wampum.wabanaki.net

A link to the several political party programs in Greece. "New Democracy", followed by "SYRIZA", "PASOK", "Independent Greeks", "Greek Communist Party", "Chrysi Avgi", "Democratic Left", and "Dimiourgia Xana".

I find it hard to prefer SYRIZA's platform over the clearer, statement of existing class warfare, in the KKE's platform.

I remember when the capitals of "Germany" were Bonn and East Berlin, when German domestic policy was exclusively made in Washington and Moscow. By itself, Germany is too small to prevent a return to Yalta, and basic domestic policy made elsewhere.

A good quote from the Athens Chamber of Commerce spokesperson to Sky News a few minutes ago, mid-day voting day:

This is not a Greek crisis, it never was - it's a pan-European crisis. If Germany believes in European vision, she should start behaving more as a European Germany and less as a Germanic Europe.

There is an interesting interview in today's Le Soir on Greece and Europe. Two quotes:

"Les traits de caractère que j’évoque se retrouvent de Chypre à Vladivostok ! Notre chrétienté est celle du Moyen-Âge. Nous faisons partie de la civilisation européenne, sans partager les valeurs culturelles de l’Europe moderne." [The character traits I mention are found from Cyprus to Vladivostok (reference to the range of the non-Latin but Orthodox Churches). Our Christianity is that of the Middle Ages. We are part of European Civilization, without sharing the cultural values of Modern Europe (reference to the absence of Reformation, et seq., in Greece and more broadly, in non-Latin Europe).]

"Je vais être provocateur, mais l’héritage d’Aristote ou de Platon, c’est une affaire Allemande, pas grecque. Les Européens ont façonné notre héritage à leur image." [I may be overstating, but the heritage of Aristotle or Plato is a creation of the Germans, not Greek. The Europeans have fashioned our heritage in their image.]

The bulk of the interview is a Greek philosopher explaining to Richard Werly (Le Temps, Swiss) why viewing Greece as a European State is misleading. The interview is thought provoking, pointing both to the relative absence of Byzantine, Ottoman, and Modern Greek history in the construct of "Greek heritage", and to the external German (and English) sources of its construction.

The article his here, published in Le Soir (Bruxelles).

The clever earned media by Jim Barnett, Scott Brown's Campaign Manager, has moved beyond the right-of-right tabloid Boston Herald and is making hermetic ripples in some mainstream legal blogs. Occasional contributor to The Volokh Conspiracy, Todd Zywicki has what he clearly believes is the best evidence and analysis -- New England Historical Genealogical Society Rescinds Conclusion that Elizabeth Warren Might Be Cherokee. Brian Leiter (Chicago), who co-authors Brian Leiter's Law School Reports with Dan Filler (Drexel), fires back with Todd Zywicki Jumps the Shark on his Elizabeth Warren Obsession. Carl Bogus (Roger Williams) also blogs on what he refers to as The Elizabeth Warren Mystery.

In a nutshell, Zywicki rules Warren a fraud pursuing hiring preferences, Leiter finds Zywicki a ideological hack, and Bogus finds pretty much as I did when I wrote We write Campaign Managers, last week, when the clever earned media by Jim Barnett, Scott Brown's Campaign Manager, was making the rounds in ICT -- in Lindsey Catherine Cornum's piece -- Elizabeth Warren and the Politics of Being Indian, and Steve Russel's piece -- Elizabeth Warren: Box-Checking for Fun and Profit, and Suzan Shown Harjo's piece -- What’s the Deal With Elizabeth Warren, Cherokee? and Rob Capriccioso's piece -- Elizabeth Warren Finally Teaches a Lesson on Native Identity, which includes extensive quotes from Robert Warrior.

Each of these writers -- Brian Leiter, Todd Zywicki, and Carl Bogus -- goes out of his way to mention blood -- missing the central legal point established by the Dawes Commissioners a century ago, that citizenship in any of the several Indian Territorial Removal polities, in particular the Cherokee Nation during the years the Dawes Commissioners were registering individuals as "Cherokee by blood" or "Cherrokee Freedman", was determined clerically, upon presentation by the individual seeking to be enrolled in the Commission's Rolls. Each also misses the corollary, the central issue of the Cherokee Nation elections of 2005 (principal chief election), 2007 (constitutional amendment election) and 2011 (principal chief election), that a citizen of the Cherokee Nation need not meet the "single drop of Indian blood" test.

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This from Carl Bogus' piece:

She also knew that claiming to be Native American when she was only 1/32 Cherokee, if examined by a hiring committee, would make her look foolish and be more likely to hurt rather than help her chances of being hired.

If Carl knew as little as I do about the CNO, he'd know at least one member of the Tribal Council has a BQ of ... (insert drum roll here) 1/256. That's a Citizen of the Nation, and lawfully elected official of the Nation, who could just as well hold any other Constitutional Office. The "she knew that" may be true, but if so it merely means that, like most Outlanders (I worked the 2006 election, so I actually know something, about the voter file, Outlanders eligible to vote, and how all over the map vote eligible Outlanders are and how susceptible they are to push messages, lacking any independent means of contact with the rest of the electorate), Elizabeth Warren knew two decades ago as little about Cherokee Identity as Carl Bogus does today.

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Jim Barnett, Campaign Manager
Scott Brown for United States Senate
337 Summer St. Suite. 100
Boston MA 02210

Mr. Barnett,
When I started studies in the Berkeley Math Department it listed one female member of faculty with tenure. As the mathematician in question lived and taught in Paris, the representation was creative. Before I completed my studies the Department offered tenure to a woman who subsequently carried out significant research while at Berkeley, and has subsequently offered tenure to other women.

I fail to see how a teaching member of faculty can be associated with the representations made by a member of administrative staff for institutional purposes.

In the on-line edition of the Boston Globe of April 27th, Ms. Stephanie Ebbert writes that you have associated a representation made by a member of administrative staff for institutional purposes with Professor Warren. Ms. Ebbert writes that you assert that Professor Warren is personal responsible for a representation made by an unnamed “Harvard Law School spokesperson” to the Harvard Crimson at some time in 1996. I am unable to think of any rational for this error of association other than the fact that Professor Warren is contesting your employer’s candidacy to represent the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the Senate of the United States. This error of association detracts from the quite serious question of whether appointment to major research universities is based on scholarly merit and teaching ability, or upon criteria that has already been examined and rejected by all three branches of the federal and state government.

I could enumerate the additional areas of probable error in your remarks as recorded in the Globe:

1. The United States does not determine the citizenship of Federally Recognized Indian Tribes. ¹ Neither do candidates to the Federal legislature, or their senior campaign staff.
2. Indian status is not a “special minority status”. In the United States, as in Canada, Indian status arises from treaties between sovereigns, as well as acts of the Federal legislatures. Federal protections for historically discriminated classes of persons arise from acts of the Federal legislature alone, not from treaties.
3. The access afforded Indians, whether self-identified or institutionally identified, to tenured positions in tertiary educational institutions in the 1990s, and the present, is impossible to rank as equal to, let alone greater than, the access afforded women.
4. The benefit of representation of Professor Warren as “Indian” or “native” or having Indian or Native ancestry accrues to institutions attempting to meet the ABA’s diversity metric, not to the individual so represented.

However, I am instead sending a check for $100 to Professor Warren’s campaign.


As an occasional campaign professional I also wish to point out that the “dog whistle” in your message is audible. A “special rights” and “Indian” gambit is going to pull the demographic that opposes civil rights enforcement and the demographic that opposes Indian Gaming as a competitor to state and state licensed gambling. The Commonwealth is not one of the states in which an alignment of a campaign and resentment of the civil rights movement, and abolitionism before that, is likely to provide a persistent benefit to the campaign’s candidate.


Sincerely,

Eric Brunner-Williams

Cc: Mindy Myers, Campaign Manager, Elizabeth for MA, PO Box 290568 Boston MA 02129

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¹ Santa Clara Pueblo v. Martinez, 436 U.S. 49 (1978)

The editorial page of the Wall Street Journal has elected to publish an advocacy piece by Dr. Andrea Renda with the catchy title Andrea Renda: The U.N., Internet Regulator?. He errs in describing the Jon Postel period as "governance by private bodies". Next, he errs in ascribing to "civil society" a role equal to "business" in GNSO policy development. The wish list of "coulds" to improve the current balance of forces takes note of the single state with sole control over a resource (the IANA contract), but ignores the single corporation with monopoly power over another resource (the .com contract), and the limited success over the past decade to realize any of the enumerated "coulds". All in all, a good essay by any Chicago school ideologue -- free markets, no regulations, and no purpose for communication other than private profit and "free expression" for early adopters, so no fundamental problem of universal access yet to solve.

The image is the visual which accompanies the study released today (pdf) by Reporters sans frontières (RSF). I'll provide the details in updates for France, Australia, India and Egypt.

Normally today I'd be attending the GNSO Council working session, however college kids got all the sane flight tickets to Costa Rica so I'm a SAH policy wonk and coder this week. I did celebrate the beginning of the shark-and-chum-show yesterday morning with an "OUTSTANDING!!!" when I read the morning's mail from the General Services Administration -- it contained a link to the following:

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Notice - Cancelled Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) Functions - Request for Proposal (RFP) SA1301-12-RP-IANA

Topics/Subtopics:

Domain Name System

Date:
March 10, 2012

The National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) remains committed to preserving the stability and security of the Internet's domain name system (DNS). Critical to the DNS is the continued performance of the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) functions. In anticipation of the impending expiration of the IANA functions contract, NTIA, via two public notices in February and June 2011, consulted on how best to enhance the performance of the IANA functions. Based on the input received from stakeholders around the world, NTIA added new requirements to the IANA functions’ statement of work, including the need for structural separation of policymaking from implementation, a robust companywide conflict of interest policy, provisions reflecting heightened respect for local country laws, and a series of consultation and reporting requirements to increase transparency and accountability to the international community.

On November 10, 2011, the Department of Commerce issued a Request for Proposal (RFP) SA1301-12-RP-IANA for a new IANA functions contract with a deadline of December 19, 2011. The government may cancel any solicitation that does not meet the requirements. Accordingly, we are cancelling this RFP because we received no proposals that met the requirements requested by the global community. The Department intends to reissue the RFP at a future date to be determined (TBD) so that the requirements of the global internet community can be served. Interested parties are encouraged to visit www.fbo.gov for updates.

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What is "outstanding!" about the cancellation is that the far too brief notice to potential contractors last December has been extended -- the government has not settled for the only offer it received -- from the incumbent contractor. The original RFP invited responses from universities, non-profit corporations, and for-profit corporations located in the United States. The requirements -- well, they're summarized in para 1 above -- real separation of implementation (IANA function) from policymaking (ICANN GNSO politics), conflict of interest policy (no revolving door), reduced dominance of private interests over public interests (jurisdictions and laws), and reducing industry capture (transparency and accountability to more parties than "ICANN insiders", to quote from the Affirmation of Commitments).

The phrase " ... we received no proposals that met the requirements requested by the global community." is revealing.

Prior posts: here. Time to circulate a letter.

Jonah's schedule has been wildly erratic for weeks, but there's some improvements -- I will be able to drive to Binghamton and take a course or two.

Reuters is carrying a piece by Joseph Menn, Key Internet operator VeriSign hit by hackers.

Several paras caught my eye. These two:

"Oh my God," said Stewart Baker, former assistant secretary of the Department of Homeland Security and before that the top lawyer at the National Security Agency. "That could allow people to imitate almost any company on the Net."

The VeriSign attacks were revealed in a quarterly U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filing in October that followed new guidelines on reporting security breaches to investors. It was the most striking disclosure to emerge in a review by Reuters of more than 2,000 documents mentioning breach risks since the SEC guidance was published.

And this one:

Ken Silva, who was VeriSign's chief technology officer for three years until November 2010, said he had not learned of the intrusion until contacted by Reuters. Given the time elapsed since the attack and the vague language in the SEC filing, he said VeriSign "probably can't draw an accurate assessment" of the damage.

I've met Ken several times while he was CTO of (the whale) VGRS and I was CTO of (a minnow) CORE. I think his assessment (VGRS's inability to draw an accurate assessment at the point in time it disclosed the breach to the SEC) is likely to be correct.

I've no idea if this was disclosed to ICANN and/or the DoC as part of the .net contract renewal. The notion that the duty of disclosure by publicly traded corporations of operational failure extends to SEC, for the protection of investors, and no further, comes as a surprise. This is the dot after all.

The ICANN Bylaws entity, the Address Supporting Organization, will begin public consideration of the candidates for ICANN Board Seat #9, currently held by Ray Plzak. I've offered to serve, as has Martin Levy, Bill Manning, and Ray Plzak.