] A software company voluntarily released the source code
] for its paperless ballot verification system on Tuesday,
] marking a first in the increasingly controversial
] electronic-voting market.

Secret laws are incompatible with democracy.

MSNBC - E-voting firm opens up its code

] Some companies plan to cut back on compensation
] altogether.
]
] Dell said last year that it would decrease stock options
] and instead use cash as an incentive. But founder Michael
] Dell also said then that the personal computer maker did
] not need to replace options altogether because of the
] changing competitiveness of the job market.
]
] Stock options are less important given the weakness in
] the job market and the shift away from options, said John
] Rutledge, portfolio manager of the Evergreen Technology
] Fund.
]
] "Even as the job market does pick up a little bit,
] recognize that all companies are in the same boat and
] cutting back the amount of options that they are
] issuing," Rutledge said.
]
] "Technology is maturing as an industry. Its growth rate
] is not going to be what it has been in the past -- all
] the more reason for companies to adjust and adapt to the
] new world," he said.

This touches a lot of threads.

The people who advocate expensing options talk on about executive compensation, but they do not have an answer for how this effects regular employees at innovative companies and what to do about it. They just don't have an answer for that, and they steer way around the subject when they write about this. They seem to be completely ignorant of this as a factor.

"Technology is maturing as an industry" means we're not doing innovative work in this space anymore. Its not as if there isn't innovative work left to do. Its just that we're not doing it.

From the perspective of potential engineering students this is another nail in the coffin. Not only are we exporting your job to India, but we're not doing anything exciting and there is no opportunity here for wealth creation. The wealth that we do create here will only be shared with top executives. This cuts across all fields. This will damper the nano and bio tech fields just as much.

The best and brightest should be running at full speed at this point. The question is into what?

America already has a tremendous cultural bias against math/science. We already stimatize those fields as anti-social, prefering instead more political professions that involve less hard work and hard thinking, and where the winners are the one who are best at manipulating people, usually in a dishonest way.

The only exception is the medical profession. People need doctors even when they are young, so they are harder to stigmatize. You don't talk to the people who design your car.

The reality is that technological leadership has been the bedrock of American success for the entire post-war era. We're now engaged in the social process of cutting that down as fast as possible. We're eliminating and everything that generates hope and ambition in the technology field, often in ignorance. We're cutting away at our own muscle. We're gunna bleed for it.

"Someone is writing down your mistakes..."

Forbes.com: US tech companies look to ways to replace options

] Excessive grants of stock options, whose cost is
] unreported to shareholders, encourage executives to
] pursue short-term profit maximization strategies that in
] several cases have led to criminal activity.

If this is the arguement for options expensing I feel quite confident opposing the idea. There are some good points here, in terms of inapproppriate executive behavior, as well as the idea that financial policy shouldn't be made by politicians. On the other hand, by making options appear to cost more then they really do we're essentailly punishing the guilty execs by putting an embargo on the food shipped to their countries. The execs aren't going to pay. The people that work for them will. This essay doesn't acknowledge that fact.

Foaming rant in support of Stock Options expensing

] Beyond the repeated errors in administering the No-Fly
] program and the inability of air travellers to have those
] errors corrected, many passengers on the No-Fly list have
] expressed concern that they may have been singled out
] because of their ethnicity, religion or political
] activity. Their concern is heightened by the fact that
] the lists appear to have been shared widely among U.S.
] law enforcement agencies, internationally and with the
] U.S. military.

ACLU picks up Gilmore's standard. Secret laws are incompatible with democracy.

[Politech] ACLU sues over Feds secret no-fly lists

] How do you wreck turning into a corner too early?

This makes me want to cry...

How not to drive a Lamborghini

] IEEEUSA: I don't think, like the industry reps and their study
] surrogates have said, it is just low level work that will
] move offshore.
]
] Without good data, it is hard to advise people on what
] to do, what to retrain in and what to study and whether
] they are at risk. I don't put too much stock in the UC
] Berkeley study that says 14 million jobs are at risk.
]
] Some work will still need to be done in the US.
]
] I also don't think that Chairman Greenspan's comments
] that it is just low level work moving offshore is a very
] accurate picture of what is going on.
]
] Bottom line is that I don't have good advice for
] folks.

This is a really excellent interview. The speaker is very down to earth, acknowledges problems that most people are unwilling to discuss, and attacks the political hyperbole on both sides.

The Other Side of the Outsourcing Debate (washingtonpost.com)

] If you peel back the arguments in favor of offshoring,
] what you finally end up with is an article of faith --
] faith that history will repeat itself and the U.S.
] economy will quickly generate enough new jobs in
] higher-paying industries to compensate for the ones lost
] to trade. What I've yet to see, however, is even a
] educated guess as to what those jobs might be.

Realities Make 'Offshoring' Hard to Swallow (washingtonpost.com)

] When the 40,000 subscribers to Reason, the monthly
] libertarian magazine, receive a copy of the June issue,
] they will see on the cover a satellite photo of a
] neighborhood - their own neighborhood. And their house
] will be graphically circled.

[ Interesting marketing. Sure to get the debates running strong. -k]

Putting 40,000 Readers, One by One, on a Cover

] This is in a nutshell the challenge put foward to every
] candidate and product that needs to succeed on TV in the
] modern media cycle. There's no background or context in a
] thirty second spot; Crossfire only has time for a a few
] minutes of'he said, she said' fight before signing off
] for commercial. Because this reactionary media cycle
] dominates, political culture has become deeply
] conservative and inimical to conversing with voters,
] frightened to be 'off message' for fear of a fifteen
] second remark derailing a multi-year strategy. This has
] in turn created a political pseudo-scandal industry
] dedicated to creating and exploiting fifteen second
] moments for political gain, with the only check being an
] inherently limited amount of information to exploit.

Awesome commentary on the oil and water mix of weblogs and the mass media political scandal machine in the context of a scandal involving the Daily Kos.

Webblogs and the political scandal industry

] Every year Helena, Mont., counts how many people suffer
] heart attacks. Every year the number stayed about the
] same -- until the city banned smoking in workplaces, bars
] and restaurants in 2002.
]
] Instantly the number of attacks among Helena's
] townspeople plummeted by more than 40 per cent.

Public Smoking ban cuts heart attack rate by 40%!