This was my first race, and I picked it because Dad, a lifelong runner, had this weekend free to run it with me. Miles for Moffitt is in its third annual running at the University of South Florida, and benefits the Moffitt Cancer Center which is affiliated with the university.

To get to the race in time to check in, we had to get up at six, roust the kids, pack the car, and go. Even though Dineen had set out everything the night before (including t-shirts for the kids she made saying “Run Daddy Run” and “Run Grandpa Run”) we got out the door a few minutes later than planned.

When we got to campus, we were amazed at the turnout. Just a few minutes before the close of registration, and there were still hundreds of runners in line to check in. Fortunately, Dad had gotten there early to pick up both our packs and he found me just as I got in line. Even so, they had to push back the start time 20 minutes because they had double the expected registration, mostly at the last minute.

Besides the 5K run, there was also a 1 mile walk/run. As we got our chips and went looking for an alternative to the long porta-potty lines, Dad and I saw a large number of runners or walkers who were there to honor a particular cancer victim or survivor.

We finally made our way to the starting area, and after what seemed like an endless wait, the horn blew and we were off. I knew that there would be a temptation to start faster than normal because of race conditions, and even though we tried to start our at a moderate pace, we did the first kilometer a bit faster than planned. It’s hard to have runners whizzing by on both sides and not try to keep up.

The first mile went pretty smoothly, flat and straight. Dad, who typically runs indoors on the treadmill, had been worried that the late start would make heat a factor, but we were both still doing fine. Our time for the first mile was 9:57.

The second mile, we started to see the hills we had been warned about. That part of the course runs up some long, gentle inclines, ones you wouldn’t even notice if you weren’t running on them. In the second mile and especially in the third, the incline became a factor. At the second mile mark, we had slowed to 10:22.

The last mile was one long hill, a short downhill, and then an uphill climb to the finish. The sun had come up over the trees and that started to bother Dad, while I was struggling with the incline. At two separate points we had to stop and walk for a minute, but we made the last turn major turn and then suddenly, saw what looked like the finish. Runners around us started their kick, and we did too.

At that point, I thought, “Wait, isn’t that the same place we started? I thought the finish was over by the parking lot?” But as the runners spread out and sped up around us, we kept kicking. Under the balloon arch, across the mat, and we slowed to a walk, along with several other runners.

“Keep going!” The volunteers pointed to the *other* balloon arch, about a tenth of a mile away. Wait, they sent us back through the Start, which looked just like the Finish, and didn’t warn us? We swore, and picked it back up to a trot towards the finish. I kept my eyes open for Dineen and the boys.

Across the mat, under the arch, for the genuine finish, and Dineen was on the side with her camera. The boys were excited to see us and we were happy we had made it. Final time, according to my Nike+, was 32:04, with a third mile split of 11:10.

Since this was my first race, my main goal was to finish, have fun, and spend time with family. I also now have a little bit better understanding of how these events work so that my next race (next week) I’ll be a little bit better prepared mentally. This race, then, was a huge success.

So she’s decided to give her $1.25 million mansion away.

Crazy? Don’t answer yet.

She’s having a contest, and the submission of the winning “Pet Lover” essay gets the house. Contestants have to write a 300-word essay and submit a “4×6 color photograph of the pet” in question, and… a $200 entry fee.

Still, $200 for a shot at winning a mansion? Could be a great deal. But here’s the catch. The contest only goes on if 6250 people enter. If not, she has the right to cancel the contest and return everyone’s application fees (minus a $20 “administrative fee” per Entrant.)

So let’s do the math. 6,250 entrants at $200 each yields - $1.25 million. (Hey! What a coincidence!) If the contest goes bust and she gets, say, only a thousand entrants, cancels the contest, and keeps the $20 administrative fee, that’s $20,000 (minus legal fees and postage, presumably.) And no matter what, this author gets a hell of a lot of publicity because she’s posted the contest information on her main web site where she hawks all her books.

Win-win-win, if you’re Giovannetti or her lawyer. I wonder if they came up with the idea, or, as seems more likely, they adapted it from something they found somewhere else.

I ran four miles. In a row. Without stopping.

On purpose.

No, there was no one chasing me. Near the end of February, I had taken the boys to watch a wrestling tournament at Brandon High School. (Yes, the same fateful tournament featured in The Streak.) Watching those matches, I felt some of the old competitive juices flowing again. What if I got back in shape? Could I maybe step back on the mat, reclaim a little bit of what I once had?

The first step was the hardest. I got on my running shoes, went out the door, and ran about two hundred yards before I stopped, wheezing and spent. But somehow, I kept going.

Week after week, I kept going out, building my endurance and distance. I’ve run in the morning, in the afternoon, in the evening; in town and on the road; once, I even ran with a hangover. As of today I’ve run more than seventy-five miles in about ten weeks.

What does the future hold? Next week I run my first race, a 5K, with my dad. The week after that, another 5K race.

After that, who knows? More miles.

(Mainly because all the good domain names are taken.)

Andy Carvin reports today that the students have lost their suit, when U.S. District Court Judge Claude Hilton (Eastern District of Virginia) granted summary judgment to the defendants [PDF document] on the copyright claims of the students.

Technically, I was wrong about the license issue: to be precise, the court found that the “users” (i.e., the students) had agreed to a “click-wrap” contract which waived all liability of any kind by the defendants. (Note that the school required the students to do so.) So, not an express license to use the work, but a prohibitive contractual provision nonetheless. The court relied on one argument, though, which I think could be subject to attack on appeal: in order to enforce the contract, the court had to find that the students got some “benefit” out of the contract — in this case, the fact that they would otherwise have gotten a failing grade from the school. I’m not sure that the school’s requirement that the students sign up for the “service” is the same as receiving a “benefit” of the service. This court also seemed unconcerned that this school - a public school - required the students to sign up for the “service,” except to say that the students’ redress would be against the school, not Turnitin.com.

I did say that fair use would be a problem for the students to overcome, and i was spot-on about that. The judge took a pretty thorough look at the fair use analysis (using the four factors I mentioned last time) and found that the copying in this case was fair use. Predictably, the court focused - as most do - on the fourth factor, impact on the marketability of the work. Finding that Turnitin.com’s use of the works had effectively no impact on the prospective market for the students’ papers (aided in part by the students’ own concessions that there was no real market for them) was tantamount to finding for the defendants on the question of fair use.

So, while it’s a disappointing result, the court’s decision would probably be difficult to overturn on appeal. Maybe it’s time to take up the court’s suggestion that the students seek redress against the school district for compelling them to surrender their intellectual property rights in their work. I’m just glad I’m not the lawyer who would have to argue that case.

Targeting Your Web Site: Accessibility Litigation Update

If you’re in Austin attending the South by Southwest Interactive conference this week, you’re in luck. I, along with my co-panelist Anitra Pavka, will explain how recent cases in the U.S. have changed the way disability law applies to private business websites, the potential pitfalls of violating the law, and some measures you can take immediately to make sure that your website is accessible for all users and fully complies with legal accessibility requirements.

(Room C at the Austin Convention Center, Level 1, 5:00pm, Monday March 10, 2008)

Common wisdom blames Ralph Nader for swinging enough Florida votes to cost Gore the election in 2000. The underlying assumption that Nader drained votes from Gore is just that - an assumption. Nader got voters to the polls who, in all likelihood, wouldn’t have bothered but for Nader. In the days running up to the 2000 election, I wrote:

there are a great number of Nader supporters… who would rather shave their eyeballs with a rusty blade than vote for Gore. Nader, like Jesse Ventura, appeals to many who would stay home otherwise. Without Ralph in the race, that six, seven, or eight point margin doesn’t shift to Gore - it shifts position on the couch and watches the whole thing on TV.

In this cycle, Nader’s supporters - while far less numerous - are less likely to be liberal Dems than truly out-there Green fringers. The folks who prefer Nader to Obama in this cycle are probably further on the fringe than Ron Paul supporters, and likely to believe that there is no substantive difference between Obama and McCain. (I know, I know. Hide the sharp objects.)

Nader gives Obama cover on his biggest vulnerabilities

Besides the attack on his inexperience - which hasn’t worked for Hillary and won’t work any better in the general - Obama’s biggest liabilities arise from his substantive positions on the issues. He’s one of the most liberal members of the United States Senate - in 2007, he even beat out socialist Bernie Sanders for the title of most liberal senator - and has several key policy positions that could hurt him in the general.

But Ralph Nader gives him cover in two ways. First, he makes Obama look like a moderate. Obama is liberal; Nader is anti-capitalist. Obama wants to regulate our economy; Nader wants to burn it to the ground. Obama thinks corporations are useful if properly restrained; Nader thinks them the root of all evil. And have no doubt about it - there are enough idiot savants out there, who, despite supporting Nader, are clever enough to put together a viral YouTube campaign that stakes out the very far left for Nader… leaving the “left-of-center” label for Obama.

But won’t Obama’s actual liberal positions prevent him from appearing too moderate? Not if Ralph has his way, and that’s point number two: Nader gives Obama cover by attacking him from the left. Even though few will support Nader by voting for him, many will hear his message that Obama is “no different” from McCain. That message will reach some percentage of voters, perhaps some in swing states, and will help inoculate Obama from attacks from the right on his liberalism. The effect may not be large, if but if it resonates with a handful of voters in the right states just strongly enough to blunt the “Obama’s too liberal” charge, it’s not hard to see that it could decide the race by relieving the consciences of centrists who might not otherwise vote Obama. Stranger things have happened in politics.

How to handle a Nader run

The good news in all this is that Democrats still suffer from Nader Derangement due to his perceived effect on the 2000 race. They will do everything they can to keep him off the ballots, even though that will not blunt his message one bit. This can play to the GOP advantage, because it gives the GOP cover to lump Nader in with Obama. “Why are the Democrats trying so hard to keep Ralph Nader off the ballot?” the 527 ads could say. “They’re afraid of him draining liberal votes from their liberal candidate.” Perhaps follow up with a laundry list of how Obama and Nader are exactly alike in various positions they support. Someone with more skill than I can take that theme and run with it. But the one thing the GOP cannot do is what they are currently doing - gleefully sitting on the sidelines with buckets of popcorn watching the left do battle. Someone needs to remind the public that Ralph Nader and Barack Obama are two peas from the same lefty pod.

(Cross-posted at RedState)

Once you pay the fee, though - or if you’re a lawyer on the case and get “one free look” - you can do anything you want with the document, because it’s considered public domain. That includes uploading it to public.resource.org, through their PACER recycling tool, so that anyone will be able to download the documents for free.

I’ve spent a few minutes looking through the site, and have even uploaded a few documents. Here’s what I’ve noticed right away:

1. They’re just getting started. Only a small percentage of recent cases are represented, with most cases having only one document available.
2. Unless you know exactly what you’re looking for, you’re not likely to find it. There’s no search function whatsoever, and Google doesn’t seem to get deep enough to index the documents themselves. But everything is organized by court and by case number, so if you have those two bits of information, you’ll know in seconds whether your documents are available.

I think this is a great idea, if a bit underdeveloped at this stage, and I wonder if it wouldn’t be possible for someone to produce a more complete archive using an ad-based revenue model instead of a nonprofit model. But in the meantime, if I need something from PACER, I’m pretty much resigned to paying for it.

Via Stay Violation.

I haven’t spent a lot of time writing about the primary this year, in part because until a couple of days ago, I still wasn’t sure who I’d want to vote for. Like past cycles, I began with a process of elimination.

First rule of thumb: Stop Voting For Evil. I will not vote for the “lesser evil” just because. If I cast my vote, it is a show of affirmative support. So, who have I ruled out as a contender for my vote? (Note: I’m registered as a Republican, and Florida has closed primaries, so I’ll only be discussing the GOP candidates here.)

I won’t vote for anyone who espouses an isolationist foreign policy. That eliminates Ron Paul, who effectively advocates that we disengage from the world and retreat to our own shores. I won’t today rehash why this is unrealistic, except to say that the United States by its very nature in entangled in world affairs and cannot reasonably disentangle itself. This is a global society, and we are a global player. Refusing to acknowledge this is not a sign of a reasonable candidate.

I won’t vote for someone if I don’t believe their current positions are sincere. That eliminates Romney. Running for president in 2008, he has tried to hold himself out as a social conservative, despite a decades-long record as a moderate on most issues that conservatives care about. His conversion may be genuine, but there’s no way to tell. And even though I don’t fall neatly into the conservative box, I won’t vote for a man who appears to have changed his stripes solely to suit the political landscape.

I won’t vote for fiscal populists, dropping Huckabee from the list. Huckabee is the worst of both worlds, issue-wise: he’s a nanny-stater on social conservative issues, and a tax-and-spend liberal on fiscal issues. I can’t think of a single issue on which I agree with Huckabee.

Who’s that leave? Ironically, the same two I was thinking about four years ago - Rudy and John.

What’s to like about these guys? Both are strong on national defense and practice fiscally responsible policies, and neither is known for taking a hard line on social issues that, to me, ought to be outside the purview of the federal government. Surely, neither one is perfect - McCain sees big holes in the First Amendment, Rudy takes a dim view of the Second - but as Ronald Reagan once said of his days as California’s governor, “If you got seventy-five or eighty percent of what you were asking for, I say, you take it and fight for the rest later.”

So after all this time, for me it has still come down to the Mayor and the Senator. I think I’d be equally happy with either administration - at least, pissed off only 10-20% of the time - but in order to pick one over the other, I now need to look at the tiebreaker: Electability.

Which of these two men is best poised to carry the Republican banner, and beat whichever liberal the Democrats put up this fall? Judging by the primaries, it’s pretty obvious that one candidate is better equipped to run for President than the other.

Rudy made a tactical decision to win the nomination by winning major primary states in which he was running strong - Florida being the first. His entire campaign strategy is built around him taking Florida, and winning it so convincingly that he’d easily mop the rest of those delegates. The only problem with that strategy is that it’s too brittle - lose Florida and it’s over. But there was a way to make it work: pour time, money, and energy into Florida, and convert those resources into votes.

So where has Rudy been? Now that the voting is already taking place he’s running some so-so TV ads, and he’s been making appearances in the state recently. But he completely failed to make waves here while the opponents - and apparently, all the media - were distracted elsewhere. Now, recent polls show him riding as low as third place, in a state he needs to win in a walk.

John McCain, on the other hand, has run for President before. He’s learned through bitter experience how to defend his campaign against the kind of political knife-fighting that derailed him in South Carolina in 2000 - and what he would likely face in the general against the Clintons. He’s managed to take a campaign that many considered dead a few months ago due to his position on certain immigration proposals and come back as a front runner if not the front-runner as the primaries approach their peak.

In short, John McCain can win the general election, and is more likely to win than any of the other choices the GOP could make. So, once again, I have voted for John McCain and encourage all prospective Florida voters to do the same.

This morning at mass, the last notes of the first hymn had just finished echoing through the church when Nate decided to add an Alleluia of his own: “Yay!”

He brought an extra shot of joy to the whole congregation on an already-joyous morning.

So on this Christmas, from Nate’s family to yours: “Yay!”

Kid’s Blog