Faith + Reason = Truth

This may not win me many scientifically-minded friends, but expressing tightly held moral convictions isn't typically designed to do that anyway, is it?  Let me start by saying I strongly support President Bush's ban on federal funding for certain types of stem cell research involving certain human embryo classifications.  An embryo is human life and should not be destroyed, and it is that black and white to my sensibilities.  The recent announcement of possibly accomplishing some of the objectives of embryonic stem cell research through non-embryonic means illustrates that there is usually an array of options in life:  the simple path or the easy path, the right way or the wrong, the many or the few, the selfish or the altruistic, and so forth.
In my "day job," there are people who work with financial systems, which is another area that offers choices of possible solutions to problems.  Invariably, when a problem presents itself, there is a known "quick fix" that usually affects something else adversely if implemented, and that is contrasted against an unknown potential different path that could accomplish the same objective without adversely affecting other things.  Naturally, the people responsible for making the fix are inclined to go with what they know, fixing the problem, and dealing with the negative outcomes of that action when they manifest themselves; fortunately for the company though, there are other "non-fixers" involved in the decision making process who occasionally insist that another solution be discovered or invented, a solution that doesn't have the adverse impact on other processes.
And guess what?  The fixers ALWAYS come up with something that fits the bill:  it achieves the stated objective with no adverse impact to other processes.  If someone hadn't forced them to innovate (or at least think a little longer and harder about the problem), then they would follow the natural human tendency to go with what we know, do what works, and clean up the resulting messes later.  I see a striking parallel between this situation and the one involving the stem cell research.  Scientists want to take the ball and run with it, and understandably so, because they are after the solution that benefits the many at the expense of the few (if they even consider embryos to be humans at all).  And they obviously want sooner rather than later.  But by forcing them to look harder, think longer, innovate, etc., President Bush's policy may have resulted in a breakthrough by those very same scientists that will accomplish the stated objectives without destroying more human embryos, or more human beings, if you will.  These are tough choices to make, tough stands to make, but when dealing with moral issues and decisions such as this, it's far better to err on the side of protecting those who cannot protect themselves than to intentionally, unintentionally, or potentially commit acts and crimes against humanity that we are simply too ignorant to be aware that we are committing them.

See here for other posts under "Politics" if you're interested in that sort of thing.  The thing that spurred today's post is a poll that has Hillary Clinton with 50% of the approaching Iowa caucus, followed by Barack Obama with just 22%.  I have liked Obama's chances since February or so, and I have actually liked some of what he's said.  He also seems more believable to me than Clinton, although they are both masters of this game and would both probably do whatever they feel necessary to win.  In any case, those poll numbers stunned me, even though it's been a runaway in Iowa for a while now.  After thinking how this could be, it occurred to me that Iowa is just not a state that he would be expected to do well in, which begged the question, "which states COULD he do well in?"  Well, not New York - Clinton should have that locked up.  Florida, I would also think Clinton would have (I'm sticking with the big states here, since they determine the winner).  Texas could go to Obama due to the innate loathing of Clinton that most Texans have.  Illinois is Obama's home state, so I'll give that to him.  The rest of the states, I'm not really up on, so we'll call those a tie for laziness's sake.
Which brings us to California.  California was her solid beachhead, her main source of funding, and it's got ALL of those electoral votes.  Then Obama came along and quickly garnered substantial star power of his own, with Oprah Winfrey being the 800-pound gorilla in his camp (her sway with the entertainment industry, with women, and with African-Americans is simply beyond measure).  She's not the only Hollywood heavy on his side though.  I honestly cannot give California to either Obama or Clinton at this point, and will state for the record that the winner of that primary will be the Democratic candidate for President and likely the next U.S. President.  If I were those candidates, I would be spending at least one day a week between now and the February 5 California primary in the state and rely on my political machine to handle the rest of the numerous states holding primaries on that same day.
As astounding as it may seem, we should know the identity of the next U.S. President by the time we go to bed the night of February 5, 2008, less than 3 months from now and a full 9 months before the election (not to mention almost a year before he/she is inaugurated).  For those who prefer stability and planning, life doesn't get much better than that.

This post from me back on November 2 questioned Yahoo!'s dealings in handing over information to Chinese officials that resulted in the imprisonment of at least one 37-year old journalist (Shi Tao, as well as another case involving a Wang Xiaoning) for online writings.  Apparently the U.S. Congress hasn't taken too kindly to Yahoo!'s recent admissions, either, as an excerpt from this CNET post by Anne Broache reveals:

"Members of Congress on Tuesday showed almost no mercy for top Yahoo executives attempting to smooth over accusations about the company's role in the imprisonment of Chinese dissident journalists.

Yahoo Chief Executive Jerry Yang and General Counsel Michael Callahan endured nearly four hours of tongue-lashing from Democrats and Republicans alike on the U.S. House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee."

The lashing included the following commentary:

"'Look into your own soul, and see the damage you have done to an innocent human being and his family,' Rep. Tom Lantos (D-Calif.), the panel's chairman, told them at the hearing's close. 'It will make no difference to the committee what you do, but it will make you better human beings, if you recognize your own responsibility for the enormous damage your policies have created.'"

And I thought I was harsh and came down too hard on people sometimes!

Google's corporate site has a list of 10 Things about their philosophy.  No. 6 is "you can make money without doing evil."  If a Chinese citizen had avoided Yahoo! and instead stuck with Google for his internet dealings, he might not be in prison now.  The saga of Yahoo! handing over information to the Chinese government which ultimately led to the arrest and imprisonment of a man for his political views and writings on the internet has been unfolding for a few years now, but today's Financial Times has an update to the story including an apology from a top Yahoo! executive for not divulging to U.S. authorities everything they knew about the case:

"Michael Callahan, Yahoo’s executive vice president and general counsel, said in a statement ahead of a congressional hearing next week that he 'realised' that Yahoo had additional information about the nature of the probe into one of its users, Shi Tao, a journalist now serving a 10-year prison sentence in China, months after he testified that Yahoo had 'no information' about the investigation.
Yahoo has faced intense criticism for its involvement in the case because, according to US lawmakers, police in Beijing only found Mr Shi after Yahoo provided them with his e-mail account, IP address log-on history, and the contents of his e-mails."

Would things have turned out differently if the Chinese journalist had not used any Yahoo! properties?  Or would Google have also caved in to Chinese pressure?  Keep in mind that it's not merely the size of the Chinese market that drives these collusions with authoritarian regimes; these are actual people making decisions on behalf of their personal security and well-being.  "When in China, do as the Chinese police tell you to do" would be a wisely self-preserving policy, and I wonder who would actually be able to stand up to the Chinese authorities when faced with such a dilemma themselves?

Network Effects 101:  people like to go where the other people are when it comes to buying, selling, or communicating.  Right now, that place is Google search.  When you've got something to sell, and you need to set up search advertising, you will reach the most people by setting up shop with Google.  Most people stop there, because even though they know Google isn't the only game in town, they don't want the hassle of setting up shop with the other guys because they figure they'll be found by "most" or "enough" people with their Google search ads.

I think the only way to get these people on board (alongside of, rather than instead of, Google) is to go beyond discounting and even beyond free:  you could actually do it for them.  This would probably be a labor-intensive effort, but if you really wanted to grow your search ad business (and MSFT just spent a quarter of a billion $ to very loudly proclaim that yes, they really want to), you could click on people's Google search ads, land wherever it takes you, send that business an email that says "hey, I've just cost you $.50 by clicking on your add, and to make it up to you, I'd like to build you the exact same ad on OUR search ad network [MSN, Live, Yahoo, whatever] and spot you your 1st $5 worth of search ads on us.  We'll even shoot you an email when the $5 is used up to let you know how many people landed at your destination courtesy of our efforts and expense.  No contract or anything; if you do nothing, your ads on our network will simply stop running at no cost to you [and the people who find you on our network will no longer find you]."

Is there ANY way this tactic would NOT result in a significant increase in customers, since you would have overcome all barriers to their entry into your network with absolutely no cost or labor from them whatsoever?  I can't think of any.