Tag Archives: politics

RIAA Continues to Stifle Innovation

Back in August, muxtape, a popular music playlist site, was forced to close by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). Now mixwit have announced that it is closing too. The only explanation offered was as follows:

We’ve put a year of work into Mixwit so this choice wasn’t taken lightly. I won’t go into the details of our situation but state simply that we boldly marched into in [sic] a position best described as “between a rock and a hard place.”

Reading between the lines, it looks as though they too have fallen at the hands of the RIAA. Under the cover of claims to be protecting artists, claims that do not bear close scrutiny, the RIAA is building an impressive track-record of stifling innovation. While it is possible to take comfort from the fact that attempts to stem the tide of progress always fail in the end, it is nevertheless frustrating to see the suffering of victims of this pernicious organisation in the meantime, whether those victims are single mothers sued for file-sharing or the creators of sites like muxtape and mixwit.

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To Vote or Not?

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On the eve of the US election, occasional commenter here at the Stubborn Mule, Michael Michael, sent me links to a couple of articles on Slate on the merits of voting. Of course, as an Australian citizen, I don’t have the option of voting in the US election, but the issues raised are relevant to democracies around the world.

In the first, Don’t vote, Steven E. Landsburg argued that the chances of your vote determining the result of the election are so slim that it would make more sense to play the lottery. In the second, Vote!, Jordan Ellenberg responds with a detailed mathematical analysis (including a dose of Bayesian inference) to argue that the odds of affecting the result, while long, are better than winning the lottery.

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Income Inequality in Australia and the US

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A topic that the New York Times visits from time to time is that of income inequality. In the United States, the gap between the highest and lowest earners has been increasing over the last 80 years or so. A recent article returns to this theme and provides further insight into the trend. It cites research from the new book “Unequal Democracy” by Larry M. Bartels, which indicates that income inequality has increased far more under Republican presidents than under Democrats.

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The Garnaut Report and “Tit-for-Tat”

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For those outside Australia, the Garnaut Climate Change Review is our equivalent of the Stern Review and last week a draft report was released. In this report, a nation’s decision as to how to act in the face of climate change is compared to the prisoner’s dilemma:

Effective international action is necessary if the risks of dangerous climate change are to be held to acceptable levels, but deeply problematic. International cooperation is essential for a solution to a global problem. However, such a solution requires the resolution of a genuine prisoners’ dilemma. Each country benefits from a national point of view if it does less of the mitigation itself, and others do more. If all countries act on this basis, without forethought and cooperation, there will be no resolution of the dilemma.

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Sydney Petrol Prices

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Soaring petrol prices have led to all sorts of calls for action to help reduce prices. The Opposition called for a 5 cents per litre reduction in the excise on petrol, which currently stands at 38.1 cents per litre. (See note below for an explanation of the strike-throughs). the abolition of the double taxation of petrol by eliminating Goods and Services Tax (GST) on petrol excise. Since the excise is currently 38.1 cents per litre, this would save 3.8 cents per litre. One Victorian Liberal MP, Chris Pearce, went further and called for a 10 cent reduction in petrol excise. The Rudd Government initially claimed that there was nothing more that they could do, but then buckled to the pressure and has proposed the introduction of a national FuelWatch scheme aimed at promoting price transparency at the bowser. The Minister for Competition Policy & Consumer Affairs, Chris Bowen, has indicated that this scheme is expected to save around 2 cents per litre. So, what is going on with petrol prices and what are the merits of these proposals?

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OpenAustralia

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Parliament Flag Last Monday the public beta of OpenAustralia.org was launched. The site, closely modelled on the UK’s TheyWorkForYou.com, aims to make the workings of Australia’s democracy more transparent.

Transcripts of parliamentary proceedings (Hansard) have been available on line for some time, but OpenAustralia takes the same content and gives it a Web 2.0 work-over. Searching is far easier than on the parliamentary website. You can enter your postcode, find your local member and then search for particular words or phrases in her speech (in my case Tanya Plibersek) and you can even subscribe to an email alert which lets you know whenever she says something in parliament. You are also able to post comments on individual speeches. This feature provides a intriguing forum for community debate of political issues without the filter of media decisions as to what is or is not newsworthy. I will be very interested to see how these discussions evolve.

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