Remember the "News Radio" episide where billionaire Jimmy James is giving a reading of his book, which has been translated into Japanese — and then back into English via machine translation? "The original title of this book was 'Jimmy James, Capitalist Lion Tamer,' "  James tells his audience, "but I see now that it's... 'Jimmy James, Macho Business Donkey Wrestler.' "

The American Family Association probably should have watched that episode befopre entrusting a computer with the Web site of its Christian news outlet, OneNewsNow. According to Washington Post blogger The Sleuth, the site's automated system was set up always to change the word "gay" to "homosexual," which came out rather awkwardly when the subject of one story was a sprinter who had qualified for the Beijing Olympics named Tyson Gay.

Death row report sees failed system: A sharply divided California panel says delays undermine the process and reforms could be costly. By Maura Dolan

CAMPAIGN '08: McCain energy record is on/off: He's flip-flopped on nuclear power, ethanol and offshore drilling. By Noam N. Levey

Phone rangers: Rule enforcement will vary. By Hector Becerra and David Pierson

COLUMN ONE: Keeping the ball in play: In a dim Vegas arcade, a man's love for a faded pastime is alive and pinging. Behold the Pinball Hall of Fame. By Ashley Powers

Surprise video puts an end to drug trial By Jack Leonard

China plays hardball on pre-Games visas: As the Olympics near, foreigners are less welcom. Big losers are business and tourism. By Barbara Demick.

Inside Today's Times

IndyMac says it's not failing: Depositors have been pulling money from the thrift.

Put to the test: Two schools that are part of the mayor's reform plan open today.

Even costlier gas predicted: Analysts say Californians may soon be paying $5 a gallon.

Now they just want to sing: The female finalists of "American Idol" are going on tour.

Tired of walking down the street and chewing gum at the same time? Looking for new things to do with your hands when tomorrow's handheld cell phone ban kicks in?

This Christine Rosen essay in The New Atlantis may give you a new reason to fight the power. Bearing the giveaway title "The Myth of Multitasking," the piece focuses with singleminded concentration on the possibility that when you're doing lots of wonderful things at once, you're doing all of them poorly:

In the late 1990s and early 2000s, one sensed a kind of exuberance about the possibilities of multitasking. Advertisements for new electronic gadgets—particularly the first generation of handheld digital devices—celebrated the notion of using technology to accomplish several things at once. The word multitasking began appearing in the “skills” sections of résumés, as office workers restyled themselves as high-tech, high-performing team players...

But more recently, challenges to the ethos of multitasking have begun to emerge. Numerous studies have shown the sometimes-fatal danger of using cell phones and other electronic devices while driving, for example, and several states have now made that particular form of multitasking illegal. In the business world, where concerns about time-management are perennial, warnings about workplace distractions spawned by a multitasking culture are on the rise. In 2005, the BBC reported on a research study, funded by Hewlett-Packard and conducted by the Institute of Psychiatry at the University of London, that found, “Workers distracted by e-mail and phone calls suffer a fall in IQ more than twice that found in marijuana smokers.” The psychologist who led the study called this new “infomania” a serious threat to workplace productivity. One of the Harvard Business Review’s “Breakthrough Ideas” for 2007 was Linda Stone’s notion of “continuous partial attention,” which might be understood as a subspecies of multitasking...

Multitasking might also be taking a toll on the economy. One study by researchers at the University of California at Irvine monitored interruptions among office workers; they found that workers took an average of twenty-five minutes to recover from interruptions such as phone calls or answering e-mail and return to their original task. Discussing multitasking with the New York Times in 2007, Jonathan B. Spira, an analyst at the business research firm Basex, estimated that extreme multitasking—information overload—costs the U.S. economy $650 billion a year in lost productivity.

Read the whole article.

There's some intuitive sense in the argument against the kind of permanent distraction level built into the multitasking culture. But there's a bigger context to the fad: the decline of specialization, and the rise of an amateur, Renaissance-person approach to work.

This shift may be the kind of thing you see more clearly in the field of journalism — where a thousand Mayhill Fowlers bloom and specialized work is being either outsourced or phased out entirely — than you see in, say, neurosurgery. I know I was appalled, upon my arrival at this very newspaper, to discover how rigid the practice of 19th-century division of labor was here. I just hadn't realized there were still places running on industrial-era production models. That has been changing quickly (if 15 years too late) even during my brief tenure, and I suspect you'll see the same thing in many jobs. This means you have more opportunities to learn new skills, to work in fields outside your own and, as Steve Martin advised, to criticize things you don't know about; but it also means you no longer have the leisure to focus on a single task for a great length of time.

So the ability to handle multiple activities, to manage rapid shifts in attention, to organize many different elements that used to be done by different people — to multitask, in other words — will carry more value. A great chunk of specialized skill and artisanship is being lost in the process, but that's not the result of advertising or media exuberance. It's a fundamental change in the way work gets distributed. Most people aren't very good at multitasking, but that's probably because most people weren't very good at single-tasking.

If you've forgotten Warren Swil's Op-Ed on the hidden power of Sleep Mode from back in October, here's a refresher:

In standby, a machine is not really turned off. It goes into a state of reduced activity that requires only minimal power consumption. The downside is that even at vastly reduced power levels, millions of machines running all day, every day adds up to huge amounts of wasted energy. With oil prices at record highs and the climate under threat from excessive consumption of fossil fuels, this is neither smart nor desirable.

It's not the tiny lights themselves that are at fault — they're a marvelous, energy-saving invention. Rather, it's what they indicate: a seemingly unstoppable proliferation of devices that siphon power even while not in use.

Wondering how to quantify "vastly," "huge," "excessive," "seemingly," and so on? Cambridge professor (and CalTech Ph.D) David J.C. MacKay is trying to do just that in his book "Sustainable Energy — Without the hot air," and he talks to the UK Register about the many alt.energy scenarios for which he's run feasibility studies. There's plenty of material here (and very little that will please the pro-wind, anti-nuke Times editorial board), but this bit tries to put the planet-destroying horror of VCRs that blink 12:00 into context:

MacKay tells The Reg that he was first drawn into this field by the constant suggestion — from the Beeb, parts of the government etc — that we can seriously impact our personal energy consumption by doing such things as turning our TVs off standby or unplugging our mobile-phone chargers.

Anyone with even a slight grasp of energy units should know that this is madness. Skipping one bath saves a much energy as leaving your TV off standby for over six months. People who wash regularly, wear clean clothes, consume hot food or drink, use powered transport of any kind and live in warm houses have no need to worry about the energy they use to power their electronics; it’s insignificant compared to the other things.

Whole article here. Courtesy of Arts & Letters Daily.

The Times editorial board continues its series on food diplomacy, asking what the price of neglecting hunger might be:

Until now, it was the rural poor who often died of hunger or related disease, and they died quietly. But changing demographics are making this hunger crisis more visible. For the first time in history, according to a new U.N. report, half of the Earth’s population now lives in urban areas. When the urban poor cannot afford to buy food, they don't starve silently. Since 2007, food prices have triggered unrest in 30 countries and brought down the government of Haiti. As food and energy prices continue to rise, hunger is likely to foment more political instability, more resentment of Americans' burning food calories as biofuel, more babies stunted for life, more radical Islamism and probably more wars.

The board also supports the House-approved bill on warrantless wiretaps, even though it has some flaws.

On the Op-Ed page, Samuel Thernstrom of the American Enterprise Institute has a new strategy to combat global warming: geo-engineering. The Century Foundation's Morton Abramowitz says the U.S. has shortchanged Iraqi refugees. And columnist Gregory Rodriguez takes a look at a new exhibit of Los Angeles photographs that avoids the pitfalls of depicting L.A. as a sun-soaked paradise or a noir underbelly.

On the letters page, readers discuss suing OPEC. Tarzana's Richard I. Fine was part of the last lawsuit against it, and says, "Oil politics ruled over law."

*Photograph of Hollywood and Vine, 1969, by Garry Winogrand, courtesy of The Estate of Garry Winogrand.

Columnist Tim Rutten blames our year-round Caprese cravings for the tomato menace:

A proper insalata Caprese is one of the jewels of Campania's incomparable cuisine.

All that's required are ripe tomatoes just off the vine, fresh mozzarella di bufala, basil coaxed to aromatic fullness by the sun's heat, a sprinkling of coarse salt, a grind of pepper and a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil. It's a gloriously simple dish that happily reproduces the colors of the Italian flag and virtually stares up from the plate, whispering "high summer."

The fact that you now can order some variation of it in February from half of America's restaurant menus or supermarket takeout counters goes a long way toward explaining what's behind the current national recall of tomatoes across the United States.

Contributing editor Max Boot says its time to re-up our Iraq commitment by protecting troops. Sci Fi Channel advisory board chairman Peter Schwartz says sci-fi should trade in its "Blade Runner" dystopias for some "Flash Gordon" fun to get people optimistic about the future. And Radisson Hotel LAX owner/operator Peter Dumon urges his fellow hoteliers to stop fighting the living wage.

The editorial board discusses the iPhone's limits, declares the start of silly season for oil policy, and wonders at the Bush administration's irrational immigration policy:

As we hustle to show resolve in the immigration "crisis," we're getting used to the idea that all private endeavor is subject to Washington's prior approval. What kind of country do we want? A few years ago, a border wall would have seemed a relic from medieval China or Central Europe in the totalitarian era. Now it is official U.S. policy.

On the letters page, readers respond to a two-page anti-gay-marriage ad that ran in The Times. L.A.'s Ari Solomon says, "I know newspaper subscriptions are down and ads help pay the rent, but this was blood money."

*Cartoon by Lisa Benson, Washington Post Writers Group

Documentary producer Craig J. Nevius thinks tabloids have finally gone to far when they try to violate celebs' medical privacy:

The National Enquirer proudly proclaimed a worldwide exclusive on its website on May 16, 2007: "Farrah's Cancer Is Back!" (Please note the excitement and enthusiasm indicated by the exclamation point.) Adjacent to this attention-grabbing headline was an advertisement offering this inducement in bold, colorful type: "GOT GOSSIP? WE'LL PAY BIG BUCKS."

Just 48 hours earlier, actress Farrah Fawcett had received the devastating diagnosis from her doctors at UCLA Medical Center. The Enquirer's story ran before she was able to tell her son or her closest friends about the recurrence.

Columnist Gregory Rodriguez dissects Vice President Dick Cheney's West Virginian incest insult. Hastings College of the Law professor George Bisharat denounces a new neoconservative term to describe the actions of Iran: "national suicide."

The editorial board urges the U.S. to pursue food diplomacy, and examines the FCC's plan to provide free Internet for all. (The catch? It's slow and porn-free.)

On the letters page, readers discuss the editorial board's "Lakers love" piece. See why Santa Cruz' Mike Futch says, "I found your editorial strange and bizarre for a hometown newspaper. I couldn't tell if you were praising the Lakers or damning them."

*Illustration by David Suter.

China's love affair with media openness in the wake of last month's tragic earthquake seems to have come to an end — unsurprisingly, right around the time that the attention took on a negative hue:

The propaganda ministry and the State Council, China's Cabinet, have issued directives to state-run news media outlining forbidden topics. Among them: questions about school construction, whether government rescue efforts lagged and whether Beijing knew in advance that the earthquake would happen but failed to warn people. Although the latter issue is scientifically questionable, it has nonetheless transfixed millions of Chinese Internet users.

A striking turnaround, given how China threw open its doors, both to media coverage and disaster aid. Of course, there's a good explanation for that initial lapse in judgment:

...the tragedy that struck Monday, and has taken more than 12,000 lives, also has given China an opportunity for a dramatic image makeover. After months of relentless coverage of Tibetan clashes and human rights abuses, the earthquake shows a new China, one that is both compassionate and competent. ...

The coverage strikes a delicate balance between eliciting sympathy and depicting China as a developed country. For the domestic audience, the Chinese media have given extensive coverage to messages of condolence and offers of assistance from President Bush and other world leaders.

But now, bloggers and bereaved parents alike are raising questions about corruption and shoddy school construction. Both, as NPR has pointed out, have been blamed on local governments — which, as Francis Fukuyama observed in an Op-Ed just weeks before the 7.9 temblor hit, operate appallingly free from Beijing's control:

The central government, by all accounts, would like to crack down on these local government bodies but is unable to do so. It both lacks the capacity to do this and depends on local governments and the private sector to produce jobs and revenue.

Nonetheless, even though Chinese citizens have protested against their local governments, it's the central government that's panicking. And with some reason: In a country whose media have historically been tightly controlled, rumor, hearsay and flat-out tall tales become all the more potent:

With its grip secure on newspapers, television and the Internet, hearsay represents a major threat to the government's control....

Rumor has particular currency in Tibet because illiteracy is high, some say, especially in rural areas. "It's just mouth to mouth," said Tseten Wangchuk with the Voice of America's Tibetan service. "There's an invisible bubble of language and trust. Once you're inside, you hear all sorts of things."

These range from the plausible to the bizarre, including one a few years ago that a frog the size of a truck had frustrated Chinese engineers trying to build the world's highest railway to Lhasa, Tibet's capital.

Is it too late for China to put the lid back on? Some analysts seem to think so:

Ultimately, some analysts said, Beijing is fighting a losing battle in attempting to stifle the media, Web traffic and broader human rights. Reporters and editors in the last several weeks have gotten a taste of covering news under relatively free conditions. That will encourage many to push the limits.

Punditry aside, what do you think?

*Photo: Diego Azubel / EPA

Columnist Joel Stein learns how to be a classical music snob:

[I]f people applaud between movements during a concert, I should stare, loudly shush and shake my head in disapproval. The musicians don't mind the clapping, but snotty audience members love to assert their knowledge of classical music etiquette. When I'm old enough to have really gotten the hang of this, I'm sure I'll be able to use my phone to excoriate the clappers on an online social network inhabited only by the snotty, old and self-obsessed. It would still be called Facebook.

Board of Equalization member Michelle Steel says Gov. Arnold Schwarznegger's plan to borrow against lottery earnings relies on Californians' financial recklessness. And CEO of Northrop Grumman Corp. Ronald D. Sugar argues that there's no reason to dispute his company's selection over Boeing for an Air Force contract.

The editorial board chides Republican members of Congress for pushing tax breaks for the rich over tax credits for renewable energy, and wonders if a Texas court acted too fast in allowing kids to be taken from a polygamist compound. The board also says actors should see online film clips as potential revenue, not as threats to their livelihood.

Readers react to the police union's practice of paying punished LAPD officers. Burbank's William Rogers says, "The patently absurd program neutralizes even the minimal enforcement action available." But Marco Rodriguez of Glendale counters, "The LAPD complaint system is shortsighted and broken. Officers from other cities laugh at what we get suspended for."

Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wis.) points out that the John Yoo torture memo is but one example of President Bush's hidden laws. High school junior Tom Stanley-Becker explains why opting out of an Advanced Placement class was a smart move. Columnist Patt Morrison says L.A. muralists have to fight for their work on two fronts -- taggers on one side, and numbskulls with paint rollers on the other. And columnist Rosa Brooks acknowledges that Hillary Clinton may have a right to keep campaigning, but says it isn't the right thing to do:

Tell an American he shouldn't do something, and odds are he'll respond by insisting that it's his "right" to do it, regardless of how pointless, destructive, offensive or downright stupid it may be....

Tell your 10-year-old daughter she's not allowed to buy thong underwear emblazoned with sexy slogans, and she'll give you an angry lecture about her free-expression rights.

Don't fall for it.

The editorial board agrees that it's over for Clinton:

Hillary Rodham Clinton has run a long and admirable campaign for president of the United States. The prospect of her presidency has energized voters, particularly but not exclusively women, and offered working people a champion for their cause in this time of economic malaise. She has demonstrated resolve and character. And yet, she has lost.

The board also praises the Los Angeles Unified School District's new deputy superintendent for disciplining LAUSD officials in a school sex case, and explores whether a new Sprint Nextel broadband venture could expand service across the country.

On the letters page, some readers aren't as enamored with taco trucks as the editorial board. East L.A.'s Omar Loya says, "I now have to deal with grease stains on the street, trash on the sidewalks, generators running late into the night and extra traffic."

Columnist Jonah Goldberg says issues that may seem irrelevant actually give us clues about the candidates:

Whatever the true import of Obama's relationship with Wright may be, or whatever the proper weight voters should give to his view that poor whites "cling" to guns and religion because they've suffered under bad economic policies, or, for that matter, what Clinton's "sniper fire" story says about her, it strikes me as absurd to argue that these data are meaningless but their stance on a gas-tax holiday is of enduring importance.

Pacific Council on International Policy adjunct fellow Joshua Kurlantzick profiles China's educated, wealthy next-generation nationalists who aren't afraid to be aggressive toward the West. And USC's Sara Catania has an idea for the Silver Lake Reservoir: a new kind of urban park.

The editorial board thinks a tax on services might work for California if done right and explains why Yahoo and Google's teaming up on advertising would be bad for consumers. The board also responds to the death of racehorse Eight Belles at the Kentucky Derby last weekend:

As we explore the limits of physical performance, sports trend toward the more extreme, even if it harms rather than enhances the athlete's health. Steroids in baseball, eating disorders in prepubescent gymnasts, whatever it takes to win, until there's a public pushback that threatens the sport. Without industry reform in the near future, it's easy to imagine such a pushback against the biggest athlete of all -- the racehorse.

On the letters page, readers discuss May Day. Chino's Raul Perez asks, "How is it that I have to have a passport to enter the country in which I was born, raised and served in the armed forces while others come and go as they please?"

"Everyone who has tried posting books online has done it again. That's a pretty good indicator it works. An artist's enemy is obscurity, not piracy."

That's the no-introduction-needed Cory Doctorow talking about the brave new freeware-everywhere world with his fellow Canucks at MacLeans.

It's easy enough (and probably premature) to mock the death throes of intellectual property behemoths. Doctorow goes one better by actually making a living in the barter economy, though the details are a bit vague: He says he lives off the advertising at BoingBoing and is getting bigger advances on his novels. All I know of life on earth tells me every time a writer gets a generous book advance a publisher gets a little bit poorer, and it's not clear to me how long such a system can last. But that would be in keeping with Doctorow's contempt for stability as a goal:

The question to ask about any intellectual property rights regime, he says, is "does it encourage or discourage involvement, art-making, information-sharing?" In his opinion, the current system only serves corporate dinosaurs, "big dying institutions." They use copyright to try to regulate technology, to criminalize (or at least turn a profit on) all the peer-to-peer file sharing that is the "Internet's greatest achievement: lowering the cost of mass collaboration, the barriers to innovation."

It adds up to an eternal and futile attempt to throttle the mechanisms of change. Long before sheet-music publishers fought record makers (who later battled radio stations, who complained of TV and so on), monks who produced manuscripts were damning the printing press as the devil's engine. What's particularly galling for Doctorow is that "yesterday's pirate is today's admiral — Sony, the VCR pirate, denounced by moviemakers a generation ago, has come full circle to sue Napster's successors." Of course, institutions — especially wealthy ones — want to live on, even past their times, Doctorow acknowledges. "I used to be a bartender, and there was always somebody who didn't want the night to end. But there comes a time when you have to put the chairs up on the table."

As a fulltime employee of a big, dying institution and as the guy who never wants the bar to close, I can confirm that Doctorow is exactly right. Read the whole story.

The Center for Immigration Studies' Norman Matloff comes up with a new measure that, he says, indicates H-1B visa recipients are not in fact the best and the brightest that proponents sometimes suggest they are.

I don't know how persuasive you'll find Matloff's "talent measure," or TM value. I think it fails to prove Matloff's main conclusions: that H-1B holders overall are not noticeably more skilled than native workers and that within the universe of H-1B holders, Western Europeans are more skilled than Asians. But the TM value has one attraction: It uses a marketplace value for making its assessment.

The value is calculated by comparing the ratio of the worker's salary to the prevailing wage figure stated by the employer. So if you've got a TM value of 1.0 you're making essentially the average salary for the job you're doing. Since employers can't (officially at least) pay visa holders less than the stated prevailing wage, nobody should show a TM value of less than 1.0. On the other hand, if you're a gifted worker you should have a higher TM value because you can command a higher salary.

The shocking conclusion? One multiplied by one equals one:

• The median TM value over all foreign workers studied was just a hair over 1.0.
• The median TM value was also essentially 1.0 in each of the tech professions studied.
• Median TM was near 1.0 for almost all prominent tech firms that were analyzed.
• Contrary to the constant hyperbole in the press that “Johnnie can’t do math” in comparison with kids in Asia, TM values for workers from Western European countries tend to be much higher than those of their Asian counterparts.

Shouldn't this last point address hyperbole about how "Johann" or "Jean-Luc" can't do math? I mean, the media self-flagellation about poor math scores concerns American students, not Western European students, right? Is Matloff saying Americans and Western Europeans are interchangeable?

The breakouts by company and nation of origin are interesting, but I'm not sure they prove anything other than that Microsoft appears to be a generous employer and that immigrant tech workers from Canada and Germany command higher salaries than those from India. That seems easily explicable: a Canadian worker would presumably be a native English speaker and thus a little more comfortable at negotiating a good price, while a German brings language skills that, given Germany's continued industrial and technological strength, would be worth paying a premium for. 

Or maybe language skills have nothing to do with it, and there are some other variables at work. (For example, suppose most or all of the people in the U.S. doing a particular job are Indian H-1B holders: Then a TM value of 1.0 could just mean that they're all above average, Lake Woebegone-style.) In any event, I don't see how these numbers refute the claims of the hypothetical industrialist or lily-livered immigration supporter who thinks the best person to judge what skills he or she needs is the person doing the hiring.

Prove that I just don't get it or am being intentionally obtuse by reading the whole article right here.

Update: Matloff responds. Good stuff in the comments too...

Immigration reform may be down and out, but it doesn't mean Congress can't agree on important immigration issues — such as ensuring that supermodels, singers and athletes have an easier time getting into the United States. From Sunday's L.A. Times:

Even in polarized Washington, Democrats and Republicans can appreciate immigrants who throw a fast pitch, have a beautiful face or sing a catchy song. Bills to make it easier for athletes, fashion models and performers, such as British singer Amy Winehouse, to work in the United States have enthusiastic support, even from some of the most hard-nosed immigration critics.

Yep, this is what immigration legislation has been reduced to in the name of progress. Not that I'm complaining — a little reform is better than none at all, right?

The legislation does deal with a more pressing problem: Many models have to apply for an H-1B skilled worker visa. This further limits the number of those priceless documents available to tech companies, which face a desperate annual scramble for international talent. But there is a solution in the making:

Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.) proposed a solution that could address Silicon Valley's hunger for skilled foreigners and benefit his city's fashion industry. His bill would create a new category for those models, probably limited to about 1,000 five-year visas, and would free up H-1B visas for more engineers. 

Ranking subcommittee member Lamar Smith (R-Texas) had something to say about that:

He said he could picture Weiner (who is single, handsome and 43) "in a posh downtown New York City hotel celebrating the passage of this bill surrounded by hundreds of energized, wildly ecstatic fashion models. And you know for a fact he's going to have an annual celebration. It's almost too much to bear."

Smith paused. "But not too much to oppose the bill."

Columnist Jonah Goldberg doesn't like the Darwin fish:

I find Darwin fish offensive. First, there's the smugness. The undeniable message: Those Jesus fish people are less evolved, less sophisticated than we Darwin fishers.

The hypocrisy is even more glaring. Darwin fish are often stuck next to bumper stickers promoting tolerance or admonishing random motorists that "hate is not a family value." But the whole point of the Darwin fish is intolerance; similar mockery of a cherished symbol would rightly be condemned as bigoted if aimed at blacks or women or, yes, Muslims.

Attorney Kelly Valen remembers her encounter with John McCain's autopen. As the Anthony Pellicano case continues, author Will Vaus remembers his father, the original Hollywood wiretapper.

The editorial board applauds efforts to narrow AIDS vaccine research, explores why Mars rovers have so many fans, and explains that the U.S. approach in Basra requires more subtlety.

Readers react to columnist Rosa Brooks' piece warning moms to resist Disney princesses. Valencia's Natasha Wegter asks Brooks not to "punk the princesses," but Monterey Park's Ralph Mitchell thinks "Brooks doesn't go far enough in her objections."

Rep. Jane Harman (D-Venice) notes that sexual assaults are frequent -- and frequently ignored -- in the military:

Women serving in the U.S. military are more likely to be raped by a fellow soldier than killed by enemy fire in Iraq....

At the heart of this crisis is an apparent inability or unwillingness to prosecute rapists in the ranks. According to DOD statistics, only 181 out of 2,212 subjects investigated for sexual assault in 2007, including 1,259 reports of rape, were referred to courts-martial, the equivalent of a criminal prosecution in the military. Another 218 were handled via nonpunitive administrative action or discharge, and 201 subjects were disciplined through "nonjudicial punishment," which means they may have been confined to quarters, assigned extra duty or received a similar slap on the wrist.

Writer Andrew Gumbel knows why Hillary Clinton is fighting so hard to stay in the race -- because it works. Columnist Gregory Rodriguez says Americans have a habit of hero-worshipping candidates, and it tends to backfire. Euro Pacific Capital President Peter Schiff argues that we need to hit bottom before we can recover from the housing crisis.

The editorial board wants better beef tracking, and more nuanced exploration of the links between race and gangs. The board praises the FCC for taking a broad view of media competition in approving the XM/Sirius merger.

Readers react to a shift in John McCain's rhetoric. L.A.'s Susan North says:

Listening to McCain's speech before the World Affairs Council made my brain hurt. In the speech, he admonished America to listen to our democratic ally nations. Would that be all those same nations that have been crying out, for months now, "Surge? Are you people nuts?"

Remember the study a few years ago that showed U.S. students thought they were much better at math and science than they really were? Internet users seem to have the same level of self-deception when it comes to spyware and other malicious programs distributed through the Net.

Here's one for the "Who Knew?" files: the news media's attention to the sub-prime fiasco rises and falls in step with its fascination with Britney Spears. Coincidence? I think not! I would not have noticed this linkage had it not been for Trendrr, a fascinating site that recently went live. An offshoot of Wiredset, a New York agency that specializes in promoting media through the Web, social networks and mobile carriers, Trendrr lets users assemble and compare data from a dozen sources (more to come soon), including Google News, Bit Torrent, eBay and YouTube. It also invites users to request new sources or submit their own. For example, you might want to gauge interest in a particular band by seeing how often people were posting videos of that act on YouTube. Or, if you were a studio, you could graf how often the trailer for your summer blockbuster was being played on MySpace.com vs. YouTube vs. DailyMotion. My examples don't do Trendrr justice, so click here to check out the site's most popular trend-mapping exercises. Then try creating some of your own.

I spent too many years working for trade papers and magazines to take any cheap shots at the bankruptcy of Ziff Davis — one of many companies that, for a fleeting moment in the nineties, almost made trade papers cool.

With a storied history dating back to the 1920s, the trade-and-hobby-pub conglomerate found a niche in tech mags in the 1980s, became Johnny-on-the-spot during the internet boom of the 1990s, and apparently has been riding the comet back down in this decade. But those were heady days in that post-Wired, Wolff New Media-crazed era when everybody (or more precisely, nobody) was itching to get the latest issue of Inside the Fast Red eCompany Standard 2.0 Now, when it seemed as if the dreary drudgework of trade journalism could be webified into something brighter and shinier than it really was. Could there actually be sexiness in the meat and potatoes of business?

In my crated-up junk I may still have a VHS tape of a profile of me (as a web personality!) on ZDTV back in that golden age. That I was of interest to a TV show at all should have been the tipoff that something was seriously wrong. Somewhere in the course of that interview, I think you can detect the exact second when the effort to introduce some degree of hipness into what was essentially a dull business peaked and began to fall. It's all been downhill from there, and in fact the one well-lost casualty of the nineties was the delusion that cool-factor had much monetary value. But Z D gave it the college try, and has since been trying to stay afloat in the less glamorous but more honorable business of providing useful information. In honor of Chemical Marketing Reporter, Securities Industry Daily and all those other then-unreadable and now-defunct birdcage liners that kept me off the dole, I salute Ziff Davis.

Yet another study has just been released showing why California's new ban on driving with handheld cell phones won't work.

It's pretty clear to everybody by now that cell phones can and often do cause auto accidents. But opinions differ as to why: Is it because handheld phones take one of a driver's hands off the wheel, or because there's something about cell-phone conversations that is innately distracting? California's Legislature seems to think it's the former, while most studies, including one just completed by Carnegie Mellon University, show it's the latter.

Starting in July, it will be illegal for Californians 18 and older to drive while talking on a handheld cell phone, while drivers under 18 will be forbidden even from driving with hands-free devices. It's mystifying what this law's backers think it will accomplish. As the Carnegie Mellon study and others at the universities of Utah and Illinois have shown, it's the conversation itself that causes drivers to weave out of their lane or fail to see red taillights ahead of them. Researchers used brain imaging to show that simply listening to someone on the phone reduces the brain activity associated with driving by 37%. Many people find this counterintuitive — why should talking to someone on the phone be more distracting than talking to someone in the passenger seat? One answer is that passengers can sense when there's trouble on the road ahead and stop talking; also, the tendency of cell-phone signals to fade in and out requires extra concentration on the part of listeners.

California's new law will be a boon for cell phone companies and retailers, which will make a mint selling headsets and Bluetooth systems to drivers. But don't expect it to reduce the number of accidents.

USA-193, we hardly knew ye. Per Peter Spiegel's excellent L.A. Times piece this morning, the U.S. Navy's destruction of the rogue satellite last night was a ballistic hit, involving no explosives. With very high confidence that the hydrazine tank apparently at issue was successfully ruptured, we can say at least that this was an impressive technical feat, leaving little in the debris field larger than nectarine-sized Bush-bashing and mircometeoroids of conspiracy theory.

Which isn't to say the Future Imagery Architecture project isn't due for a swift kick. [See update below.] If you're not following Noah Shachtman's Danger Room blog at Wired, do yourself a favor. Shachtman's got what looks like launch-to-impact footage. Well, take a look for yourself:

Also of interest: A simulation from Analytic Graphics that seems to show the satellite was moving in a pole-to-pole orbit. I haven't followed this story that closely: Is that accurate? [No, it was not. See below.] And a history of the ambitious but costly intelligence project that produced the rogue.

Update: In an interview after posting, Gen. Kevin P. Chilton, commander of U.S. Strategic Command, corrected me on two points: USA-193 was not part of the FIA program. Also, the satellite was not in polar orbit but angled 58.5 degrees to the equator.

Asif Ali Zardari, husband of slain Pakistani leader Benazir Bhutto, calls for free elections and a U.N. investigation into his wife's murder, and Veronique de Rugy tears down President Bush's budget, billion by billion. Tim Rutten touts the generation gap as an antidote to identity politics, and cartoonist Signe Wilkinson watches America crawl by, dragging its military budget along. Meanwhile, journalist Kate Spicer chronicles her harrowing investigation into "the world of women who live on the fringes of an eating disorder":

The psychopathology of my immersion was intense and real; the more weight I lost, the more I wanted to lose. Progressing toward a physical ideal was empowering. London girls like myself -- but you can insert Paris, New York, L.A. or anywhere fashion and media have a fierce grip -- are especially prey to dieting culture. For ambitious perfectionists, being thin is the literal embodiment of success.

The editorial board celebrates the newfound civic enthusiasm in the 2008 presidential campaign:

The cynicism may be nearing an end ... huge turnout in many primary races, including the Super Tuesday contests in California and 23 other states, shows that the nation may finally have gotten over Watergate. As candidates from both parties relentlessly drive home the message that each will be an agent of change in Washington, voters have a glimmer of hope that they're telling the truth.

The board also warns the city not to close its doors as it makes plans to raise downtown density, and applauds Microsoft's bid for Yahoo as a chance to shake up the market.

Readers hail the city's law to require spaying and neutering of pets, though Peter Auerbach takes another view:

Although I agree with the need to control the animal population, I find this measure to be extreme. If all cats and dogs are spayed or neutered by the age of 4 months, where are the kittens and puppies of the future supposed to come from? Will out-of-area breeders be our only source? There are enough problems with puppy mills already. Let us try to reach a reasonable solution, not one so draconian.

If you still don't believe good old free-market capitalism is history's greatest engine of artistic creation, dig this wonderful work of Flash pop art from HEMA (or Hollandse Eenheidsprijzen Maatschappij Amsterdam), a chain of medium-low-price stores in the Netherlands. Who could complain about a system where some web-enabled Murakami in the Low Countries is willing to put togther something so entertaining just to sell you a three-dollar frying pan?

Courtesy of VeryShortList.

At ITWorld, Josh Fruhlinger, the award-winning Comics Curmudgeon (and once an L.A. Times contributor whose article now exists only in fragments in our pages but is still viewable in its entirety here), takes a jaunt through generic-domain-name history to discover a saga of defunct companies, foiled business schemes and web squatters. Sample:

eat.com: If music.com had real geek cred in its earliest incarnation, a cursory look at the 1996 version of eat.com might lead you to believe that it was a similar outpost on the new frontier of the World Wide Web. "Mama's Dining Room" is the page's name, and the text -- charmingly unformatted on a white background on a hideous gray background, apparently unedited by anyone professional, offering a variety of tasty Italian meals. Then you get to the verbiage at the bottom of the page: "Mama's niece Ana, the lawyer, wrote this next part: Copyright 1996 Lipton, Inc. All rights reserved. Ragú, Chicken Tonight, and Pizza Quick are registered trademarks of Lipton, Inc." Yes, eat.com was one of the world's first astroturfing sites! The current iteration of the site is a much more straightforward homepage for the Ragú brand, now owned, like the other Lipton brands promoted by the entirely fictional "Mama", by Anglo-Dutch megacorporation Unilever.

The saddest part is that the outdated nineties aesthetic on display at these old, archive.org-preserved versions still looks cool and hip and now to me. Whole article.

The editorial board continutes its series on American values and the next president with an installment on 'Life':

For all of the habitual attention to abortion and the death penalty, it's the weird cousin of the life issue that is the most intriguing from a societal standpoint. Last month's news that scientists in Japan and Wisconsin had modified adult skin cells to behave as embryonic stem cells seemed at first to have resolved this issue, but that's only true if you believe that the debate over stem cells, cloning and genetic modification is a subset of the debate over abortion. It is not. It is, or could become, the central life debate of our time, and depending on your perspective, the questions it raises are either exhilarating or horrifying.

The board also asks California's stem cell institute to clean house.

U.S. Atty. Gen. Michael B. Mukasey explains his proposed Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act fix. Jamie Court and Judy Dugan of the Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights say Proposition 93 isn't the way to reform term limits. Director Carl Byker describes the two Andrew Jacksons. And Lawrence Krauss and Chris Mooney ask which presidential candidate has the best grasp on the science of global warming and stem cells.

Readers react to The Times' Balkans coverage. See why San Diego's Branko Piliser says, "Your editorial shows a lack of knowledge."

The the UN's 12-day green-fest in Bali and Al Gore's co-acceptance of the Nobel Peace Prize have helped raise the heat on environmental policy. But there's smog hovering over that verdant hope — the political pressure has helped spark renewed interest in nuclear energy. IBM recently created a Nuclear Power Advisory Council, and as the San Diego Union-Tribune reports,

Spurred by concerns about global warming, a state Senate committee launched an inquiry yesterday into the potential of using nuclear power as a clean energy source.

Yesterday's special session in San Diego was the first time in two decades that the Senate Committee on Energy, Utilities and Communications held hearings on nuclear power, said Sen. Christine Kehoe, D-San Diego, the panel's chairwoman.

The key question facing the committee was whether nuclear power could help the state meet its goal of slashing greenhouse gases 80 percent by 2050.

“Before we talk about changing state policies, we want to find out what's going on in the world,” Kehoe said. “We haven't heard any information on nuclear power in 20 years.”

That's not a move The Times' editorial board favors:

The U.S. government allows nuclear plants to operate under a level of secrecy usually reserved for the national security apparatus. Last year, for example, about nine gallons of highly enriched uranium spilled at a processing plant in Tennessee, forming a puddle a few feet from an elevator shaft. Had it dripped into the shaft, it might have formed a critical mass sufficient for a chain reaction, releasing enough radiation to kill or burn workers nearby. [...]

...the U.S. government spends more on nuclear power than it does on renewables and efficiency. Taxpayer subsidies to the nuclear industry amounted to $9 billion 2006, according to Doug Koplow, a researcher based in Cambridge, Mass., whose Earth Track consultancy monitors energy spending. Renewable power sources, including hydropower but not ethanol, got $6 billion, and $2 billion went toward conservation.

That's out of whack.

Well, then ... tell us how you really feel.

The editorial board asks who pays Schwarzenegger's extravagant travel bills:

Arnold Schwarzenegger was already so rich, his supporters claimed, he wouldn't need to make political deals with campaign donors. Look, they said, he's not even going to take his salary! What a deal for California!

What a deal indeed. Instead of taking a salary, Schwarzenegger takes overseas trips that feature private jets and luxury suites. His purpose is ostensibly to promote California, but his expenses are paid by donors who want something from him, like a signature or a veto at bill-signing time. Those donors funnel their cash to the governor, in anonymity, through something called the California State Protocol Foundation. Because it's a nonprofit organization, campaign laws that limit how much contributors can give simply don't apply.

The board highlights positive developments in North Korean diplomacy, and wonders which industry will make a worse transition to the Internet age -- film or music. 

Columnist Jonah Goldberg explains why "Hillary" is no longer an "abracadabra word" for voters, but "Obama" is. Writer John Kenney has his JFK moment. Pew Charitable Trusts' Jane Danowitz says mining companies should pay the full price for extracting ore, rather than leaving taxpayers with the clean-up. And writer Matthew DeBord puts in his vote for turnstiles on the L.A. subway.

Letter writers react to LAX's close calls. L.A.'s Joan Winters asks, "[D]oesn't it make more sense to regionalize air travel in the L.A. area rather than expand the airport and get those bulldozers going on the north runway?"

At least four California universities applying for stem cell research grants from the Independent Citizens Oversight Committee might be knocked out of the running due to conflicts of interest. But instead of being your humdrum tale of conspiracies and backroom deals, the whole thing is starting to reek of multiple administrative brain farts. From the San Francisco Chronicle:

Although the grant application called for letters of support from the deans or department chairmen, the conflict-of-interest policy for the stem cell institute also specifies that its board members "shall not make, participate in making, or in any way attempt to use their official position to influence a decision regarding a grant ..." [...]

The apparent contradiction in the rulebook is the kind of problem that critics say was built into the stem cell initiative passed by voters in 2004. [...]

It remains unclear what will happen if the grant applications are rejected. One option, according to sources, is to simply have the four universities reapply at a later date - a delay of at least six months. Another option would be to reject all of the grants and have everyone update their applications because of the confusion regarding the letter-of-recommendation rules.

If the punishment doesn't seem to fit the crime, there may be a reason. The ICOC is still recovering from a conflict-of-interest controversy sparked this summer, according to The Scientist blog:

The conflict of interest occurred in August, when John Reed, a member of the CIRM's governing board, wrote a letter to Arlene Chiu, then CIRM's chief scientific officer, opposing the denial of a CIRM grant to a researcher at the San Diego-area Burnham Institute for Medical Research.

Reed, who is president and CEO of the Burnham Institute, wrote the seven page letter lobbying CIRM to reconsider its denial of a $638,000 SEED grant to David Smotrich, a researcher affiliated with the Burnham Institute but also the founder and president of a San Diego-area infertility clinic.... CIRM's conflict of interest rules prohibit board members from participating in any grant award discussions that involve their home institutions.

A state audit soon followed, along with calls for Reed and committee chair Robert Klein (who prompted him to send the letter) to resign. So in all likehood, the committee was a little twitchier than usual.

All the same, the four offending administrators are committee members and must have known about Reed's royal muck-up. At the very least, they should be familiar with the regulations — especially one so basic.

Which raises the question: Do we really want these guys in charge of millions of dollars of research money, anyway?

The social networking site may have caved and modified Beacon, a controversial advertising system, so that users can more easily opt out of it, but Facebook is still fending off flak over privacy violations.

Beacon sends information on users’ online purchases from participating vendors (like Overstock, Fandango and Blockbuster) to their networks of friends — which soon raised questions about how much information Facebook should be collecting on its users' online activity.

To be fair, the program might have escaped relatively unscathed had it not crashed the holiday party: Many users are still seething over having surprise Christmas gifts ruined, when the purchase stats were sent to the intended recipient. From The Times:   

Sean Lane, who joined the online protest after a surprise gift to his wife of a white gold and diamond ring from Overstock.com was broadcast to everyone in his Facebook network, posted on MoveOn.org's protest wall: "This is a pretty powerful feeling. Honestly, I didn't think that people could make changes like this through civil action. I am very proud to be a part of this!"

(So are people ticked off because the recipient knows about the gift, or about how much they paid for it?)

George Washington Law School's Jonathan Turley wonders how to punish a cruel cyber bully:

Megan was contacted on MySpace by a boy named Josh Evans.... Josh went into detail about his own difficult life and immediately struck a chord with Megan. For six weeks they corresponded. Then, when her infatuation was at its peak, Megan received a well-planned, well-timed blow. Josh suddenly told her, "I don't know if I want to be friends with you any longer because I heard you're not a very nice friend".... However, according to her father, the last message from Josh was the worst: "Everybody in O'Fallon knows how you are. You are a bad person and everybody hates you. Have a s----y rest of your life. The world would be a better place without you."

Megan fell apart. She went to her room, tied a cloth belt around a support beam in her closet and hanged herself.

Perhaps the only shock that could rival Megan's death was the news (given to her parents by a neighbor) that Josh had never existed -- he had been created by adults who lived nearby.

"Shock Doctrine" author Naomi Klein explains how global economic jolts push people out of the picture. And Milton Viorst writes in from Beirut to say that U.S. policy could push Lebanon into another civil war.

The editorial board asks Wal-Mart why it pursued a lawsuit against a severely disabled former employee for a relatively small sum. The board also advocates a shift in LAPD schedules from a three-day to a four-day work week. Finally the board remembers a time before Arnold Schwarzenegger set the fundraising record, when he promised to spend his own cash and avoid special interests.

Columnist Rosa Brooks says torture is the new abortion — that is, the new GOP candidate litmus test:

Not too long ago, judicial nominees and political candidates could expect to be grilled on abortion. As the Republican leadership became dominated by right-wing evangelicals, staunch opposition to abortion became a precondition for those seeking support from GOP insiders. Soon, abortion was a litmus test for both parties. Just as Republicans would oppose any candidate or nominee who supported abortion rights, Democrats would oppose anyone who wanted Roe vs. Wade overturned....

These days, you can forget that old-style GOP rhetoric about "values," "human dignity" and the "culture of life." Because the GOP has a new litmus test for its nominees: Will you or will you not protect U.S. officials who order the torture of prisoners?

Columnist Patt Morrison asks, who needs writers when you can have retro TV? UC Irvine's Peter Navarro points out that Yahoo is just one of many tech firms taking part in China's totalitarian ways. Williams College's James MacGregor Burns and Susan Dunn say Hillary Clinton has taken a page from the FDR campaign handbook.

The board praises Google's plans to create cell phone programs and denounces Pakistan's targeted assault on democracy advocates. Finally, the board says an overhaul of the tax code would do more good than sticking to the alternative minimum tax.

Readers react to a briefly considered plan to impeach Vice President Dick Cheney. L.A.'s Jon Krampner says, "Impeaching, convicting and removing Cheney from office would not only be the right thing to do, it would be popular."

The editorial board enumerates the reasons why there's more at stake in this writers strike than the one 20 years ago:

While the writers were walking the picket lines, however, consumers around the world were buying more than 1.8 million pocket-sized music and video players, 600,000 video game machines and countless video games to play on them. They picked up 2.1 million computers, 140,000 camcorders and 9 million cellphones, at least 1 million of them capable of tuning in video from the Internet.

Meanwhile, more than 14 million people spent up to two hours a day on MySpace, Facebook or other social networks, and more than 5 million spent about an hour, on average, watching video clips on YouTube....Put another way, consumers are rapidly equipping themselves to tap into entertainment sources that don't contribute a dime to Hollywood or the writers union.

The board says Southern California deserves more Proposition 1B money because its ports process more goods. The board also weighs in on the economics of the ports' clean trucks plan.

On the op-ed page, producer Marshall Herskovitz asks if the suits are ruining TV. The New America Foundation's Andrés Martinez says U.S. immigration policy is keeping talent out of the country. And Scott Olin Schmidt argues that USC sends the wrong message when it continues to honor infamous grad O.J. Simpson.

Local and non-local bloggers warm up to the fires raging throughout Southern California. Topics range from bad-taste wildfire cash-ins to who qualifies as a blogger (hang in there long enough and we may even get back to the old who invented blogging controversy), and there's some real public service going on as well.

The Fishbowl points out The Times’ continuous coverage, remarking,

The LAT's fire blog is exactly what newspapers will be doing with all breaking news coverage some day. And that's not a bad thing.

Thanks, we think. Meanwhile, a Times columnist finally gets his weblogging wings courtesy of Central City East:

Steve Lopez is even submitting his own photos, which in my opinion, by doing that, makes him a full fledged blogger.

Twitter Love gets kudos from Big Action for its role as

a valuable emergency communication tool.  People who probably had no clue about Twitter three days ago are using it to stay abreast of fire evacuations and the latest news. [...] Go Twitter.

LA Observed is also staying abreast of fire news, and posts a photo of a phenomenally dismal scene at Long Beach.

LA.com links to a post about a sushi chain that “turns tragedy into publicity”:

A good portion of the state of California might have been burning yesterday, but that doesn’t mean high-end sushi chain Nobu couldn’t turn tragedy into publicity by deciding to selflessly offer their delicious Miso Hamachi to Malibu firefighters looking for a little raw fish break from the flames swallowing the nearby homes. Nobu’s good deed was made even better by their just so happening to mention it to TMZ, who whipped up this cheeky little photoshop, slapped an “EXCLUSIVE!” on it, and gave it a hilarious headline (”Hottest Reservations In Town” - Get It?) for you to enjoy if your internet connection wasn’t on fire. Too bad the Tribeca Grill didn’t think of this during 9/11.

Laist.com wonders whether Orange County’s got the short end of the matchstick when it comes to resources, concluding,

The federal response is so shaky and unreliable that even Michael "heckuva job" Brown had the nerve to offer himself up for interviews on the fire response in a press release last night.

We may really have to reconsider California Secession after this.

While they urge readers to “keep this all in perspective,” the blog hosts another interesting post about the effects on LA sports teams:

- The San Diego Chargers are practicing in Arizona and may have to play their next game there, as over ten thousand evacuees are currently camping out in Qualcomm Stadium.
- Pepperdine's homecoming weekend was wrecked. Practices and games were canceled, and players returning from road games couldn't get back to campus.
- USC practices have been altered by the bad air quality.

Even Craigslist has jumped into the fiery fray, providing an all-purpose forum with everything form emergency information to lost-pet posts. Jason Burns at blogging.la:

Here's one entry that would make anyone tear up:

golden retriever found in santee < evacueedog > 10/23 19:52:47
we found a stray dog in santee golden retriever male looks like possible evacuee it drank three bowls of water and ate a bunch of food. call 858 414 1414.

It's fascinating, because it keeps updating. I can't seem to look away.

On a more human level, signonsandiego.com has also set up a blogspot not for news, but “A list of people, places and things to help San Diego live through and recover from the wildfires.”

From snarking at sushi restaurants to feeding lost pets, witness the power of the Web.

Remember last year when a flock of hipster towns were promising to provide free citywide wireless networks? Apparently financial issues have forced that idea out of fashion. From Sacramento and San Francisco to Houston and Chicago, Wi-Fi plans have been hitting snags or falling apart altogether.

That's a shame, since total coverage in our high-tech age would be a pretty valuable service. Is there a way for cities to provide wireless coverage?

But, as Tim Wu of Slate.com points out,

The basic idea of offering Internet access as a public service is sound. The problem is that cities haven't thought of the Internet as a form of public infrastructure that—like subway lines, sewers, or roads—must be paid for. Instead, cities have labored under the illusion that, somehow, everything could be built easily and for free by private parties. That illusion has run straight into the ancient economics of infrastructure and natural monopoly. The bottom line: City dwellers won't be able to get high-quality wireless Internet access for free. If they want it, collectively, they'll have to pay for it.

Establishing a citywide wireless hotspot is a matter of scale. Wu goes on to point out that Wi-Fi has succeeded not in high-tech metropolises, but in smaller municipal venues:

St. Cloud, Fla., a town of 28,000, has an entirely free wireless network. The network has its problems, such as dead spots, but also claims a 77 percent use rate among its citizens.

Business models and laws of scale aside, the San Francisco Chronicle says that clear purpose and tangible benefits also help:

The most popular uses that are motivating municipalities are public safety, remote worker access, meter reading and surveillance cameras. The city of Ripon (San Joaquin County) recently installed 71 Wi-Fi-enabled video cameras that allow police to monitor intersections and trouble spots remotely. Police officers using the city Wi-Fi network can pull up pictures from their cars and also broadcast live from cameras in their vehicles, allowing other officers to get a sense of what's happening at a specific location.

"What you'll find is cities are now selling the networks on things that are quantifiable, like public safety or public works," said Craig Settles, a Wi-Fi consultant. "You've got to establish that before you can pursue other social goals."

And apparently, in Minneapolis, the city's public safety wireless network took pressure off cellular networks and made rescue efforts easier following the August bridge collapse.

So perhaps, in the near future, those cities will be able to build public-access service from existing networks like these. Before giving up on the muni-Wi-Fi dream, cities should consider models like these. According to the Chron, leaders in the Wi-Fi industry

are backing off some of the talk of broad public access and bridging the digital divide. The more immediate goals are concrete applications and services that can be sold to cities looking to go Wi-Fi.

Despite the slowdown in the municipal Wi-Fi space, leaders say there is still a br