The Daily Parker

The US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit recently ruled in Hachette v Internet Archive that the Internet Archive's Open Library violated copyright law. Molly White today published the best response I have seen so far:

My beliefs are simple, and hardly radical: Libraries are critical infrastructure. Access to information is a human right. When you buy a book you should truly own it. When a library buys a book, they should be able to lend it. Readers should be able to read without any third parties spying over their shoulders, or preventing them from accessing the materials they have legally obtained.

Hachette and the other plaintiff publishers have argued that, by lending out one-to-one digital copies of books they have legally purchased, the Internet Archive’s Open Library is infringing upon the publishers’ copyright and damaging their sales. And, without any evidence of actual harm to the publishers, the Second Circuit went right along with it. They also went a step further, again without evidence, to suggest that libraries are inherently detrimental to society.

[B]y fighting [Controlled Digital Lending], publishers are seeking to overstep the established boundaries of intellectual property law to exert continued control over an item that has already been purchased from them. And they are seeking to diminish the critical rights of readers to read the books they want without being subjected to censorship and surveillance. This is part and parcel with other attempts by digital publishers — of books, but also of films, video games, and other media — to turn media purchases into rentals, so as to extract endless money and private data from their customers.

In other words: even though libraries have been around far longer than the Copyright Act itself, libraries are now a threat to authors. The true meaning is clear: publishers’ abilities to extract exorbitant rents and exert control over readers outweigh the incredible benefits of increased public access to books.

US law protects rentiers better than most of our peer countries' laws do. Yet another reason to get the plutocratic Republicans out of Congress.

The intersection of my vacation next week and my group's usual work-from-home schedule means I won't come back to my office for two weeks. Other than saving a few bucks on Metra this month, I'm also getting just a bit more time with Cassie before I leave her for a week.

I've also just finished an invasive refactoring of our product's unit tests, so while those are running I either stare out my window or read all these things:

• Yes, Virginia (and Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Georgia, and North Carolina), you are much better off than you were four years ago.
• The Illinois Attorney General has filed an environmental suit against Trump Tower for refusing to fix its water-intake system.
• A New York City cop who fought against "courtesy cards" won a $175,000 settlement from the city.
• A developer plans to raze a 175-year-old house in Glencoe, Ill., designed by William Boyington, because we can't have nice things anymore.
• Speaking of not having nice things, after £175m spent and 12 years of construction, the Old Street roundabout in Islington, London, looks...about the same as before.

Finally, the New York Times ran a story in its Travel section Tuesday claiming Marseille has some of the best pizza in Europe. I will research this assertion and report back on the 24th.

Oh, my, the morning newspapers were not kind to the geriatric demented convicted-felon XPOTUS.

Frank Bruni: "Trump made a raving, rambling fool of himself on Tuesday night, and while Harris by no means did everything right, she had the good sense to alternately call him out on that and simply watch him unravel. She had the discipline to shake her head sadly and smile dismissively when he made laughably false accusations against her. She had the skill — here, on full display, was the prosecutor in her — to needle him into maximal seething."

Josh Marshall: "[W]hat Harris had to do in this debate was show she could handle Donald Trump, even dominate him if possible and do so in a way that was steady and forceful. She did that. And that puts her on a path toward sealing the deal with that small fraction of voters who will determine the outcome of the election. Not a done deal but she took the critical first step. She also managed a bonus, which wasn’t absolutely necessary, which was to set Trump off, rambling, incoherent and angry. He was practically yelling by the end of the debate. She baited him into acting out the role of her foil."

Michelle Norris: "The vice president clearly got under Trump’s skin when she suggested that people were leaving his rallies early out of boredom. We knew ahead of this that she knows how to throw a punch. She confirmed this when she turned to him and calmly said, “Donald Trump was fired by 81 million people. ... Clearly he is having a very difficult time processing that.” One last thing, in their closing arguments, Harris aimed hers at the audience. Donald Trump gave up the moment by going on the attack one last time. A missed opportunity for him."

Michael Tomasky: "Kamala Harris was really good Tuesday night—really, really good. She accomplished everything she needed to accomplish. She sliced and diced him. She dangled bait, and he leapt at the hook. But as good as she was, Trump was more bad than Harris was good. Or maybe he was bad because she was good: That is to say, she wrong-footed him time after time after time in ways that President Joe Biden did not, throwing him off his game, staring him down, speaking directly to him, challenging him, saying “you” and pointing right at him. She spanked him. Said Stephanie Ruhle, in a judgment Trump would consider crushing: “She beat him at the business of television.” "

The Guardian's David Smith: "In the old days candidates might have riposted by saying Nelson Mandela or some other moral paragon was on their side. Trump reached out for the Hungarian autocrat Viktor Orbán. “He said the most respected, most feared person is Donald Trump. We had no problems when Trump was president.” But Harris had more ammunition: “It is well known that he admires dictators, wants to be a dictator on day one according to himself ... And it is absolutely well known that these dictators and autocrats are rooting for you to be president again because they’re so clear, they can manipulate you with flattery and favours.” A dictator like Putin, she added, “would eat you for lunch”."

The Economist: "Ms Harris baited hook after hook for Mr Trump over the course of their 90-minute debate and each time he lunged for it. Whether she was invoking his old business school, Wharton, in attacking his economic plans, or implying his business success was due to a gigantic inheritance, or claiming world leaders did not respect him, Ms Harris repeatedly provoked Mr Trump to defend his self-image and his own record in office, rather than mount a sustained attack on her. Call it catch-and-decrease: she made the former president look small and angry and out of his depth. For most of the debate, she made herself appear the challenger, while he became the beleaguered incumbent with a record to defend. ... Ms Harris surely did not convert any supporters of Mr Trump—who could?—but she may have assured some of the few independent-minded voters left that she is up to the job."

John Scalzi: "[L]ast night, Donald Trump was at the best any of us will ever see him again. This was the one place and time where he was meant to be prepared, coherent and presidential, where he was not surrounded by handlers, coddlers and sycophants. This was meant to be the one place and time where he was meant to keep his id and his ego in check, put voters and Americans first, and make a case for a second shot at the presidency. This was the one place and time where his worst and most self-indulgent impulses were supposed to be reined in. This was Trump on his best and most decent behavior, or at the very least, the best and most behavior he is capable of. We see how that went."

Half an hour after the debate ended, singer Taylor Swift made an Instagram post that has 8.8 million likes so far: "I will be casting my vote for Kamala Harris and Tim Walz in the 2024 Presidential Election. ... With love and hope, Taylor Swift, Childless Cat Lady"

And, of course, Alexandra Petri deserves a link.

Fifty-five days left.

You'd think no one would say this out loud, especially 56 days until the election, but JD Vance is a special kind of asshole:

Republican vice-presidential nominee JD Vance on Thursday called school shootings a “fact of life” that he dislikes, saying in the wake of the Apalachee High School killings in Georgia that stricter gun laws are not the answer and that schools must beef up security.

“I don’t like to admit this. I don’t like that this is a fact of life,” Vance said at a rally in Phoenix where he offered prayers for the victims. “But if you are a psycho and you want to make headlines, you realize that our schools are soft targets and we have got to bolster security at our schools.”

His comments echoed what other Republicans have argued: that U.S. gun violence results primarily from mental health problems and not insufficient gun legislation.

I would agree only insofar as the fetishization of guns, prevalent in the Republican Party, is evidence of mental health problems.

No other rich nation has this problem. Australia, with its wide-open spaces and things that can kill you lurking under every bush in the Outback, got rid of most civilian-held firearms in 1998 and has had no mass shootings since. The US can't seem to go a day without one.

I'm not against people owning firearms; I know many people who own them, locked in gun safes and only taken to the range.

No, I'm against having more firearms in the US than people. I'm against children getting shot in schools. I'm against narcissist infants who think they have superpowers and can stop an armed assailant in a public place with the bare-minimum training required to get a concealed-carry permit. I'm against a judicial branch that has usurped the power of state legislatures and city councils to set reasonable limits on where and when you can have a gun.

And I'm against troglodytes like Vance thinking that what's good for the 19th-century Wild West moral universe he inhabits is in any way appropriate for the 21st-century city I live in.

I spent 56 minutes trying to get ADT to change a single setting at my house, and it turned out, they changed the wrong setting. I will try again Friday, when I have time.

Meanwhile, elsewhere in the world:

• James Carville lays out a strategy for Vice President Kamala Harris to win the White House in *ulp* 62 days.
• Arizona officials continue to deal with the election-denier loony fringe despite (or maybe because of?) reality winning every time it's tested.
• A Federal judge in Rockford, Ill., has ruled that the Supreme Court's asinine, ahistorical, motivated reasoning in Bruen means that four schmucks from the suburbs can legally carry concealed guns on Chicago trains.
• A new report has come out that once again shows the US spends hundreds of billions too much on roadbuilding, and would benefit from removing highways instead of building them.
• A UK commission has found that all 72 deaths in the 2017 Grenfell Tower fire were preventable, likely leading to criminal actions in future.
• CVS has started using really stupid-annoying robots to prevent people loitering in front of their stores, a trend in retail that will obviously backfire.
• Lyft plans to sell parts of its public bike system (Divvy here in Chicago) to cut costs. Uh oh.
• An Illinois state government program can help you get solar power on your house.
• What's with this tunnel to nowhere in the North Carolina hills? I might have to check it out.

Finally, Slow Horses season 4 came out today, so at some point this evening I'll visit Slough House and get a dose of Jackson Lamb's sarcasm.

Before I bugger off to get at least a couple of daylight hours in this sunny, 22°C afternoon, here are the most interesting stories that popped up today:

• Two Boomer economists point out that the Boomers have made an art form of siphoning wealth from the younger generations, meaning we Gen Xers will have to work longer for lower Social Security (state pensions) payments. Typical.
• Chicago's meteorological summer was warmer and drier than normal, the 18th-warmest since 1871.
• Ravinia Brewing Company and Ravinia Festival have come to a settlement that requires the former to change its name, even though the neighborhood predates both of them.
• Police have finally identified a man who died on the Appalachian Trail in 1977.
• The wholesaler taking over the stores that Kroeger and Albertson's planned to divest in order to pass scrutiny for their merger thinks it got crappy stores in the bargain.

Finally, the Chicago White Sox have surpassed their team record for losses, going 31-108 through yesterday. If they lose 13 of the remaining 22 games—which would actually represent an improvement over their performance so far—they will surpass the 1962 New York Mets' record 120 losses in a season. For reasons passing understanding, they're still charging for tickets, with box seats going for $69 and some tickets as high as $309. They have lots of seats left, though, so maybe I'll just take the El down there this weekend to see the Athletics beat them?

A few weeks ago I planned a PTO day to take a 25 km walk tomorrow along the North Branch Trail with pizza at the end. (I'll do my annual marathon walk in October.) Sadly, the weather forecast bodes against it, with scattered thunderstorms and dewpoints over 22°C. But, since I've already got tomorrow off, and I have a solid PTO bank right now, I'll still take the day away from the office. And autumn begins Sunday.

Good thing, too, because the articles piled up this morning, and I haven't had time to finish yesterday's:

• Ruth Marcus indicts the Roberts court for its idiotic presidential immunity ruling, and how that required prosecutor Jack Smith to contort the new charges against the XPOTUS.
• Oh, goody: Mayor Brandon Johnson's 2025 budget for the City of Chicago will have nearly a $1 billion deficit.
• Despite having spent billions of euro to upgrade the scanners at major European airports, the EU will (temporarily) go back to a 100-mL limit for carry-on liquids on Sunday.
• Timothy Noah celebrates the mediocrity of late August.

Finally, Washington Post reporter Christine Mi spent 80 hours crossing the US on Amtrak this summer. I am envious. Also sad, because the equivalent trip in Europe would have taken less than half the time on newer rolling stock, and not burned a quarter of the Diesel.

American Airlines wants you to know what country you're in:

Next update from Seattle.

We have another glorious late-summer day in Chicago cool enough to sleep with the windows open. We still have 11 more days of summer, as the forecast reminds me, but I'll take a couple of days with 22°C sun and nights that go down to 15°C.

In other news:

• Psychologist Vince Greenwood cranks the alarms up to 11 after evaluating the XPOTUS against the Hare Psychopathy Checklist. (Tl;dr: Out of 40 points possible on the checklist, "the average score for individuals in a maximum-security prison setting is 22. ... [The cutoff] for to get formal diagnosis of psychopathy is 30. ... [The XPOTUS] receives a score of 33."
• From April, why does a malignant narcissist sell Bibles?
• Nina Burleigh reminds us about "the con at the core of the Republican Party."
• Paul Krugman endorses Vice President Kamala Harris's "solid center-left agenda."
• Author Michael Lewis has a few thoughts about Sam Bankman-Fried's criminal activities.

Finally, our biggest eyebrow-raise today: a ridiculous mansion in Chicago's Lincoln Park neighborhood covers 2,300 m² (25,000 ft²) across eight residential lots cost about $85 million to build and went on sale at $50 million back in 2016. The family who built it finally just sold it to a yet-unknown buyer for $15.25 million. I remember when they built it, because Parker and I would walk past the construction site every so often. I can't help but shake my head. But I guess if you can lose $70 million on your house after only 15 years, you probably didn't need the money anyway.

The Democratic National Convention opened today here in Chicago, so naturally that's the main topic in today's lunchtime roundup:

• I can barely wait until Thursday when I get to see the sparkling-clean O'Hare CTA station, freshened up for the convention.
• The DNC projected fun messages onto the XPOTUS's eponymous Tower from their hotel across the river. (No comment from the XPOTUS.)
• Vice President Kamala Harris continues to climb in the polls as people come to realize that she's the real deal and the XPOTUS can't deal.
• Ezra Klein highlights one thing the XPOTUS did well: he "turned the Democratic Party into a pitiless machine" that wins elections.
• James Fallows really wishes the press would cover the issues Americans want covered, especially that the big media outlets would report on the XPOTUS's obvious cognitive decline.

Well, that about covers it, until later this afternoon at least. I may have to walk Cassie a couple more times because it's 24°C and sunny, which we don't get a lot in August.