Washington

I’m no fan of music or video piracy.   I’m even less of a fan of the overly-heavy-handed tactics taken by the recording and movie industries to protect their intellectual property.

So, I was very amused to read that the over-breadth and sloppiness of RIAA/MPAA takedown practices was confirmed by accusations laid against HP Laserjet printers for infringing file downloads:

But the study, released today by Tadayoshi Kohno, an assistant professor, Michael Piatek a graduate student, and Arvind Krishnamurthy, a research assistant professor, all at the University of Washington, argues that perhaps those takedown notices should be viewed more skeptically.

The paper finds that there is a serious flaw in how these trade groups finger alleged file-sharers. It also suggests that some people might be getting improperly accused of sharing copyrighted content, and could even be purposely framed by other users.[...]

An inanimate object could also get the blame. The researchers rigged the software agents to implicate three laserjet printers, which were then accused in takedown letters by the M.P.A.A. of downloading copies of “Iron Man” and the latest Indiana Jones film.

I think that "pop" you heard was a few bittorrent piracy cases disappearing from legal dockets in various courtrooms countrywide.

There was, of course, one very important unanswered question in the wake of last week’s announcement of Liberty Mutual’s planned acquisition of Safeco. That question has been answered. Seen in Insurance Journal:

A Safeco Corp. spokesman says the Seattle Mariners’ home field will continue to be called Safeco Field, despite Liberty Mutual Group’s agreement to buy Seattle-based Safeco.

Whew! That’s a relief.

Although, considering how the Mariners’ season has started, maybe Washington state regulators ought to push for a charitable contribution from Liberty to the Mariners as a condition for approving the deal.

A couple of blogs I follow have mentioned that the May issue of Popular Mechanics includes a feature called, “10 Pieces of U.S. Infrastructure We Must Fix Now”. I’ve seen the feature mentioned in the context of Atlanta’s water shortage, but the entire list is actually rather interesting to me (not surprising, given my interests):

• Circle Interchange, Chicago
   
• Brooklyn Bridge Approaches, New York City
   
• Industrial Canal Locks, New Orleans
  (Ships can wait 36 hours for clearance to transit, creating a drag on the efficiency of the Port of New Orleans. PM doesn’t mention that survivors of the Lower Ninth Ward would like to see the canal itself fixed by being filled in….)
   
• Atlanta’s water system
  (PM estimates 18% of the daily water consumption in ATL is the result of leaky water mains)
   
• Alaskan Way viaduct, Seattle
   
• Lake Okeechobee dike, Florida
   
• Dover Bridge, Bonner County, Idaho
  (Northern Idaho bridge for US95, scores 2 out of a possible 100 in sufficiency rating.)
   
• Wolf Creek Dam, Kentucky
  (Kentucky River dam deemed in enough danger of collapse that TVA reduced the water level behind it, to reduce flood risk to downstream towns, including Nashville.)
   
• Sacramento River levees, California
  (Remind me not to write flood cover on the Arco Arena, or on SMF.)
   
• O’Hare

None of those are surprises, and many of them are slated for repairs in the next few years, assuming funding remains available. However, it’s nice to be reminded every once in a while of some neglected priorities.

(How much money have Presidential candidates raised to date for this election cycle?)

An odd anecdote I came across in the Seattle Times:

It turns out the feds have been monitoring Interstate 5 for nuclear “dirty bombs.” They do it with radiation detectors so sensitive it led to the following incident.

“Vehicle goes by at 70 miles per hour,” Giuliano told the crowd. “Agent is in the median, a good 80 feet away from the traffic. Signal went off and identified an isotope [in the passing car].”

The agent raced after the car, pulling it over not far from the monitoring spot (near the Bow-Edison exit, 18 miles south of Bellingham). The agent questioned the driver, then did a cursory search of the car, Giuliano said.

Did he find a nuke?

“Turned out to be a cat with cancer that had undergone a radiological treatment three days earlier,” Giuliano said.

This anecdote was shared at a community meeting that Seattle Times columnist Danny Westneat attended. The meeting was held to address concerns by San Juan County, Washington residents over being harassed by border agents to prove immigration status. (San Juan County is made up of a group of islands between Vancouver Island, British Columbia, and the mainland of Washington State.)

I suppose that it’s a good thing that the feds are monitoring for the sorts of contraband that are legitimately concerning. However, I also have to admit that I share Mr. Westneat’s concerns about the pervasiveness of government monitoring.

However, I do take comfort from another comment in the story. Deputy Chief Giuliano, the number 2 guy for that stretch of the U.S.-Canadian frontier, has his own reservations about the authority he seemingly could wield:

Yet even he, a federal agent for 35 years, is queasy about the snooping’s reach. He said he opposes parts of the Patriot Act, namely the section that expands warrantless searches.

“I think we can do this without tossing out our checks and balances,” he said.

Last night’s results:

Wisconsin (99% reporting)
Dems — Obama 58%, Clinton 41%
GOP — McCain 55%, Huckabee 37%, Paul 5%

Hawaii (100% reporting)
Dems — Obama 76%, Clinton 24%

Washington
GOP Caucus (9 Feb, 96% reporting) — McCain 26%, Huckabee 24%, Paul 22%, Romney 15%
GOP Primary (19 Feb, 57% reporting) — McCain 49%, Huckabee 20%, Paul 20%, Romney 7%

If I’m not mistaken, that means that Obama has swept all the primaries/caucuses since Super Tuesday, that we can expect some ugly campaigning by Hillary between now and the Ohio & Texas primaries in two weeks…and that Washington Republicans can’t count votes.

Did a few folks not get the memo that the GOP is supposed to come-together around McCain?

• Kansas caucuses: Huckabee 60%, McCain 24%, Paul 11%, Romney 3%
• Louisiana primary: Huckabee 43%, McCain 42%, Romney 6%, Paul 5%, Giuliani 1%
• Washington caucuses McCain 26%, Huckabee 24%, Paul 21%, Romney 17%

Even in the one state where McCain “won”, he still received fewer votes than did candidates who have already dropped out.

The Kansas and Washington results have me wondering if it might be easier now for some small-ell libertarian types to vote for Ron Paul, given that the nominee is all-but-decided  (or is it a function of lower turnout and/or the caucus effect).   However, I also find the disconnect between the Louisiana caucus and the Louisiana primary results interesting.

Impressive—Obama soundly beat Hillary in today’s caucuses/primaries in Louisiana, Nebraska, Washington, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Results are available at CNN if you’re so inclined.

I’ve been remiss in passing along one other election result of insurance interest—the results of Washington State’s Referendum 67—although to my defense, it’s a few time zones away, I don’t work much with Washington these days, and my free time the past few days has been eaten up doing battle with my family’s health insurer and a hospital’s business office.

Anyway….Referendum 67 passed 57%-43%.

As to what Referendum 67 actually is, I point to this Insurance Journal article:

Washington’s Referendum 67 was launched by a coalition of business and community leaders, consumers and insurers after the Legislature enacted the “Insurance Fair Conduct Act” (SB 5726), a law that allows first-party insurance claims to become a “bad faith” lawsuit—triggering access to awards totaling three times actual damages. Insurers believed SB 5726 discourages insurance companies from investigating or denying any claim to avoid the potential of a lawsuit alleging bad faith, and gives trial lawyers new incentives to file suits on even the most questionable claims.

The legislation would allow the filing of first-party bad faith lawsuits against carriers for punitive damages in cases where a carrier denies a claim, and the policyholder believes that the settlement denial was simply “unreasonable,” including a “mere” unintentional technical violation of the Washington Administrative Code, Rataj explained. “It was much-less restrictive than other states where claimants can only sue for denials that are willful, deceitful or fraudulent,” he said.

I can understand consumer advocates’ desire to provide additional incentive for insurers to treat insureds who are also claimants fairly. (After the last round of personal phone calls, emails, and faxes, I can really understand….)

However, the way of the world being what it is, I can’t help be concerned about the potential for certain types of lawyers seeing a profit opportunity here.

And, the measure doesn’t seem to be to forgiving of the reality that honest mistakes can, and will, occur. Yes, such honest mistakes ought to be fixed as quickly as possible upon discovery, but the threat of treble damages for innocent mistakes seems to be rather harsh.

It also would seem to provide a certain incentive for mid-level managers and executives to fight remedying such errors. It’s not impossible to imagine a business being willing to fix a simple mistake…but if the cost of the remedy quadrupled, under some circumstances it’s very easy to imagine the inflated cost being large enough to merit fighting.