Technology
Agriculture
Flummoxed Feds Freeze Out Frost Fix
Courtesy of the polar vortex, unseasonably cold temperatures came to a broad swath of the country, from Texas to Maine, last week, causing frost damage to crops and ornamental plants. (And snow in New York City’s Central Park on May 9). Cherry and other fruit trees are particularly susceptible, and losses ...
Blog
Is California Going To Open Without Newsom’s Approval?
Three California counties have earned the title of “free counties.” They “earned” the label for reopening ahead of Gov. Gavin Newsom’s announcement that Phase 2 of the statewide reopening would begin soon. Some small businesses outside of the “free counties” of Modoc, Sutter, and Yuba, so designated by Press California, ...
Blog
Innovation Champion No More
Much is always written about “innovation.” How to manage it. How to inspire it. How to benefit from it. How to create an environment where it blooms. So much lip service is paid to innovation that unfortunately many people tune it out. Certainly, ignoring the value of an innovation environment, ...
Blog
California Assembly Bill 5: An Update
Nearly three dozen bills intended to revise or repeal Assembly Bill 5, which restricts workers’ freedom and could potentially kill the burgeoning gig economy, have been introduced in Sacramento. Here is some of the latest, and most important, news about efforts to smooth over the malign effects of the law: ...
Blog
Worker Freedom No More
Love it or hate it, for a variety of reasons when California enacts public policy the impact is felt across the country. And so, it has been again with the January 1st implementation of California’s Assembly Bill 5 (AB5), the so called “gig employment” law that changes the worker status ...
Blog
CCPA, California Get It Wrong on Data Privacy
Data privacy is one of the defining public policy debates of the new decade. As other countries push data privacy regulation heralded as global standards, California is headed in the other direction with the rollout of the state’s Consumer Privacy Act, or the CCPA. Unfortunately, the CCPA was not a ...
Blog
A Ghost in the Machine?
In 1967 Arthur Koestler wrote The Ghost in the Machine, which was essentially a critique of the hypothesis that the human mind could be viewed as a machine, a sort of chemical computer. He went on to consider that if were a computer, then what of the metaphysical? That is, ...
Blog
When Protecting Privacy Reveals Secrets
The California policy gadfly is back with a new ballot initiative in 2020. Last year, San Francisco real estate developer Alastair Mactaggart used the threat of a ballot measure to all but force the state legislature to enact dramatic new privacy regulations that were not ready for primetime. Earlier this ...
Blog
California Should Embrace Internet Freedom to Ensure Future Innovation, Prosperity
Last month the D.C. Court of Appeals settled, for now, the question of how much freedom consumers will be guaranteed to make their internet experience the one they want. The Court upheld the current Federal Communication Commission’s Restoring Internet Freedom Order, which repealed the prior administration’s heavy-handed, 1930s-style regulation of ...
Blog
Meet the obscure federal interagency committee who keeps an eye on foreign investment and national security
The United States tweet first, tariff second trade policy against China continues to define American -Chinese relations. As both nations pursue the “Cold War light” escalation through tariffs, the United States continues to drum up new regulations to combat Chinese economic influence. One policy the federal government is embracing is ...
Flummoxed Feds Freeze Out Frost Fix
Courtesy of the polar vortex, unseasonably cold temperatures came to a broad swath of the country, from Texas to Maine, last week, causing frost damage to crops and ornamental plants. (And snow in New York City’s Central Park on May 9). Cherry and other fruit trees are particularly susceptible, and losses ...
Is California Going To Open Without Newsom’s Approval?
Three California counties have earned the title of “free counties.” They “earned” the label for reopening ahead of Gov. Gavin Newsom’s announcement that Phase 2 of the statewide reopening would begin soon. Some small businesses outside of the “free counties” of Modoc, Sutter, and Yuba, so designated by Press California, ...
Innovation Champion No More
Much is always written about “innovation.” How to manage it. How to inspire it. How to benefit from it. How to create an environment where it blooms. So much lip service is paid to innovation that unfortunately many people tune it out. Certainly, ignoring the value of an innovation environment, ...
California Assembly Bill 5: An Update
Nearly three dozen bills intended to revise or repeal Assembly Bill 5, which restricts workers’ freedom and could potentially kill the burgeoning gig economy, have been introduced in Sacramento. Here is some of the latest, and most important, news about efforts to smooth over the malign effects of the law: ...
Worker Freedom No More
Love it or hate it, for a variety of reasons when California enacts public policy the impact is felt across the country. And so, it has been again with the January 1st implementation of California’s Assembly Bill 5 (AB5), the so called “gig employment” law that changes the worker status ...
CCPA, California Get It Wrong on Data Privacy
Data privacy is one of the defining public policy debates of the new decade. As other countries push data privacy regulation heralded as global standards, California is headed in the other direction with the rollout of the state’s Consumer Privacy Act, or the CCPA. Unfortunately, the CCPA was not a ...
A Ghost in the Machine?
In 1967 Arthur Koestler wrote The Ghost in the Machine, which was essentially a critique of the hypothesis that the human mind could be viewed as a machine, a sort of chemical computer. He went on to consider that if were a computer, then what of the metaphysical? That is, ...
When Protecting Privacy Reveals Secrets
The California policy gadfly is back with a new ballot initiative in 2020. Last year, San Francisco real estate developer Alastair Mactaggart used the threat of a ballot measure to all but force the state legislature to enact dramatic new privacy regulations that were not ready for primetime. Earlier this ...
California Should Embrace Internet Freedom to Ensure Future Innovation, Prosperity
Last month the D.C. Court of Appeals settled, for now, the question of how much freedom consumers will be guaranteed to make their internet experience the one they want. The Court upheld the current Federal Communication Commission’s Restoring Internet Freedom Order, which repealed the prior administration’s heavy-handed, 1930s-style regulation of ...
Meet the obscure federal interagency committee who keeps an eye on foreign investment and national security
The United States tweet first, tariff second trade policy against China continues to define American -Chinese relations. As both nations pursue the “Cold War light” escalation through tariffs, the United States continues to drum up new regulations to combat Chinese economic influence. One policy the federal government is embracing is ...
