of the quality, which is quite good to my eyes, certainly comparable to our photos processed by Kodak. The onscreen menus are easy to navigate and one can successfully print photos with just a few button presses. You can set up photos on full-size sheets pasted 2-up, 3-up, 4-up, or 9-up by turning a handy dial.

This is a solid, user-friendly photo printer which is a strong value, particularly at a $159 asking price. HP does a nice job making commonly-used controls readily accessible while preserving more advanced controls within the printer's firmware.

I will continue to use and share the results of my experience with this little printer (which takes up about the same desk real estate as your vanilla inkjet printer does), but for now, it looks like a nice pickup.

Recommended.

Michael Powell and the FCC

Michael Powell's announcement that he is leaving his position as head of the FCC allows me to wax philosophical about something I know fairly little about: telecom policy. I just can't resist.

I worked for a DSL startup a few years ago which has since sunk beneath the waves. There were a huge number of these in 2000. The Telecommunications Act of 1996 was the culprit---it was designed to open up the territory settled by the Baby Bells to outside companies and in so doing created a weird distortion of the marketplace that made lots of lawyers rich and lots of stockholders poorer.

Given that I had the opportunity to ride a dotcom down, I have a unique and limited perspective on the matter others might find useful to some degree.

Basically, here's what happened:

Once the Act passed in 1996, droves of executives at the Baby Bells left to start their own companies, fueled by venture capitalists who thought DSL would be an easy payday. There was good reason for their confidence---broadband looked like the wave of the future, and DSL (digital subscriber lines) seemed to be a proven and stable technology for its delivery.

DSL had some weaknesses. First, upload and download speeds were dependent upon how close you were to the phone company's CO (central office). The further away you were, the slower the connection was. Not an insurmountable problem, and even at slower speeds, you'd still be a lot faster through DSL than through a dialup connection.

The second weakness was where a lot of the cost entered the picture. The Last Mile. In order for DSL to work, a line had to be run from the CO to the home or business where it was to be installed. While one didn't have to buidl out a nationwide network of COs, you essentially had to build a nationwide network one level down from the CO. A study we did found the typical cost to be somewhere around $120 per link to install. That means the DSL startups needed cash---lots of cash---to build out their network.

The third weakness came from the FCC not quite getting how markets work. The Act basically forced Baby Bells to rent space in their CO to their competitors. The Bells were working on their own DSL offerings, yet were compelled by law to treat their competitors as customers. Needless to say, the Bells found ingenious ways not to do a very good job at this. Phone companies have a spotty record of customer service to begin with; imagine what the service was like when they didn't even like you. This made installations tougher and more expensive for DSL startups. This essentially drove up the cost of the link.

The fourth weakness was apparent chiefly from inside the industry. Too many people were chasing the broadband dream. In addition to the glut of DSL companies essentially racing to build out their network first to seize market share, competing technologies swiftly emerged. Not close to a CO, use the Internet during off-peak times, and have a cable line installed---the cable companies had a deal for you. Live off the beaten path but have satellite---DirecTV's in the house. Large company hungry for broadband---T1 lines just got a lot cheaper. So imagine a situation where a large number of DSL companies are chasing an emerging customer base and trying to lock it up. The price pressure on each DSL link was enormous---basically anyone charging more than $19.95 per link per month would be laughed at. At that rate, recovering installation cost alone could take nearly a year.

In addition, the suppliers of DSL-related equipment were having a field day. Cisco and the like were cranking out servers, routers, and other network equipment like nobody's business. As DSL startups often didn't have lots of cash on hand (see the installation cost issue above), Cisco and others operated in some cases as venture capitalists themselves---we'll give you the equipment for a stake in the company. This looked like a good deal to them. Whoever won the DSL race would then be both customer and investment for the network equipment companies, which could make huge money off of them.

Finally, as is often the case when government manipulates markets, the lawyers got involved. What do you do when you're a small DSL and the Baby Bell impedes the network buildout you've promised Wall Street? You sue them, of course. Lawsuit after lawsuit after lawsuit. And the DSL companies won most of them.

It didn't matter, of course.

Lawsuits are expensive. DSL companies didn't have enough cash to sustain their buildout. Once the broadband bubble burst in 2001, the bankruptcies piled up, as did the slightly-used network equipment. Money became a lot harder to come by, and more DSLs defaulted on loans gained during what our erstwhile CEO termed "The Summer of Free Money" in 2000. The whole house of cards collapsed.

There were some pretty heavy casualties. The city of Denver, Colorado, invested heavily in telecom, which was to be the region's savior following the collapse of the oil industry in the 80s. A beautiful Tech Center was built out on the south side of town and expats from Silicon Valley began pouring into it. I visited Denver again last year and most of those buildings were still vacant.

The DSL and telecom companies weren't the only ones to fall. Equipment manufacturers like Cisco and Sun found themselves having to eat their lost investments, settle for pennies on the dollar in bankruptcy claims, and buy their own equipment back to try to prop up their margins when the glut of servers and other network equipment hit.

Related tech sector industries also took a pounding as all that juicy DSL business dried up. The IT bubble of the 90s burst as a result.

And lest anyone think these evils befell only the technologists, bear in mind that my old DSL company's money woes led an energy company to hedge its investment in DSL by creating the first off-balance sheet "partnership" that would later cause so much trouble in the economy. That company was Enron.

In the end, it remains unclear what Michael Powell or the FCC could have done to avoid all this turmoil. I would suggest that what happened in telecom as a result of the Act designed to save it was far more disastrous than what would have happened had the market been allowed to work. By underpricing links and creating lots of nonproductive legal overhead, Congress and the FCC managed to nearly destroy the telecom and technology sectors by meddling where they oughtn't to have meddled.

Let me sum up the problems with the DSL startups with a revealing little anecdote that I think will demonstrate that the root cause of the tech bust didn't have much at all to do with the Baby Bells acting like big, bad monopolists.

There was a meeting with some sales representatives for our DSL company. As was common in the industry, their bonuses were tied to the number of links they sold. The colleague who had researched exactly how much a link cost us (and who sat next to me and relayed the story after the meeting) shared his findings, and basically stated that we couldn't charge $19.95 per link per month when it cost us $29.95 per link per month. One sales guru responded, "Sure, we'll take a bath on the individual link, but we'll make it up in volume."

If you want to nurture an industry, understanding how markets work might be the best place to start.

Couldn't Possibly Be Media Bias

From Drudge:

CNN LOSES 63% OF AUDIENCE OVER INAUGURATION 2001
Fri Jan 21 2005 23:52:24 2005

CNN hemorrhaged more than half their audience from the 2001 Inauguration, overnights show. The troubled news network only averaged 779,000 viewers during yesterday's Inauguration coverage from 10am-4pm with just 168,000 of those viewers landing in the coveted 25-54 demo.

Like CNN, MSNBC also suffered major losses, only averaging 438,000 viewers throughout yesterday's coverage (141,000 in 25-54), down a whopping 68% over 2001 and faring even worse in primetime with just 385,000 viewers.

In contrast, Fox News averaged 2,581,000 viewers from 10a-4p (up 30% over 2001) and their 25-54 demo average of 705,000 came close to CNN's total coverage ratings yesterday.

PRIMETIME:

FNC -- 2,439,000 (up 57% OVER '01)
CNN -- 1,353,000 (down 14% over '01)
MSNBC -- 385,000 (down 47% over '01)

Developing...

This has been a watershed year for CNN. CNN/fi went belly-up; they've taken a beating in the ratings all year long as Fox News (currently available in far fewer homes) continues to grow market share; one of the few CNN shows with any conservative/Republican representation at all ("Crossfire") goes down.

Rick Kaplan's decision to transform CNN into the Clinton News Network some years back looks more and more catastrophic by the day.

How long before Christian Amanpour (Palestinian advocate and wife of a Clintonista) pulls up stakes and heads for the greener pastures of al Jazeera?

Blue State Blues - Maybe More Money Would Fix This

From the 1.21.05 Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (Hat tip: Drudge):

Elementary students try to hijack school bus
Friday, January 21, 2005Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Three 11-year-old boys and a 10-year-old girl tried to hijack their school bus near Punxsutawney this morning.
State police said the four hatched the plot yesterday. Just after 8 a.m. today, one of the boys pulled a knife from a book bag and held it near another student. He demanded driver Janet McQuown, 52, stop and get off the bus.
A police new release says she pulled over along Pine Tree Church Road in Oliver Township and "the knife was removed from the juvenile's possession." It doesn't say how.
The bus, with the hijackers and about 40 other children, arrived safely at Mapleview Elementary, where the unnamed offenders were taken into custody.
Two were turned over to juvenile authorities and two went home with their parents.
The news release did not immediately say what the hijackers intended to do with the bus.

The article is curiously circumspect about a number of relevant facts:

1. The history of the children involved. Were these known troublemakers? I rather doubt straight-A students suddenly decided to hijack their bus for kicks. If they were in trouble often, one wonders whether punishment was meted out for smaller offenses in such doses so as to discourage the commission of future felonies.

2. What type of knife was used, and where did the boy get it?

3. Was the driver able to signal via radio or other means that something bad was happening on the bus? This is a key point given the recent chatter about al Qaeda's apparent desire to hijack a school bus in the U.S. Having some sort of countermeasures in place whereby school bus drivers can use radios, cell phones, or some other means to quickly indicate trouble and seek help seems prudent. Do you think some of the gobs of money thrown at schools might go toward equipping buses with Lojack?

4. How long will it take the parent(s) of the Boy Hijacker to sue the school district for taking his knife away?

We'll see how the followup article(s) answer these questions.

Who Am I?

Crediblity is the coin of the blogosphere.

Malcolm Gladwell speaks of "stickiness" as a key component of the successful spread of ideas in his fine monograph "The Turning Point." Stickiness in the blogosphere sense seems to me to rest almost solely on credibility. If you can't trust the salesman, you won't buy the product no matter how good it may be in reality. The sole product of a blog is information, so the credibility of the blogger is key.

I am a diehard conservative Republican. I have never voted for a Democrat or an Independent in my life, nor do I foresee any time when I would do so. This is not to say that I agree with everything any Republican has said or done. I simply disagree fundamentally with the worldview of the Democratic Party much as Edmund Burke did with the worldview of the French Revolutionaries who were today's Democrats' ideological ancestors.

As for public policy, I am pro-life, pro-business, pro-gun, pro-states rights, pro-property rights, pro-militarty, pro-flat tax, pro-marriage, and pro-free trade. This makes me anti-Democrat. I would also argue it makes me pro-American, but your mileage may vary.

I am a male.

I am a lapsed Episcopalian, lapsed due to the current unannounced schism which has divided the American branch of the Anglican Church. I currently attend a Methodist church and am happy with it.

I am a businessman. I prefer to work for Fortune 100 companies, which have sufficient stability to try new things without requiring immediate return on investment.

I am too young to have acquired any wisdom and too old to be naive.

I grew up in a corrupt Democratic-controlled state and happily left it.

I served 9 years in the military, first as a cadet, then as an officer.

I have lived in Japan and in Turkey, as well as all over the U.S.

I am a college graduate.

I am single.

MoltenThought is Born

Why bother?

Thanks to Hugh Hewitt, Glenn Reynolds, and a host of other worthy blogoneers, the blogosphere is well on its way to being settled. Sure, it'll be years before the cattlemen and sheepmen start their range wars, but Lewis and Clark have already made their maps and the rest is mere logistics.

The blogosphere fairly teems with civilized outposts already. Whenever a major news event occurs, you can rest assured that bloggers are feverishly posting to cover it from all possible angles, relying on their own expertise and that of the circle of friends, fools, gadflies, and shut-ins they've cultivated.

What's missing? What niche can possibly be filled by yet another blog?

There are dozens of exceptional blogs about politics, particularly on the Right: The Corner, Wizbang!, and Powerline leap to mind.

There are some wonderful pop culture and humor blogs out there as well: Lileks and Scrappleface being two of the very best.

There are any number of tremendous military blogs covering all aspects of the War on Terror. I regularly patrol Blackfive and The Belmont Club.

There is a growing cadre of outstanding spiritual blogs. Evangelical Outpost is the best in my opinion.

So what do you do to compete with that?

Nothing.

The wonderful thing about the blogosphere is it is far more about collaboration at this point than it is about competition. Oh, there's a healthy drive to grow readership and influence, but you will not see a more humble and giving bunch of people than the blogoneers. Not only do they give credit where credit is due in their posting, but they routinely call their own readers' attention to other blogs---their own competitors, in most cases. Exactly as frontier settlers initially aided one another even when such aid went against their own self-interest. It's a tough world out there---bloggers need to look out for one another.

Thus, here's our sacred pledge to you, our readers:

1. All commentary offered will be our own unfiltered opinions, for good and ill.

2. If we make a mistake, we will correct it and prominently call attention to the correction.

3. Any posts edited after publishing will indicate what was removed, changed, or added.

4. We will refrain from profanity even when it perfectly expresses our unfiltered opinion.

5. All potential or actual conflicts of interest will be fully and prominently disclosed.

6. The spirit of academic freedom will abide herein.

7. The only comments which will not be tolerated will be those containing fighting words, profanity, personal attacks against posters or commenters, solicitation, or anything which would be likely to cause a significant degradation of the quality of discussion in this space.

8. We will not post any information regarding our various employers nor our professional colleagues.

9. Trolls will be ignored.

10. When the fun stops, so will we.