Tweening Around the Tworld!

It is very easy go all bi-modal on issues: left v. right, libertarian v. authoritarian, my religion v. yours and everyone else’s religion, Vorlons v. Shadows.

These are all analysis errors pushed through narrow rhetorical “pipes” and distribution “tubes”. There is too much signal lost in this process and one cannot make useful decisions depending on these analyses. Cue the Einstein quote about simplicity…

For example, my outsiders view of evangelical Christians is that there is some realization of this problem. The “What Would Jesus Doers” or Gospelists (my neologism) have figured out that there are other issues besides the “Pro-life” anti-abortion issue. Pro-life has been used as a narrow label for a very complex set of values and this actually, IMO, precluded Pro-lifers from accomplishing their anti-abortion or most any other mission. Some have figured out that they allowed themselves to be suckered for their vote. Their fringe view was never going to be approved by freely elected politicians. (I understand that 70% of the population supports first trimester abortion rights.) They are growing into a broader agenda. And a new set of leaders are emerging from this process. They are actually hearing the criticism, IMO, that if you’re Pro-life, then you’re pro- all life. And the “monolithic” evangelical movement appears to be fracturing and evolving. I think this is helpful. There are many common values I share with Gospelists. As they relax their grip on this narrow, restrictive label, there is more we can accomplish together.

Yes, bi-modal argumentation is “easier”. There is a false view, frequently expressed elsewhere, that certain legal decisions can be categorized simply. That a legal decision is somehow liberal or conservative. We all know this is simply not the case; the law is just too analog. (Yes, there is the claim that so many small quanta/states of the legal system appear to be analog while still being “digital”. Because the constituent particles of the law, legal terms and definitions, are subject to human interpretation by judges, I contend that there is no way effectively to characterize the law as quantized around a bi-modal distribution upon any axis of interest.)

We have seen this in almost every debate venue. Someone uses a simple mischaracterization of their opponents position in a short, not so pithy sound bite. They somehow think that simple labels from a simplistic categorization can somehow be used to organize a debate about complex issues. They shortchange themselves, as the Pro-life community has done, by embracing ineffective simplicity.

I’m glad we’re all hard to label. I’m also glad that that Biden, McCain, Obama and, even, Palin are also hard to label. (OK, maybe Palin isn’t that hard to label but let’s leave it at that…

Labels substitute for respect for your colleagues and these serious issues. They are framing devices about building popular electoral advantage and not debating policy. That’s why I really liked it when Obama would call this stuff out as part of the “silly season” in the election. I would hope that we, as engineers, would try to reject simplistic labels and, especially, labeling people. They are not helpful.

Andrew

P.S. For the record, if there must be labels, here is how I would label myself:

Fiscally Sustainable (Pro- “Pay-Go”, Infrastructure Development Projects [pork-lite], require ROI calculations.)

Social Foundationist (Pro- Rule of Law, Social Security, Universal Healthcare)

Rational Policy Wonk (While the process is anything but rational, rationality does help policy be effective.)

National Security Bear (Not a hawk or an eagle but it scares the crap out of Colbert.) Also, a bear stays home and competing with the Russians in almost everything feels “natural”.

Technological Innovationist (All economic progress devolves from technological innovation and invention.)

Peak-monger (The 4 peaks of the apopcalypse: Peak Population, Peak Temperature, Peak Water and Peak Oil.)

This man, President-elect Obama, touched something in me.

He speaks to a deep need in me for social relevance and responsibility. I hope he touches something in you.

“The road ahead will be long. Our climb will be steep. We may not get there in one year or even one term, but America - I have never been more hopeful than I am tonight that we will get there. I promise you - we as a people will get there.”

. . .

“And to all those who have wondered if America’s beacon still burns as bright - tonight we proved once more that the true strength of our nation comes not from the might of our arms or the scale of our wealth, but from the enduring power of our ideals: democracy, liberty, opportunity, and unyielding hope.”

– President-elect Obama, Nov. 4, 2008

Yes! We! Can!

Top Row (L to R): Marc Gold, Mark Moeckel, Terry Harris, Jeb Boyt, Tom Myer
Bottom Row (L to R): Darren Keefe, Jackie O’Keefe, Nada Lulic, Hope Doty

Sarah Eckhardt has agreed to participate in our first Geek Salon. I will invite technologists when we have an agenda. Sarah has left it up to me to pick a theme. Here are some candidates:

• Criteria for choosing electronic voting machines.
• Criteria for supporting telecommuting.
• Criteria for choosing alternative energy technologies.
• Criteria for growing the technology community in Central Texas.

I’ll be calling you for both your opinion and whether you’ll attend a Salon.

Below is my letter opposing the City of Austin’s investment of $2.3 billion in a biomass power plant in Nacogdoches, Texas.

The Austin-American Statesman’s Editorial of Sunday, August 17th provides some context.

__________

Mayor Wynn,

As a former Resource Management Commissioner, I wish to register my objection to our City signing a power purchase agreement to build a biomass plant in Nacogdoches, Texas before the end of August, 2008.

There are two issues that need to be considered before approving this power purchase agreement.

First, it does not appear that competing bids were solicited to build or operate this plant. Other builders of these plants offer lower cost per MWh or lower construction costs. For example, without too much effort on my part, I have found one vendor, American Biorefining and Energy, Inc., who gave me a budgetary quote of $80/MWh. This is significantly below the $131/MWh ($2.3B / (20 yr * 8,760 h/yr * 100 MW)) cost of the proposed power purchase agreement. While many factors go into calculating the cost of a power plant, the $131/MWh price gives me pause. This price exceeds the cost of solar power as determined by Austin Energy’s 2006 Value of Solar Study of $104/MWh. This price was seen as too high in 2006. Yet it is less than the biomass plant’s power prices. While Mr. Duncan justifiably claims that a biomass plant allows Austin Energy to dispatch power to control its costs and improve system reliability, is that feature really worth a $27/MWh premium over the price of solar power and an even higher premium over the price of wind power? I have been told that engineering studies claim that an energy generation system can be reliably operated with less than 30% of non-dispatchable, renewable power. The other generators can provide enough flexibility for reliable operation of the system. Perhaps, because we have less than 30% of our power from non-dispatchable sources, it is too early in our energy mix to pay a $27/MWh premium for a biomass generating plant?

I have found a second vendor, Energy Products of Idaho, who gave me a budgetary quote of $170 M to build 3 33 MW plants or about $1,700 per kW of generation capacity. They expressed to me that the $131/MWh operating expense seemed high to them.

Since no competitive bidding was performed, I am justifiably concerned that we are significantly over paying for this plant. Of course, if we can get a price closer to $80/MWh, most of my objections except the below point are withdrawn.

Second, it is not clear from what I have seen whether we are locking in the price of fuel in this power purchase agreement. Considering the volatility in all fuel prices and the dramatic increase in the price of corn-derived ethanol over the last 2 years, I am concerned that we are exposed to an increase in the cost of fuel. Frankly, as a businessman, I would be very surprised if Nacogdoches Power would provide a 20 year fixed price without a fuel price escape clause. Since our staff believes that a biomass plant is a good idea, will every other power generator in the country jump on this bandwagon too? This would bid up the price of fuel thus driving up the price of our generated power. Since I cannot see the economics behind our purchase agreement, I cannot assess how vulnerable we are to fuel price increases.

Finally, if Council chooses to delay this agreement, I, as a former Resource Management Commissioner, would like to join a task force to examine our biomass and other energy generation options in more detail.

After my “Unity Through BBQ” party for my precinct, Travis County Commissioner Sarah Eckhardt wants to follow up on the idea of creating a “Geek Salon”. She learned that I had brought a group together to try and advise Tim Mahoney, an ACC Trustee. She wants to expand this effort into something more formal. For example, she has a voting machine problem in our county. How and what would unbiased technologists advise Ms. Eckhardt to do?

Geek Salon Principles:

1) These are social gatherings hosted at a citizen’s house addressing issues of community interest. The invited politician is a guest. This is not, as defined by statute, an official public meeting.

2) Participants must not have a direct business interest in the subject of discussion. These are technical discussions. Exploring how technical choices affect policy is a major goal. (This should be a similar process to how technical issues are decided in the Linux community.)

3) There will be one major topic of discussion. This will be published in the email invitation. Only RSVP as attending if you are prepared to discuss this issue.

4) Even though this is not a public meeting, minutes will be taken and published. This ensures the Salon’s independence from financial bias.

5) Attendees are welcome to suggest new topics and participants for future Salons.

It helps if you like BBQ. (For you vegetarians, I make a great smoked portobello mushroom.)

I’ve been thinking about an idea I call Sister Precincts. Much like Sister Cities, a Sister Precinct is about building political bridges between different nearby communities. Our precinct is likely to start trying this idea out by helping register Latino voters. I’ll report on our success.

Members of the Texas Bloggers Caucus at Netroots Nation adjourned to join the BBQ Caucus meeting at the Ironworks BBQ Caucus room.

Left to Right: Richard Holcomb, Jeb Boyt, David Niver, Michael Polacheck and Carol Doty

Money and Obama

On Thursday June 19th (a.k.a. Juneteenth here in Texas), Senator Barack Obama declared his emancipation from the public financing system for US Presidential Elections. The punditocracy thinks this is a funding battle between two political parties and their respective candidates. In my opinion, there is a transition happening to a post-Internet political party. Obama has recognized it and his funding decision embraces it.

Political parties control access to money and political activists. This control, if it can be marshaled for electoral success, results in real power. The iron triangle of parties, media and special interests has worked to reinforce that control. Senator Obama, by exploiting the power of the Internet, has split a large chunk of the money out of any party’s control. He is also using the Internet to attract the activists. In other words, the parties no longer control the entrance to the political process. After Obama, any candidate can raise money and gain supporters without having to be vetted by party insiders who support the status quo.

The Obama Paradox

Senator Obama, as a community organizer, has long worked for campaign finance reform. Most of the criticism of his decision to leave public election financing system is his apparent betrayal of that goal. Yet any decision is about balancing values and goals. Let us look at some factors Obama had to balance.

First, Obama is, to quote Senator Clinton, “in it, to win it.” Hence, tactical and strategic advantages need to be carefully weighed. The Obama team has demonstrated a huge tactical advantage over Senator McCain’s campaign from their prodigious network fundraising. Apparently, half of Obama’s $240 million primary campaign election funds came from 1.5+ million people donating less than $200 each. In other words, just sticking to his most numerous donors brings his campaign more money than the public financing system ($120M v $85M). In a real and profound sense, his campaign is already community funded. One does not throw your community funded financial advantage away lightly.

Obviously, in early 2007, Senator Obama naïvely offered to make a deal with the Republican nominee to mutually preserve public financing. Equally obviously, he had no idea he would also have the great success of building a true small donor, community funded election campaign. Here is the paradox. Both funding methods are public. One organically grew up around his campaign. The other uses government funds. Which one is more aligned with Obama’s values? While some may quibble about the difference, let’s remember that no candidate has ever raised so much money from so many individual investors in the history of any democratic campaign anywhere. I assert there is no meaningful difference between the methods. The community/small donor funds are intrinsically aligned with Senator Obama’s values. His decision makes sense.

Second, can either candidate actually reign in or otherwise control members of his party? A promise to preserve public financing is not a suicide pact. As Senator McCain demonstrated recently, his own party ignored his pleas to stop playing a racially divisive ad in a recent primary. In other words, neither Senators McCain nor Obama can actually make a deal that would be respected by other members of the political firmament. That is the lesson of the 2004 “Swift Boat Veterans” 527 groups character “hit job” against Senator Kerry. They are, by statute, independent of every campaign operation and, hence, any agreement the campaigns may make cannot have any force over the 527 groups. While the Republican 527 groups are not in evidence right now, they are out there and they’re keeping their “powder dry”. Senator Obama has to expect them to show up in the fall. When they do, he needs the resources to fight back. Perhaps Senator Obama was naïve to suggest working out a deal with the Republican nominee. Or is Senator McCain cynically calling for Senator Obama to unilaterally disarm his campaign?

Third, Obama wants to control his own message. When a significant number of political messages are funded outside of the candidate’s control, he or she is at their mercy. Once again, Senator Kerry versus the “Swift Boat Veterans” shows the imbalance. Senator Kerry, with his limited, publicly financed resources, had to respond to the “Swift Boat Veterans”, a foe with potentially unlimited resources. That response could not have legally been coordinated with any other organization. Hence, Senator Kerry could not fully respond and he suffered the consequences. To put it bluntly, in 2004 Senator Kerry brought a knife to a gunfight. Senator Obama has already started to show a rapid message response methodology. When an attack comes from any member of the opposition, they respond to nullify it and then start a riposte to reframe the debate. Senator Obama is bringing a Special Forces platoon to a gunfight. He can only do this with enough resources to roughly match their aggregate resources. The “Swift Boat Veterans” and other 527 groups killed effective public financing before Obama was elected to the Senate.

Obama’s paradox is a tough one. He has successfully created a broad base of supporters (1.5+M) for funding his campaign. It meets many, if not all, of the goals of the public funding model. Does he walk away from that to embrace the public funding system and its attendant restrictions? This single decision could cost him the election.

On Juneteenth, he chose to stay with the system his team had already built. He has emancipated himself from external constraints. Hopefully, he has emancipated the rest of us.

Postscript:

Obama could have handled his withdrawal from public election financing announcement better. His speech vaguely covers the paradox I describe above. Unlike most of Senator Obama’s speeches, it wasn’t focused or clear. I think this is due to the transitional nature of his candidacy.

Juneteenth celebrates the day the Emancipation Proclamation came into force in Texas, June 19, 1865.

Doris Gayle and the rest of Precinct 236’s delegation for Senator Obama attended the Texas State Democratic Party Convention on June 6th and 7th. Accompanying Doris were Jeb Boyt (at large alternate), Blair Dancy, Andrew Donoho and Nancy Scott. Standing in reserve were Nathan McNair, John Moore and Bryan Spaulding.

Here’s the team posing with “Senator Obama”:

From Left to Right: Blair Dancy, Doris Gayle, “Senator Obama”, Nancy Scott and Andrew Donoho.

Attending the convention was an all day affair with our carpool departing at 7:15 AM June 6th and our Senate District 14 caucus adjourned at 3:27 AM on June 7th. OK, 20+ hours is more time than any of us bargained for…

After signing in, Doris and I decided that breakfast was in order. While the Hillary campaign was offering breakfast tacos to all attendees, Doris and I decided that a trip to Las Manitas was in order. While the breakfast was, as always, excellent, we were less happy with the downpour that caught us in the open. Fortunately, we were able to flag down a passing cab and were, hence, just soaked to our skin. The convention center’s air conditioning had us dry and cold in just a few hours. Much of the rest of the day would have similar ups and downs.

Attending Issue Group Caucuses:

Doris and I chose to attend the Energy caucus. This was hosted by the Houston based Oil Patch Democrats. While they communicated a great deal of information, they were not very clear on the concept of a caucus. There was almost no interaction with caucus goers. This was a big disappointment. How can we put together any kind of coordinated effort without some real engagement between activists? We also discovered that many candidates, for example US Senatorial Candidate Rick Noriega, used the caucus floor as an opportunity to meet the delegates. I found Mr. Noriega had a compelling story and I think he would be an excellent US Senator.

We next tried to make it to the Democracy for Texas caucus. Where we ran into our next challenge. The poor design of our convention center. (Hereafter referred to as the CC.) The CC only has hallways on 3 sides. Hence, to get from the Energy to the DFT caucus, we have to walk 3 city blocks to go around. (I now know the outside path that is much faster. Of course, that means we’re heading out into the heat; it’s own reward.) We only were able to catch the last 45 minutes of the caucus. At this point, I left the caucus and Doris to get back to the other caucus area to attend the Computer and Technology caucus. The Party really needs to force all of the caucuses onto a similar start and stop times. Leaving one caucus early to get to another one late is suboptimal and a bummer to boot.

One recurring theme this political season has been the changing of the guard due to the influx of new people. This was never more apparent than in the wrongly named Computer and Technology caucus. It was hosted by the extremely competent, long time party regular Tom Blackwell. He was mostly interested in telecommunications and radio/broadcast issues. While, technically, these are technology issues, due to hindsight, they weren’t what the caucus goers came to talk about. After about 25 minutes of a well organized speech about the issues Mr. Blackwell has helped shepherd through the various platform and rules committees, some members of the audience wrested the agenda away from the radio specific issues. (I think part of this was due to the start of the standard rant by amateur radio HAM operators against Broadband over Powerline (BPL) networking technology. This fight between the HAM operators and internet operators will never be resolved in favor of the HAM operators. The network folks will win this battle. The societal good from exploiting rural electrification for delivering universal network access will outweigh the few radio bands that are polluted by BPL radiation. (There are also some technical changes to minimize the interference problems.)

In any event, I had earlier made known to Mr. Blackwell my desire to add a telecommunications and telecommuting agenda item to the caucus. I got most of my issues on the table which sparked a valuable discussion. At this time, I decided to become the recording secretary for our caucus. We hadn’t really needed one earlier due to Mr. Blackwell’s prepared remarks being already available. I’ll be publishing those minutes in a separate blog post. This then kicked off a real caucus with a whole range of interesting issues and ideas about how to mobilize the Democratic party around promoting these issues to address the digital divide and protect our civil liberties of speech and freedom from unreasonable search of our electronic communications. Open source code and data formats were well and thoroughly discussed. I have high hopes we can harness the energy associated with the caucus goers to make some progress on these issues.

Heading off to Senate District 14 Caucus.

I rejoined Doris at 2 PM and we headed to the Hilton for SD14 caucus. After stopping in the Hilton coffee shop for an enjoyable meal of Sun Chips, we joined the rest of our neighbors to get down to the important business of selecting delegates to the National Party Convention. But our party insiders are very clever. They made us vote on all sorts of committee positions before we could have the national delegate “beauty contest”.

State Senator Kirk Watson helped kick this meeting off and then quickly left. To be fair to Mr. Watson, he was the host of the full state convention and surely had other business. Nonetheless, I think by not participating in our caucus for more than 10 minutes he lost some significant opportunities to harness the strength of his district for his personal and Party ambitions. It’s also damn annoying. We made only 3 votes before adjourning at 5:30 PM, 30 minutes late, to catch the general party meeting being convened at 6 PM. Having made the wrong call before about which direction to go, we chose the out of doors path with a stop at Ironworks Barbecue. (After all, we were only going to miss the opening speechifying. Good BBQ v. speechifying, what would you choose?)

Jeb Boyt and Doris Gayle
Showing some good sense.

After the BBQ, we entered the main meeting hall to find almost all of the seats taken. I was able to get Doris seated with the SD14 delegation.

Let the Speechifying Commence!

Once fortified, we discovered few seats. Nonetheless, I was able to get Doris safely situated on an aisle seat between Obama and Clinton supporters.

Doris waiting for Chelsea Clinton

As one would expect from such a large meeting, it is a scripted, top-down affair. We got to meet many of the candidates, at least cursorily, running for important federal or state offices. Yet, the marquee act was the arrival of Chelsea Clinton. I’m of two minds about this. As a representative of her mother’s campaign, she is very welcome to address us. Yet, what can she actually say to us? She doesn’t set policy in the campaign. Unsurprisingly, she made many straightforward bridge building comments. (Since the big event was going to be Senator Clinton’s speech in Washington, D.C. the next day suspending her campaign, there wasn’t much that Chelsea could say.)

Chelsea Clinton

Congratulations to Ms. Clinton for trying to build a bridge. I think it worked with many Obama delegates. (Admittedly, it is always easy to be gracious when you’ve won.) That said, I was deeply surprised at the real bitterness of some Clinton supporters. Without going in to details in one encounter, I was told that I had to “woo” back Clinton supporters. While ignoring the odd sexual overtone associated with their term “woo”, somehow Obama supporters have to bend over backwards to get Clinton supporters to work together to win the White House for the Democratic Party? It mattered not to these Clinton supporters that I was personally hosting a party to unify my precinct just before the National convention. In other words, there was almost nothing I could do, other than, it appeared to me, beg them to return to the party. I went away very depressed. When I got back to Doris’ chair, she was alarmed at how pale and sad I appeared. I hope I am never this bitter about politics.

The Caucus Restarts…

Now we can get down to the serious business of pandering for votes. Doris was a particularly popular choice for photo ops. (It doesn’t hurt to have a 290+ pound advance man telling candidates to get in the picture with Doris.

Doris with her Escort, Andrew

Of course, as the night wore on, we got a little rowdy and kinda blew off any pretense of sitting in nice rows.

Doris and Blair

The pander pen is born…

Doris and her Entourage
(Blair and Nancy)

Before we get to the “big show” there are elections for SD14 representatives to various state committees. These mostly thankless jobs still seem to attract folks. Here is Lorenzo Sadun “promising” to bend the rules for Doris’ pet issues when she elects him to Rules Committee.

Lorenzo Sadun Plying Doris with Promises of Rules Nirvana

The big contest of the evening was, of course, who gets to represent SD14 to the national convention. As the bluest of blue districts, we are sending 8 delegates, 5 for Senator Obama (2 men, 2 women and 1 of either gender) and 3 for Senator Clinton (1 woman, 1 man and 1 of the opposite gender to the variable gender Obama delegate). What this contest exposed was who was a natural campaigner. For example, young David Broockman, 19, hit the ground running with a flyer in state delegates mailboxes 4 days after the county convention closed. That’s right I said a flyer in my mailbox not email. Then, I was really surprised that he knocked on my door at home. David went and knocked on the door of every SD14 Obama delegate. He understands how to demonstrate commitment and it shows he will know how to run a campaign. We need kids like him in our Party. Unsurprisingly, he won one of the seats to national.

David Broockman “Sealing the Deal” with Doris and Blair.

As I was getting to bed at 4:15 AM Saturday morning I noted, we’re rebuilding our democracy.

I felt better.