Paul's Comments

I have gone along with the public blackout by posting a stop page ahead of the normal view of this blog. I agree that these sort of draconian anti-piracy laws are woefully excessive, unnecessary and a threat to free speech. Even if they were declared unconstitutional, which might not be the case, it's an expensive battle that might be lost.

Those who disagree with the situation need to take action, and I have done so. As I posted from the article two years ago in the politics section, "The Last Words of Lasantha Wickrematunge", that man repeated from Martin Niemuller, from his famous poem, "First they came for the Jews / and I did not speak out because I was not a Jew," that even if it doesn't directly have an effect upon us, we need to oppose this sort of thing.

I made a comment on Wikipedia about supporting their putting up a blackout page in response.

The (clearly unnecessary) increase (from life +50 years to life+70 years or from 75 years to 95 years for pseudononymous works and works for hire) in copyright terms was forced (by the copyright industries, especially Disney, they got the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act because they were going to see Mickey Mouse go into the Public Domain around 1998 when Steamboat Willie was 75 years old) for the purposes of "harmonizing" copyright terms among countries in order to force those with shorter terms to lengthen them (thus giving the copyright owners a huge benfit and gives nothing to the public; adding 20 years to the end of a copyright term doesn't give us new works and the difference is not enough that if it wasn't there that it would discourage new developments); this sort of garbage, if it starts here, will be forced on other countries by the copyright industries claiming (a completely false premise, of course, just like the alleged "need" to "harmonize" copyright terms, but always upward) that this sort of draconian legislation is necessary in all countries. It isn't and we have to oppose this. Paul Robinson, 19:27, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

I think I will discuss where I was and what I was doing on this day ten years ago. I'm sure everyone remembers this; I do, and I'll probably never forget it.

So I'll start.

I got up on Tuesday morning, a clear and sunny day like the kind you think of as the sort of wonderful weather you'd expect for summer or between summer and fall as it's not cold or hot, just nice and pleasant. I'm reminded of a line from a song by Sophie B. Hawkins: "It felt like springtime, on that February morning..."

While I was getting ready for work they reported a plane had crashed into one of the towers of the World Trade Center in New York. I didn't think much of it, as I point out later in this article, this sort of thing happens. I had to go to work, if I even thought about the event I probably thought about how we'd hear more details later. Uh, that comment I just posted is so eerily prescient, isn't it?

I stopped in a 7-11 on the way to work to get a couple of chili cheese dogs and a soda to eat for breakfast; the place was a block from my office. I happened to mention casually to the clerk that a plane had crashed into a building in New York, no big deal, these sort of things happen, pilot error or other thing, tragedies like this do happen. I might have been thinking of a prior plane crash into the Empire State Building.

I get to my office and I discover that a second plane had crashed into the other tower of the World Trade Center. All of us in the office watched on TV as the two buildings collapsed into rubble, and for me it was a body blow. I was numb. Then I discover that the Pentagon, which is located only 4 miles from my house, in my home town in Arlington, had also been struck.

The president of the company sent a message saying anyone who wanted to could go home. He was right and the office closed down, nobody was in any condition to work that day. I discovered that to be true in my own case as well.

As it turned out the system administrator had sent out a system-wide message asking everyone what the machine name of their computer was. I mistakenly did "reply all" instead of reply. My message read like this:

My computer's name is Licorice.
----
"If we find out what country did this, I say, bomb the sons-a-bitches back into the stone age. Turn them into crater glass and nuclear waste." - Paul Robinson, September 11, 2001.

My boss said he understood but I would have to change the tag line on my messages.

I drove home. So did everyone else; the roads were jammed and traffic was very slow, but I don't think anyone really cared, we just moved along and eventually, perhaps an hour or two longer than it took normally, we all got home. I remember how all the radio stations that normally were music had basically switched to talk radio that day, they were taking calls from the public and letting people release their grief.

Cell phone service was basically hit or miss over about the next month or so, I guess people kept jamming the lines. I had just gotten a new phone about three weeks before the incident, so I didn't know if the bad service was the result of a special incident causing excessive use or was the result of too many people trying to use an oversold service (I had it with Sprint and you were only charged for daytime minutes; minutes after 7Pm and before 5AM or 7AM and on weekends were free. Typically calls went through okay during the time when you had to use your charged minutes but during free minutes time it was difficult to get a call through.) I've switched cell phone providers three times since then but I still have the same cell phone number I did when I got the phone in August, 2001.

I got through it, like everyone did. I went to work the next day, and the next, and the rest of the month, and so on and so forth, but to this day I have no recollection of the rest of September, 2011; it's not even a blur, it's like it ceased to exist. I managed, but I think I was probably just going through the motions.

Oh, as for the comment tag line on my e-mail, how do I feel about it?

"If we find out what country did this, I say, bomb the sons-a-bitches back into the stone age. Turn them into crater glass and nuclear waste." - Paul Robinson, September 11, 2001.
"I proudly stand by that statement to this day." - Paul Robinson, September 11, 2011.

Office of the Board of Directors                                       August 26, 2011
Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority
600 5th Street NW
Washington DC 20001

Recommendation No. 2011-028

Pursuant to the provisions of Article 62(b) of the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority Compact I hereby file a request with the Board of Directors for a hearing with respect to the service rendered with the facilities of the Authority. The remainder of this letter explains the matters and things on which the request relies, and deals with the Authority's potential actions to intentionally disable cell phone service in Metrorail stations and the need for an explicit, published policy indicating when such an action would be permitted, and a recommendation to add preparations in the event cell service is not available in an emergency and to prepare for it in emergency drills.

I only found out this morning that on Thursday, August 11, San Francisco's Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) system decided to disable cell phone service in certain stations for several hours, not because of an emergency condition or something that was happening at the time, but because some people had posted an announcement on a web page stating that they were intending to conduct a protest in rail stations over the alleged killing of a passenger by BART Transit Police. I suspect one of the issues being that they might have stated they intended to use cell phones while in the BART system to coordinate protests.

BART claimed the action was necessary to protect the public from some unspecified danger and to prevent what it claimed was an "illegal" protest. While protecting the public from the possibility of injury is an important goal, an even more important point needs to be made: no actual protest took place; BART essentially chose to cut off service because there might have been a problem.

Not only that, but apparently BART decided that it was merely for courtesy reasons that it chose to inform the cell carriers that their service was being intentionally disrupted, and it was under no obligation to tell them anything; apparently the carriers were left in the dark over this matter.

A number of questions have been raised over these issues. While there is no constitutional right to have cell phone service in a subway system, once a government agency decides to allow service to operate, there are First Amendment issues regarding the use of the service. The comparison here is that if someone in my home decides to use his cell phone to say unflattering remarks about me, I have the right to choose to require he stop doing so or leave, because the 1st Amendment does not apply to private individuals or non-government entities. However, as a government agency, a transit authority is subject to the First Amendment and does not have this luxury, e.g. if a Transit Police officer hears someone on their phone in a normal voice talking about how bad the service is and urging people get together to have the Authority disbanded and replaced by something else, they cannot stop this person from doing so or order them to leave.

Now, given that this is the Nation's capital and there are even more serious threats that might occur here than would occur just about anywhere else in the country, there are a number of conditions which might require in some cases that WMATA might, at some point, need to intentionally disable cell phone service in one or more stations or areas such as tunnels because of an emergency or unusual circumstance, there should be a standard policy clearly stating under what conditions it would undertake such actions and for the Authority to make this policy a matter of record.

I have made a cursory search of WMATA's web site and have found many documents regarding its attempts to increase reach of cell service in the stations and trains, and in this, the Authority is to be commended. But there is not one document discussing under what circumstances the Authority might intentionally disable cell service. Perhaps the subject never came up or it wasn't thought it ever would be necessary.

With the incident on BART's system occurring it is clear that the subject has now come up and this issue may very well become necessary.

A decision that it is necessary to do so might occur at some point, and the making of a decision whether it is appropriate to do so is an extremely important matter, and not something that should be made on an ad-hoc basis.

Therefore, the matter and things upon which this request relies is the recommendation that the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority establish a policy under what circumstances the authority would intentionally disable cell phone service (under what emergency conditions, for non-emergency scheduled maintenance and upgrades, etc.), what areas would be subject to disruption, which person(s) would be authorized to make a decision to do so, the persons and entities to be notified when and if such an action were to take place, how much advance notice - including posting notice in stations - is to be made for non-emergency conditions (like equipment replacement), how soon after an emergency occurs are the appropriate parties to be notified, such other conditions and specifications as the authority decides are necessary to be included in this policy, and that this policy be made public as well as published on the Authority's website.

I would also like to recommend the reverse issue should also be considered and the potential be included as far as when the Authority conducts emergency training, or emergency drills, that it make efforts from the opposite site, by doing disabling of cell phone service as if an attacker had decided to operate cell phone jamming equipment and how this would affect the Authority and other emergency personnel to be able to coordinate if they were unable to use cell phones, and whether standby equipment such as temporary cell phone boosters ("microcells") should be available in emergencies and what other emergency preparations be made in the event either cell phone service must be intentionally disabled or where for some reason cell phone service becomes unavailable by accident (as happened immediately after this week's earthquake) or because of attacks by third parties.

Thank you for your time in reading this letter and I hope you will consider my recommendations.

Sincerely Yours,
Paul Robinson
"A computer programmer and Notary Public in and for
the Commonwealth of Virginia, at large, and the
State of Maryland in and for Prince George's County."

CC: WMATA General Manager
Metro Transit Police
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I sometimes feel the ground vibrate on occasion and at about 5 minutes to 2pm Eastern time I felt a small shake. I sometimes feel these when something shakes the ground like a rail train arrival vibrating the station platform. In my wheelchair I can feel this sort of vibration but I'm generally so stable I don't move. So I didn't think much of it.

Then a really big one hit as the whole house moved from side to side.

Being a 15-year resident of California I recognized it immediately as an earthquake, which basically almost never happens here in Maryland, this is the first one I've noticed and only the second quake that was strong enough to feel in the entire 23 years I've been here (I was asleep during the previous one that happened here, about a year or so ago). Reportedly the last quake this strong to hit the area was back in 1897.

My cell phone won't work, I can't get a call through; it's conceivable cell towers were damaged.

Since it was strong enough for me to feel it I estimated it was probably 5-6 on the Richter scale. I saw a report on the news saying an earthquake of 5.8 occurred about 100 miles away in Virginia. News reports it was 5.9 and located 3 miles underground below Mineral, Virginia, and was felt as far south as Chapel Hill, NC. Cell networks are jammed.

I believe there was no damage here. Nothing I noticed fell down or broke.

Now, the incident reminds me of the worst earthquake in the United States because nobody expected it as it wasn't in a typical earthquake area. No, it wasn't in California or anywhere out west. It was about 150 years ago, in New Madrid, Missouri. It was so strong it caused the Missouri river to run backward.

Well, apparently if Congress doesn't get the debt ceiling raised by today we have a serious problem because the government borrows 40c on the dollar to pay for everything, and if it can't borrow more money then it has to do load shedding.

"Load shedding" is a term I borrowed from the electrical industry. When too many customers want power and they can't keep up with the demand, your typical public utility will first reduce voltage, then it will shut down customers who have agreed to have their electricity curtailed such as residential customers who will allow their air conditioning shut off for 15-30 minute stretches, then industrial customers who have interruptable service. Once you run out of the low hanging fruit, then you have no choice but to cut neighborhoods and areas for a while. This is "load shedding" and its not pretty.

If you are working and then become unemployed, if you're stupid you keep paying everything the same until you run out of money and then you really have painful choices to make about what you can pay. If you're smart, you decide as soon as your financial status changes what bills you have to pay, and what bills that you do not want to lose the product or service of that vendor. And you'd call your creditors - especially the ones you're not going to pay - and let them know. Either case, where you are forced to cut drastically because you stupidly pretended you weren't out of money, or you cut carefully because you start when you're aware you have reduced funds, is a form of load shedding. The "load" in this case is your debt load or the amount of expenditures you make.

Well, in the case of the United States Government, if the debt ceiling isn't raised by midnight tonight, load shedding has to start immediately because we waited too long. The debt ceiling was recognized as needing to be raised as far back as January but it was pushed off. This means the Department of the Treasury decides which 2/3 of the bills it can pay; the rest get delayed payment.

Treasury has been using various accounting tricks to avoid failing to pay things; this worked for a couple of months but if the debt ceiling fails to get raised, the real choices have to be made, and they won't be pretty.

I used to think Congress wasn't stupid enough to let the government run out of debt it could raise. I might be wrong. Some say that the Republicans won't let it happen because it gives Obama total authority to decide what bills get paid and which ones don't, and they don't want to give him that much power.

What has been most amusing in this whole debacle is that the Republicans - specifically Tea Party members - who've been going around saying we didn't need to raise the debt ceiling, and it wasn't going to be that bad if the government defaulted on paying its obligations, while the Democrats were the ones pointing out this was irresponsible. It's usually the Republicans who talk about fiscal responsibility and the Democrats who don't. This whole incident has turned everything around and changed how things normally are.