Author: Chris

  • Double Plus Good: No George Bush Waste Station in SF

    A group in San Francisco managed to get a measure on the city ballot that would rename our Oceanside Water Pollution Control Plant to the “George W. Bush Sewage Plant.” I thought this a supremely bad idea. Such a move (like protesting the Marine Core in Berkeley) would invite a conservative reaction, possibly stripping the…

  • Looks Like the Same-Sex Marriage Amendment Passed

    Here in California, the Mormons poured millions into an initiative constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage, after the California Supreme Court found a right to marry in the State’s Constitution. Proposition 8 looks like it has passed. Currently, it’s 52-48 in favor, with 95% of the vote counted. I’m really just posting this in order…

  • The Adman Can Attack Afflictions!

    The Times’ Amanda Schaffer covers a retrospective of public health posters on display at the National Academies until December 19th, 2008. The catalog (pdf) is online. My favorite: It reads: “No home remedy or quack doctor ever cured syphilis or gonorrhea. See your doctor or local health officer.” You could replace “syphilis or gonorrhea” with…

  • If You’re Surpsied, You’re Not Paying Attention

    The Journal reports the obvious under the headlines “Tainting of Milk Is Open Secret in China” and “Milk Routinely Spiked in China:” Before melamine-laced milk killed and sickened Chinese babies and led to recalls around the world, the routine spiking of milk with illicit substances was an open secret in China’s dairy regions, according to…

  • Artificial Arbitration at American Apparel?

    Jezebel proclaims: Dov Charney May Be More of a Scumbag than Anyone Realized, and I agree if the reporting on a sexual harassment case, Mary Nelson v. American Apparel, rings true (the opinion is unpublished, and I haven’t obtained a copy yet). Charney is the founder of American Apparel, and has been the focus of…

  • In the Bush World, Regulation is Deregulatory

    In the last days of the Bush Administration, expect it to engage in lots of rulemaking. Many businesses will seek new rules for their industries now, fearing that less favorable outcomes will occur if they chance it with the Obama Administration. This business-initiated regulation will seek “ceiling preemption,” meaning that the federal rules will supersede…

  • Mr. President, We Must Not Allow a Cellphone Gap!

    I keep on hearing that the political polls are inaccurate because pollsters do not call wireless phones. I commission polls at UC Berkeley and we call wireless phones. Seems like a no brainer to me. So, I’ve never quite understood why professional polling firms wouldn’t call cell phones. (I’m an expert in telemarketing laws; survey…

  • On the Nature of the Cyberselfish

    In reading a law review last week, I saw a footnote to a booked called Cyberselfish, A Critical Romp Through the Terribly Libertarian Culture of High-Tech. Intrigued, I purchased it immediately and have been reading it the law few nights. The author, Paulina Borsook, wrote for Wired and yet was shocked by some of the…

  • Selling to the Poors

    Libertarians hold dear the idea of the uberman consumer, the hyperrational, fully formed autonomous being that springs from the womb to take good decisions in the marketplace. But when one reads marketing literature, a different consumer is encountered. Often this consumer is an object to be manipulated; one who holds totally irrational ideas that must…

  • Marketing, Autonomy, and Dignity

    In years as working as a privacy advocate, I developed the theme that the private sector, particularly marketing companies, was an equal threat to information privacy as the government. After all, the largest providers of personal information to the government now are big marketing companies, like Acxiom and Choicepoint. At a more base level, I…