A couple strange instances of local governments responding to the contemporary backlash against slavery.
First, Los Angeles County recently requested that vendors not use the term “Master/Slave” (apparently common in computing parlance) in their dealing with the county (via Slashdot). A memo issued by the county reportedly included the following:

The County of Los Angeles actively promotes and is committed to ensure a work environment that is free from any discriminatory influence be it actual or perceived. As such, it is the County’s expectation that our manufacturers, suppliers and contractors make a concentrated effort to ensure that any equipment, supplies or services that are provided to County departments do not possess or portray an image that may be construed as offensive or defamatory in nature.
One such recent example included the manufacturer’s labeling of equipment where the words “Master/Slave” appeared to identify the primary and secondary sources. Based on the cultural diversity and sensitivity of Los Angeles County, this is not an acceptable identification label.
We would request that each manufacturer, supplier and contractor review, identify and remove/change any identification or labeling of equipment or components thereof that could be interpreted as discriminatory or offensive in nature before such equipment is sold or otherwise provided to any County department.

As one commenter noted, it’s nice that we’re finally emancipating hard drives.
Second, I read (via TalkLeft) that Lehman Brothers recently became the first company to file an affirmative acknowledgment under Chicago’s slavery disclosure ordinance. In case you missed the story on this, as I did, the Chicago City Council passed an ordinance last year which requires companies doing business with the city to disclose if it (or any of its predecessors) profited from slave labor.
According to ordinance initiator Alderman Dorothy Tillman, the law was intended to help consumers: “I believe people would like to know if a corporation they’re contemplating doing business with has its roots in trading in human cargo.”
Mayor Richard Daley clarified that the law would “not prevent companies from doing business with the city,” but that it would “shed a light on slavery.”
I fail to see what useful function this added paperwork accomplishes. If the city really wants to know more about slavery, they’d be better off sponsoring a historian. And how much do consumers gain in assessing 150-year-old corporate management practices?
Don’t get me wrong; I’m don’t believe slavery and racism are bygone American relics which can now be swept under the rug. But these kinds of superficial measures don’t really don’t get us anywhere, do they?
UPDATE: More on the Lehman Brothers situation (via Say Uncle). The issue has taken an even sillier turn as Ald. Dorothy Tillman is now going after current management. Furthermore, it doesn’t appear companies have been taking the disclosure requirement very seriously:

More than 2,000 slavery disclosure affidavits have been filed by city contractors since Feb. 4, when the landmark disclosure ordinance took effect. Lehman Brothers is the first company to admit that it found anything incriminating in its past.
“I don’t think it means that we’re the only firm that has that part in our history. It just means that we took it very seriously and we’re quick to disclose what we know,” Brown told the Sun-Times last week.

Exactly. I suspect there’s quite a few companies that have past ties to slavery, but no one’s wanting to admit it. The fact that several companies, including Lehman Brothers, are being sued over slavery likely is one reason for that.

Citizens Against Government Waste has awarded the Boeing Corporation its first annual “Corporate Turkey of the Year Award“:

“Boeing won more than $22 billion in government contracts despite an amazing display of corporate misconduct, ethical improprieties and irresponsibility,” Schatz continued. “After improperly obtaining proprietary information from numerous competitors and even the Pentagon, Boeing continued to win sweetheart deals from the government and rip off taxpayers.”

Business as usual in Washington–taking responsibility out of corporate responsibility.
UPDATE: Fittingly, Boeing fired its CFO today. Why? For unethical conduct in the hiring one of the Air Force’s senior procurement officers.
The revolving door between government and industry continues to churn, with taxpayer money greasing the skids.

John Dvorak writes that the supposed blogging revolution has gone bust. For instance, he notes the high blog abandonment rate:

The most obvious reason for abandonment is simple boredom. Writing is tiresome. Why anyone would do it voluntarily on a blog mystifies a lot of professional writers. This is compounded by a lack of feedback, positive or otherwise. Perseus thinks that most blogs have an audience of about 12 readers. Leaflets posted on the corkboard at Albertsons attract a larger readership than many blogs. Some people must feel the futility.
The problem is further compounded by professional writers who promote blogging, with the thought that they are increasing their own readership. It’s no coincidence that the most-read blogs are created by professional writers. They have essentially suckered thousands of newbies, mavens, and just plain folk into blogging, solely to get return links in the form of the blogrolls and citations. This is, in fact, a remarkably slick grassroots marketing scheme that is in many ways awesome, albeit insincere.
Unfortunately, at some point, people will realize they’ve been used.

Yeap. All these blogs I’ve been reading have set up an elaborate scheme simply to get onto Resonance’s coveted blogroll. Tricky.
Steve Taylor challenges Dvorak’s column, emphasizing the emergence of academic blogs. Of course many of us non-academics also continue to blog, albeit on a much lower stage.

. . . in more than one way. Talk about being caught in the act:

A man caught driving naked from the waist down while watching kiddie porn on his laptop has become the first man in Toronto charged for allegedly stealing an internet connection. Toronto police laid a theft of communications charge after busting a man driving in the residential High Park area, the wrong way down a one-way street, downloading child porn using stolen wireless internet signals.
The slow-moving car was pulled over around 5 a.m. on Wednesday by an 11 Division police officer who allegedly found the driver — with no pants on — watching a movie on his laptop of a 10-year-old girl performing fellatio on an adult.
Police allege the man downloaded the movie using an Internet connection he intercepted from a nearby house.

Via Wizbang.

This doesn’t sound good:

Kazakhstan, a former Soviet Republic in Central Asia and the world’s ninth-largest country, is oil-rich and pro-American, has an increasingly repressive government awash in corruption and a 47 percent Moslem population. Those are many of the conditions that have allowed radical Islam to take root in the Middle East.
The Bush administration, by appeasing Kazakhstan for its oil and accommodation of U.S. troops, risks contributing to the creation of a new Iraq or Afghanistan on a giant scale.
This is just the beginning of a plausible Central Asian nightmare scenario. Numerous other former Soviet republics, including Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Kyrkyzstan, are similarly ripe for Islamic radicalization in a region that stretches from Europe to China.
Should Islamic guerrilla warfare come to the area, American forces intent on fighting a “war on terror” could be drawn into battle in close proximity to Russia and China, in a resource-rich region where the world’s three largest nuclear powers are already jockeying for control.
. . .
By supporting such leaders or turning a blind eye to their misdeeds for the short-term use they can be to the United States, the Bush administration is encouraging another blowback.
The administration should demonstrate its commitment to democracy by becoming a vocal critic of autocracy and corruption in Central Asia. It should think twice before counting former Communist Party and KGB hands as its allies. Instead, it should support thousands of reformists throughout the region who, like Sergei Duvanov, are languishing in prisons unjustly or have been silenced through intimidation and fear.

Via Politics in the Zeros.