Utah Open Source Planet

The trouble with pizza girls (and everyone else these days) is that they blog.

I love the internet and its bountious opportunities for citizen journalism.  Ten years ago you would never have heard this story.

A Quick Photoblog Update! Time for real specifics later, but other news includes 2 awesome upcoming events!

• Utah Open Source Conference (if your in the Utah area, see you there!)
• Desktop Search Hackfest in Berlin! (I’ll be posing more on my goals for the Hackfest later!)

New Posters From NPS!Our Tickets to Dave Matthews Band!

View From our new Place!

Sloshball!

Massive Utah Mountain Fire!

My brother Gabe wrote an interesting post highlighting how Google Trends searches show that Utah is a hotbed of Open Source. It reminded me that I haven’t plugged the Utah Open Source Conference that’s happening this week. This conference is something you don’t want to miss.  I think you can still get tickets.

If your business is still not leveraging open source, you need to stop by to meet some of the people that can help you make it happen.

Now, on a separate nerdy note, I wanted to echo Gabe’s post by pointing out some business terms in which Utahans have peculiar interest according to search data in Google Trends.  When it comes to industry related searches, we rank #1 for Multi Level Marketing, #2 in Outdoor Recreation, and #3 in Telemarketing.

Utah also does a disproportionate amount of searches for online business terms: we rank #1 for SEO, #2 for Internet Marketing, #1 for Web Analytics, and #2 for Internet Business.

Can you think of any other obvious top Utah searches?  I’m looking specifically for business terms; although searches for jello, meth, and vouchers are interesting in their own right.

I blogged that this was happening, and now it’s happened.  I liked David’s Garber’s summary of the Utah GOP’s delegate bait and switch so much that I got permission to post it its entirety:

———————————————-

It’s official! This morning, by a vote of 70 supporters to 12 opponents, Utah’s state Republican Party’s Central Committee voted to adopt a proposed new “standing rule” that would apply a new twisted interpretation to our party’s by-laws–an interpretation that will now bind our state’s set of Republican national delegates to vote for McCain rather than Romney on their first national convention ballot.

Here is the precise text of this new standing rule:

Standing Rule

This Standing Rule has been adopted by the State Central Committee of the Utah Republican Party and shall be a binding rule of the Utah Republican Party unless and until superseded by a change in the Constitution or Bylaws of the Utah Republican Party, or by a subsequent standing rule adopted by the State Central Committee expressly revoking or modifying this Standing Rule:

It is hereby ruled by the State Central Committee of the Utah Republican Party that:

1. An ambiguity exists in the meaning of “the candidate” as it is used in Bylaw 7.0 (B) that is sufficient to have generated public controversy among Party members over the meaning and effect of Bylaw 7.0(B); and that

2. Each reference to “the candidate” in Bylaw 7.0(B) is hereby interpreted to mean a person who is a candidate for nomination on the first ballot at the National Convention at the time of that ballot, according to the rules of the Republican National Committee and any rules adopted by the National Convention; and that

3. Bylaw 7.0(B) does not require that the Utah National Convention delegates and alternates be allocated to or bound to vote on the first ballot for a person who does not meet the definition of candidacy defined in part 2 of this Rule; and that

4. Bylaw 7.0(B) does require that the Utah National Convention delegates and alternates shall be allocated to and bound to vote on the first ballot for “the candidate” as defined in part 2 of this Rule, who has received the most votes of the statewide vote in the Utah Republican Presidential Primary.

RULED this 23rd day of August, 2008, by the State Central Committee of the Utah Republican Party, meeting in South Jordan, Utah, in the presence of a quorum.

Funny that they never noticed this “ambiguity” before–they seemed pretty clear about what it meant during our state convention when they tried to have this rule suspended.

I wrote this story for some friends on MySpace to try to explain what happened:

Utah’s GOP Leaders Defeat Utah’s GOP Rules

This morning marked the end of a long war between Utah’s GOP leaders and Utah’s GOP voters/delegates/rules over whom our national delegation will support at our national convention next week.

Utah’s GOP Primary: “Okay, it’s time to vote, Utahn Republicans! Which of these candidates do you prefer to become your next President?”

Utah’s GOP Voters: “Well, 89% of us reckon that we prefer that conservative-talkin’ LDS guy with the nice hair!”

Utah’s GOP Rules: “According to us, based on these primary election results, Utah’s Republican national delegation will be bound to cast 100% of their votes for Romney on their first national convention ballot in September.”

Mitt Romney: “Meh, my Presidential campaign is hopeless, with McCain’s friend Huckabee drawing votes away from me. So, I’m suspending it and becoming McCain’s biggest cheerleader, instead. *buttsmooch* I now want all of my national delegates to vote for McCain to the extent that the law/rules will allow. Now, what is thy bidding, my master?”

John McCain: “Muhahahahahahaha!!! Now, more than 51% of all national delegates will be voting for me! Next, I want to assimilate the other 49%, as well, so that I can enjoy a big everyone-loves-McCain-fest in September. Hey, Utah, gimme yours!!!”

Utah’s GOP Rules: “Sorry, McCain, but we don’t allow that–they’re bound to Romney, as the voters decided, and that’s final.”

Utah’s GOP Leaders: “Whoa, not so fast, you darn rules! No worries, John, we won’t let those pesky rules stop us from getting you whatever it is you want. Hey, state delegates, we need 2/3 of you to vote to suspend these annoying party rules so that our national delegates can be free to vote for McCain, instead.”

Utah’s GOP State Delegates: “Wait, you want us to throw out our rulebook and nullify our primary? Just to please that awful McCain?! HECK, NO!!!”

Utah’s GOP Leaders: “Dang, this won’t be as easy as we’d hoped. Darn those state delegates! Why must they be so devoted to those silly party rules rather than us? Hmmm, we need a different strategy to deliver those votes to McCain…”

Utah’s GOP Rules: “Forget about it, guys. As long as it’s up to us, Utah’s national delegates MUST cast their first set of ballots for whichever candidate received the most votes in Utah’s primary election. And that was Romney by a landslide. Sorry.”

Utah’s GOP Leaders: “Hey, that’s it!!! We’ll just redefine what the meaning of the word ‘IS’ is! Er, ‘candidate.’ Let’s see, hmmm… Let’s say that ‘the candidate who received the most votes in our primary election’ does not apply to candidates who suspend their campaigns once the primary election is over! So, although Romney was initially ‘the candidate who received the most votes’ with 89%, since he suspended his campaign, he no longer counts–and, so, McCain has now became ‘the candidate who received the most votes’ with only 5%. Once we pervert these rules, those darn rule-respecting Utahns can follow them AND still give us what we want! Why didn’t we think of this devious scheme sooner?!”

Utah’s GOP Rules: “Hey, that’s not what those who wrote us meant to…”

Utah’s GOP Leaders: “SHUT UP!!! You’ll mean what we say you mean! Now, central committee, we need you to vote to approve our new screwy interpretation that we’ve invented so that it will serve as a new standing rule for our party.”

Utah’s GOP Central Committee: “Okay, 85% of us say, hey, whatever you want, boss.”

Utah’s GOP Leaders: “Hurrah, we won!!! Eat that, voters and delegates! As you can see, your votes only count when we like the outcome. We, not your silly rules, are the supreme power in this party! Bwahahaha!!!”

So, in less than two weeks, despite the fact that 89% of Utah’s Republican voters wanted Mitt Romney (not Juan McCainnedy) to be their next President, and despite our party rules that we all assumed would bind our national delegation to support our primary election winner, our national delegation will presumably vote for McCain, instead, thanks to these underhanded machinations of our party leaders.

I’m tempted to produce some sort of flier about this subject, mass-produce it, and then deliver a copy of it to every likely voter in my area. Unfortunately, I’m too broke at the moment to spend much at any copy centers. But I hope that some of y’all will consider doing something like this, though. Our Republican neighbors need to know what schmucks are running their party and, unless they hear it from us, they may never hear it at all.

———————————————-

I also liked these comments from Lowell Nelson:

The new “standing rule” passed 70 to 12. It binds the Utah delegation to the convention-election candidate who received the most votes in the primary election. But it was introduced as a clarification (not a change to a bylaw), and passed with a simple majority instead of the two-thirds required to amend a bylaw. Dishonest. Lacking integrity. Sad day for the GOP and the Utah electorate…

Thus, in my view, party leadership was able to CHANGE Bylaw 7B WITHOUT proper notice and WITHOUT requiring a 2/3 majority vote. In doing so, they arbitrarily determined that the second-place finisher in the primary was also the second choice of the electorate (which is illogical to me). Effectively, this change repudiates the will of 265,000 Utah Republican voters and a majority of the state delegates, and replaces it with the will of a relatively few party leaders.

It wouldn’t have been so bad if delegates had been released to vote for whomever they liked, but this political chacanery to force Utah GOP delegates to vote for John McCain (who got less than 5% of the vote) is nothing short of political BS. Worse still is that the results of this “standing rule” created as result of political expedience will have long-reaching effects perhaps not considered by the State Central Committee.

Looking for work has actually been kinda fun. I get the feeling it has something to do with looking at the right time, being in the right place and having the right skill sets.

I’ve known that Utah was a hot-spot for tech and I assumed it was a great place for Open Source hackers. This post over at Pingdom seems to confirm my suspicions. The point is that no matter what Linux or Open Source topic you pick, Utah tends to be at the top of that search trend. Try it: Linux #1, Kernel #2, BSD #2, GNU #2, GPL #1, Apache #1, Postfix #1, Bash #1, Python Scripting #3, Asterisk #1, IPTables #1, Cron #1, MySQL #1, PostgreSQL #1… As you see, I could go on and on. I don’t know what can really be learned from those rankings, but one thing is sure - there is a lot of local interest in Open Source.

Just for fun, let’s see how Utah does for 5 random words. Thinking… taco (not in top 10), printing (not in top 10), ear plugs (not in top 10), drills #9 and microwave (not in top 10). Well, I’m glad I’m not selling drills door-to-door.

Also, I find it interesting that while I’ve been looking for different types of work (in this order: consulting, contracting, business opportunities and full-time work), nearly everyone I’ve interviewed with wants full-time employees. They say that although business is down a little (economy, or whatever), they’re all mostly cookin’. I say, good for them, good for Utah and good for me. ;)

We'll be holding the CTO Breakfast next week on Thursday at 8am in conjunction with the 2008 Utah Open Source Conference. You don't have to be going to the conference to attend the breakfast, but I do have discount codes available for CTO Breakfast attendees. Contact me if you're like one.

The Utah Open Source Conference 2008 will be held at the Salt Lake Community College, Redwood Road campus from August 28 - 30, 2008. We'll be meeting in rooms 221/223 of the Student Center (SC) at the Salt Lake Community College (Redwood Road campus). Here's a map that shows where to park. There is food on campus near where we'll be meeting so you can pick up breakfast.

Even though the venue is different, we'll be doing the same thing: talking about cool technology, building high-tech companies, and what's hot. Come join us.

Here's the schedule for the next several meetings:

• August 28 at UTOSC
• Sept 26 (Friday)
• Oct 30 (Thursday)
• Dec 5 (Friday) - Combined Nov and Dec breakfast

Please mark your calendars.

Remember that you don't have to be a CTO to come. Anyone interested in product development in high tech is welcome.

Tags: utah cto breakfast open+source UTOSC

The Deseret News is reporting that Governor Huntsman has ordered the Utah State Department of Commerce to monitor gas prices.

That’s just politics as usual, but I’m alarmed by how many people here in “conservative” Utah are commenting that they want the government to step in and “do something” rather than just “monitor”. It’s like we’re all living in some fantasy land where socialism works…

Attention people: price controls only ruin your quality of life. Prices that are artificially low cause shortages, and shortages mean hoarding, rationing, and long lines at the pump. Some days you just won’t get any. Do you seriously want that?

We should be thankful that the State is only “monitoring” for now. Ideally it wouldn’t be monitoring at all, because that’s a slippery slope –especially because political motives are involved. Plus, “monitoring” could be easily be done by an activist group or a not-for-profit –and they could do it without spending your tax money. That said, I will be interested to read the DoC report; I just wish it were generated by someone else and on someone else’s dime.

By the way, where were the government monitors a couple months ago when Utah enjoyed the lowest prices in the nation?

Prices fluctuate. If they’re unfair to either party, the market will insure that they become fair. That’s how free markets work. No intervention is necessary; in fact, intervention is almost always counterproductive.

Utah, the nation, and the world need a healthy dose of Econ 101. We shape our governments by our will, and if the voting public is ignorant of basic economics, our stupid will may well lead to our own demise.

I highly recommend Sowell’s Basic Economics: A Citizen’s Guide to the Economy to anyone who wants an excellent treatise on economics, especially as it pertains to government.

As an effort to help other community conferences in Utah and to help our overall technology Mecca, I’d like to invite anyone/everyone attending the Utah Open Source Conference 2008 to consider also attending the newly formed WordCamp Utah.

This one day event, held Saturday, September 27, 2008, is the latest project from our very own Joseph Scott, who will be presenting on WordPress Performance and Scalability at UTOSC 2008, has been hard at work planning and prepping for what will become the Inaugural WordCamp Utah.

If you are a Wordpress user as I am, it would be in your best interest to come down to the Open Source Technology Center at Novell and listen to such presenters as: Matt Mullenweg, Founder of Wordpress/Automattic, Alex King, wordpress developer and theme creator extraordinaire and many others.

We at the Utah Open Source Foundation have been working to help other local conferences succeed as well.  In the true nature of open source, competition makes everything better.  We look forward to your attendance at UTOSC 2008 and hope you will consider attending WordCamp Utah as well.

I thought these emails were insightful as to the way the insider politics work in the Utah GOP:

—–Original Message—–
From: Ivan DuBois [mailto:idubois@utgop.org]
Sent: Thursday, August 07, 2008 8:15 PM
To: Utah Republican Party
Subject: State Central Committee Issue
Importance: High

Dear State Central Committee Member:

Today we received a written request from State Central Committee member Mark Shurtleff to give our National Delegates some flexibility at the National Convention regarding the Utah vote.  (His modified State Convention Resolution is below for your reference).  He is asking that the State Central Committee allow the delegation to consider and fulfill the wishes of Mitt Romney, the winner of the Utah Republican Presidential Primary with over 90% of the vote.

I have had many discussions with the Romney campaign on this issue.  They are firm in their desire for their delegates to be released.  (See the attached Letter from Mitt Romney).

The Utah Republican Party Constitution does not address the issue of rebinding delegates once a candidate has withdrawn and asked to have their delegates released.  To research this issue, I have spoken with the RNC to find out how other States are handling similar situations.  I have also studied the Utah Republican Party governing documents, RNC Rules, Utah State law, and our Parliamentary Authority - Roberts Rules of Order, Newly Revised.

I have concluded that our National Delegates can be released, in part because no harm will be done to the affected party (Mitt Romney). In fact, this action is in response to his request. This procedure will be consistent with how other State Parties have handled this issue, according to the RNC.

I am asking for your support of my finding to allow Utah’s National Delegates to be released from voting for Mitt Romney at the Republican National Convention.

The State Central Committee is the governing body of the Party so your advice and consent is very important on this issue.  I would like to request that each State Central Committee member review this information closely and then respond to this e-mail.  Please provide your feedback on my decision by tomorrow, Friday, August 8 at 5 p.m.

Respectfully,

Stan Lockhart

P.S. If we are unable to come to an agreement electronically, we will need to address the issue at a State Central Committee meeting on Saturday, August 23, 2008.
_____________________________________________________________

RESOLUTION REGARDING RELEASE OF UTAH’S NATIONAL

CONVENTION DELEGATES

WHEREAS, Governor Mitt Romney was the candidate receiving the most votes of the statewide vote in Utah’s February 5, 2008 Republican Presidential Primary;

WHEREAS, Senator John S. McCain was the candidate receiving the second most votes of the statewide vote in Utah’s February 5, 2008 Republican Presidential Primary;

WHEREAS, Governor Romney has since withdrawn from the 2008 Presidential Election;

WHEREAS, Governor Romney has endorsed Senator McCain;

WHEREAS, Governor Romney supports Senator McCain’s candidacy for President of the United States of America;

WHEREAS, Governor Romney has respectfully requested that Utah’s National Convention Delegates attending the 2008 Republican National Convention in Minneapolis, Minnesota cast their votes for Senator McCain. In particular, in his February 29, 2008 letter to Utah Republican Party Chairman Stan Lockhart, Governor Romney wrote:

“Because I am no longer a formal candidate for the presidency of the United States, please consider this an official release, to the extent allowed by party rules and state law, of all delegates bound, committed, or otherwise pledged to vote for me at the 2008 Republican National Convention. I strongly encourage all released and uncommitted delegates to cast their votes for Senator John McCain at the Convention.”;

WHEREAS, the Utah Republican Party desires to respect Governor Romney’s request;

THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED that Utah’s National Convention Delegates attending the 2008 Republican National Convention are released from voting for Mitt Romney.

LET IT ALSO BE RESOLVED that we give the delegation the decision making ability to vote for John McCain.

Respectfully submitted,

Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff

Here are some excellent responses.  This one is from Don Guyman:

Stan,

With all due respect this request is completely out of order.

1) Where in the rules does it allow our delegates to be unbound? Utah voters went to the polls and voted by over 90% for Mitt Romney. These same voters gave John McCain 5% of the vote. According to our rules our national delegates are bound to Romney on the first vote. It is not fair to the Utah voters who went to the polls to vote for Romney to suddenly change the rules after the vote has been taken.

2) This same proposal was presented to the state convention delegates who voted to table the matter.

3) There is no provision in the C&B for electronic voting. This process is out of order.

4) Through the email process there is no room for debate of delegates. Only one side is being presented.

We can spend all of the money we want on ad campaigns, but if we are not viewed as a party that can be trusted we will eventually lose political power in the state.

With all due respect, I ask you to reconsider your motion.

This one is from Rob Alexander:

Dear Utah Republican Party Executive Committee,

The proposal by Chairman Lockhart and Attorney General Shurtleff to release Utah’s national Republican delegates from voting for Governor Romney on the first ballot is an egregious violation of the rules, especially the way it is proposed to do so. The Utah Republican Party Constitution does not address the issues of binding or releasing national delegates. The Utah Republican Party Bylaws clearly state the following:

7.0 CONVENTIONS AND ELECTIONS

B. Allocation and Binding of National Delegation. All National Convention delegates and alternates shall be allocated to the candidate receiving the most votes of the statewide vote in the Republican Presidential Primary. On the first ballot, the national delegation shall be bound to vote for the candidate who has received the most votes in the Republican Presidential Primary, but the delegation shall not be bound on any subsequent ballots.

Also, we delegates at the state convention resoundly booed Chairman Lockhart when he requested extra time to speak in favor of releasing the delegates from Governor Romney. I believe we delegates voted to table the matter not because we wanted it brought up by the State Central Committee at a later time, but because we wanted to end discussion on the issue.

Further, as National Delegate Guymon mentioned below, there is no provision in the Utah Republican Party Constituion or Bylaws for electronic voting, thus making the proposed process out of order.

As such, I respectfully encourage each of you to request that Chairman Lockhart and Attorney General Shurtleff withdraw their motion.

Thank you,
Rob Alexander
REPUBLican State Delegate, Salt Lake County
REPUBLican Candidate for State Representative
Utah Legislative District 35
http://voterob.alexanderfamily.org

This one is from Lowell Nelsen:

Thank you for asking, Stan.

Here are three quick reasons (not exhaustive) why Mark Shurtleff’s request should be denied:

1. As you said, our party constitution does “not address the issue of rebinding delegates once a candidate has withdrawn and asked to have their delegates released.” It does, however, clearly indicate that the votes of our delegates in the first round be given to the candidate who received the most votes in the Presidential Preference Primary (regardless of the status of that candidate). Therefore, our delegates must remain bound to Mitt until after the first round of balloting is concluded. This is a “rules” issue; we must follow the rules.

2. This question essentially was answered at the state convention when, by a super majority, state delegates voted to table the motion to unbind our national delegates from Mitt Romney. For the State Central Committee to reverse the decision of the convention would be a breech of the trust placed in the committee by county parties and Republican delegates throughout the state. This is a “trust” issue. First, the electorate of Utah said that Mitt Romney should receive 36 votes in the first round. Second, the state convention (composed of roughly 3500 state delegates) said that Mitt Romney should receive 36 votes in the first round. Is the State Central Committee (SCC) so brazen as to repudiate those two referenda and just do what it darn well pleases?

3. In our party constitution, Article IV, Section D, we read the following: “Quorum. In order to conduct binding business, the State Central Committee must have a quorum in attendance, defined as 40 voting members.” (This clause is echoed in the bylaws, Article II, Section B.) These two words, “in attendance,” clearly implies that a meeting (something that can be attended) be held in order to conduct binding (or unbinding, in this case :–) business. Therefore, putting forth this resolution is out of order. No provision is made for the SCC to meet, establish a quorum, debate, and vote (conduct binding business) electronically.

Please withdraw the motion/resolution.

Thank you. Lowell.

I couldn’t agree more with these last three.  This back-door motion should be offensive to Utah State Republican Delegates who already voted on the matter in convention.

Why are Utah GOP insiders so anxious to show support for John McCain that they would disregard their own bylaws and trample the will of their own state delegates?  Politics are supposed to be from the bottom up, not the top down.

By way of reminder, the Serenity Foundation's first quarterly National Bloggers' Blood Drive is tomorrow. The Utah drive will be at the Twelve Horses office, 13961 South Minuteman Drive, Suite 125 in Draper, between 3 and 8 PM.

A few days ago I said that we wouldn't be holding a CTO breakfast in August. I was wrong. In fact, we'll be holding the breakfast on August 28 in conjunction with the Utah Open Source Conference at Salt Lake Community College. Please mark your calendars.

If you're a regular breakfast attendee, I have discount codes for UTOSC that I can give you. Just send me a note.

Tags: utah events open+source cto breakfast

We're doing the July CTO breakfast a little early this month because of Pioneer day. For those of you not familiar with Utah, Pioneer day is a state holiday on the 24th of July and it's a pretty big deal. Celebrates the day the first pioneers entered the Salt Lake Valley in 18481847.

We'll do the usual thing on Friday. Anyone with an interest in technology products and companies it welcome to come. Hopefully Phil Burns will come and we can get into heated discussions about the iPhone. :-) If you've got other things you'd like to discuss, bring them up.

There's no breakfast in August. After that, here's the schedule:

• Sept 26 (Friday)
• Oct 30 (Thursday)
• Dec 5 (Friday) - Combined Nov and Dec breakfast

Here's a Google calendar for the breakfast.

We'll meet in the Novell Cafeteria (Building G) at 8am and go until 10am. I hope to see you there.

Tags: utah events cto breakfast

I'm spending the first part of this week at Velocity so I'm sure I'll want to talk a little about that. If you've seen something fun or cool in the last month, come and talk about it.

Here are the times for future meetings. Put them on your calendar now!

• July 18 (Friday)
• No breakfast in August
• Sept 26 (Friday)
• Oct 30 (Thursday)

Or, just subscribe to the Google Calendar.

Tags: cto breakfast utah event

I had the opportunity to see the Cannon, Leavitt, and Chaffetz campaign speeches at both the Utah County and Utah State Republican Conventions.  When it became clear through successive rounds of voting at the state convention that David Leavitt wasn’t going to win and that even Cannon would probably lose outright to Chaffetz at convention, all sorts of funny business started happening. It was like watching a large wounded animal give its last throws of life before submitting to defeat.

So what did Cannon do?  He colluded with Leavitt to get the votes of Leavitt delegates, which by itself is fine; but in order to get the message to Leavitt supporters, Cannon and Leavitt broke party rules against signage in the conference center twice: the first time by having Leavitt volunteers march right through the convention holding giant Cannon signs, and second by hanging a large handwritten sign that said “Leavitt supports Cannon” at the top of the stadium.  Both acts received tremendous booing from the audience and calls from the Chairman to maintain order and cease the disruptive behavior.

It struck me to see how unprincipled and disparate the two losing major republican candidates really were.  But in the end they got their message across.  The final vote after Leavitt was eliminated was 59% for Chaffetz and 41% for Cannon, with Chaffetz lacking only 9 votes from the 60% required to win the republican nomination outright.

And so, the vote went to primaries, where money and name recognition generally give a major boost to incumbents.  Those primaries are today, and polling suggests that the nomination could go either way.  I’m going to vote for Chaffetz, and if you’re a registered Republican in Utah Congressional District 3, I hope you do too.

Although I didn’t agree with the whole thing, here are some gems from the Chaffetz speech (video):

I believe the best hope for our people, for our families, is to return to those core conservative principles of fiscal discipline, limited government, accountability, and a strong national defense.  We’ve abandoned those principles…  Republicans had the house, the senate, and the presidency, and quite frankly, we blew it.  We did not do the heavy lifting on the issues that matter most.

When Mr. Cannon took office, the budget was $1.5 trillion.  Today it’s $2.9 trillion.  That’s unacceptable, and we cannot sustain that.  We have a $9.3 trillion debt.  Last year alone we paid $429 billion of interest on that debt.  That cannot stand.

Mr. Cannon voted in favor of No Child Left Behind.  I want to repeal No Child Left Behind; there should be no Department of Education.

Here’s my favorite misleading statement from the Cannon campaign video:

[Chris Cannon]  has told the Federal Government to stay out of our schools.

Well, Cannon may have told the Federal Government to stay out of our schools, but that’s certainly not how he voted.  No Child Left Behind meddles with our schools in unprecedented ways.

If you want to do a last minute check on the issues, here is the Chaffetz platform.

Incidentally, you are also allowed to vote between Mark Walker and Richard Ellis for as the Republican nomination for State Treasurer.  See their campaign speeches here and here.

Get out and vote!

The city council voted tonight to sell iProvo to Broadweave. The vote was 4-3 in favor, with members Stewart, Richards, Dayton and Johnson in favor, and members Turley, Clark and Hall-Everett opposed.

The final sale doesn't close until the 30th, but at this point it looks like pretty much a done deal.

The Utah Open Source Conference is calling for presentations. If you've got something you've always wanted to tell the world about open source, this may be your chance! Sign up on the Web site and submit your presentation idea now. The deadline is June 1st.

Tags: utah events open+source

It looks like the iProvo resolutions are on the agenda for next Tuesday's City Council meeting. There's a special note at the top of the agenda indicating that the meeting begins at 5:30 PM, rather than the more common 7:00. That's not surprising — it's a very full agenda, and the last meeting with only the iProvo resolutions ran for some 5 1/2 hours.

Larry H. Miller, owner of the Utah Jazz, numerous car dealerships, and a member of the v|100 spoke at today's lunch. Here's a few note son what he said.

He starts with two words of advice: don't stampede. Moving too fast causes you to dilute yourself. It's good to branch out, but doing it too fast will cause you to be ineffective. You have to learn how to run one unit that you manage yourself and can control before you branch out. That will cause you to manage differently. You then have to sell them the vision. Develop the base, then grow.

There's a difference between management and leadership. Either can be both, but by no means are they. In any organization, you have managers who occasionally need to manifest leadership and they fail. Management is making decisions by the numbers. Leadership requires understanding the numbers, but entails selling the vision to others. Businesses with more than one person require that others catch the vision. People need leadership.

When you start a business, you should recognize what it is that you're a part of. We function in a system that provides us opportunity and support. The system has flaws, but the free enterprise system is a special and marvelous thing. The only way it can continue is to use it effectively and correctly, teach others how to use it, and finally give back. We can't ever assume that free enterprise is genetic. The next generation needs to understand that the system requires the rule of law & integrity.

You can tell he has a passion for starting businesses. He says that he frequently startles his wife of nearly 50 years by blurting out "business is really cook!" He quotes from a Ronald Reagan speech: We do all this "so that we will never be faced with a situation where we have to face our children and our grandchildren someday when they ask 'where were you and what were you doing on the day that freedom was lost?'" Business people have a responsibility to protect freedom.

Referencing the current economic situation Miller says "Opportunity comes along at times like this and while the system we live in isn't perfect, it beats the heck out of whatever comes in second."

Tags: utah events venture+capital

Do all Provo City Council meetings go past midnight, or is it just that I always pick the ones that are going to run long?

The Council isn't ready to vote on the iProvo sale proposal yet. Some of the documentation isn't finished, and they want to see that first. (If they receive the remaining documents by tomorrow noon, then the discussion will continue at next Tuesday's regular Council meeting; otherwise, it will be postponed.) It appears that some of the council members are also skeptical about the proposal, as well as the process that led up to it, and from where I sit that skepticism can only be a Good Thing.

Broadweave knows how to put together a good looking Powerpoint presentation. I'm still unconvinced that they can handle the kind of growth they're trying to take on, though, and I'm skeptical about their ability to run a network the size of iProvo. More than that, though, I don't like the idea that they would close the network and act as the sole provider. We've all seen single provider networks before; some are financially viable (Comcast, for instance), and some are not (HomeNet, anyone?). The natural tendency for any single provider system, though, is to provide customer service that is mediocre at best, and truly bad at worst. Remember Lily Tomlin's "Ernestine the operator" character from early Saturday Night Live? "We don't care. We don't have to. We're the phone company." That's the attitude that single provider systems naturally gravitate toward (although, admittedly, some take longer to get there than others).

Finally, as several people (including a representative from Mstar) pointed out at the hearing, the language of the original RFP really doesn't suggest that Provo City might sell the network. The RFP asks for "Proposals for Partnership Opportunities with Telecommunication Service Providers on the iProvo Network", and purports to "provide the citizens of Provo a full range of competitive choices for telecommunications services and applications." This deal doesn't do that at all.

I'm aware of other providers that were in negotiation with the city to join the iProvo network, and I know they're not pleased with this proposal either. Some of them have said as much publicly, and others commented at the hearing last night. I hope those concerns are also weighed as the Council considers this proposal.

There's an agenda up on the Provo City Council web site for a public hearing tonight about the proposed sale of iProvo to Broadweave. The hearing is in the council chambers at 7 PM.

A number of people — particularly Jesse Harris of FreeUTOPIA.org — have opined that this sale looks a lot like HomeNet part 2. I think they're being overly optimistic (which, if you remember the original HomeNet debacle, is really saying something.)

The May CTO Breakfast will be held on Friday (May 30) at 8am in the Novell Cafeteria (Building G, Provo Campus).

Anyone interested in how information technology is used to build products or run companies. Despite it's name, you don't have to be a CTO to attend--just interested in technology, where it's headed, and the problems of starting and building a high-tech business in Utah.

If you've seen something cool or just want to discuss a current topic, come prepared to bring it up.

Put these future meetings on your calendar:

• June 27 (Friday)
• July 18 (Friday)
• No breakfast in August
• Sept 26 (Friday)

Tags: utah cto breakfast events

Greg Curtis and John Valentine, House Speaker and Senate President (click to enlarge)

I'm at the Utah State Party Convention this morning. There are literally thousands of people here. Traffic was backed up off the exit ramp near UVU (where the convention is being held). The convention just opened at 10am, but even at 8am, the parking lots were full. People come early to pick up their credentials and wander the candidate booths.

I enjoyed wandering around and talking to a bunch of folks who I normally don't get to see. Lots of old friends and acquaintances here.

Chris Cannon running for Congress in the Third District (click to enlarge)

We start with prayer, the flag ceremony, the pledge of allegiance, and the national anthem. Carmen Rasmusen Herbert sang the national anthem and it was very nice. She's married to Gary Herbert's (Lt Gov) son Bradley, for what it's worth.

The Utah Republican party has a set of banners up and buttons playing on the "i can" in "republican." "I can provide students an excellent education," "I can give my family a great life," and so on. Very clever and emphasizes the Republican ideal of self sufficiency.

Opening ceremony at the convention (click to enlarge)

After the opening, we had a credentials report and adopted the rules and agenda for the convention. As usual, there was drama around Mike Ridgeway. Apparently Salt Lake county refused to seat him has a delegate and there was a motion to allow him to be seated at the State convention. It failed. I'm sure there will be more.

We've now moved to the district breakouts. District 3 stayed in the main hall, so I just sat still. The candidates I consider serious contenders in District 3 are Chris Cannon, the incumbent, David Leavitt, and Jason Chaffetz. There's also Joe Fergeson and Stone Fonua who haven't raised much money and haven't been heard from by delegates. They'll get their seven minutes of fame this morning. Fergeson is campaigning against the North American Union and Fonua is campaigning for something called "the Peacemaker."

Jason Chaffetz has raised around $70,000. David Leavitt raised twice that many and Chris Cannon has doubled Leavitt. Not surprising since Chris is the incumbent.

I'm torn between these three. I believe them all to be good men with Utah's best interest at heart. They aren't that far apart politically. I know Chris and Jason well. I've spoken to them several times over the course of the campaign. I don't know David Leavitt, but have tremendous respect for his brother Mike (current Secretary of HHS).

When I ran in my caucus meeting, I told the people there I'd base my vote for congressman on the basis of their support for Larry Lessig's Change Congress. I've had the opportunity to speak to both Chris and Jason about this and they were both supportive of two of the four pledges. Chris didn't think eliminating PAC money was practical, but was in favor of limiting all contributions to less than $300.

Why didn't I speak to David Leavitt about Change Congress? It's partly my fault: I went to only one event where he spoke. But it's partly his fault as well. He's been largely unavailable. Several attempts to get a message to him about Change Congress through his staff failed to elicit any response.

In fact, one of the things that's turned me off about Leavitt's campaign is that it's been much more impersonal than campaigns I'm used to. Lots of events to hear him speak and lots of literature, but not much personal contact. This morning for example, Chris and Jason were both at their booths (and I've got photos to prove it). Where was Leavitt? I don't know. I wandered around the entire center and didn't see him once.

I wasn't overly impressed with David Leavitt's speech. Some shouting at inopportune times. Jason gave a great speech, but his calling global warming a farce turned me off. Of course, I'm not sure Cannon or Leavitt feel much different. Both Cannon and Leavitt started their speeches with videos. Cannons was probably the best, but I liked that Chaffetz didn't have one. Cannon's speech was good: he talked about his background and how he got where he is.

Cannon is a supporter of eVerify, which I think is a big mistake. Of course, you can't find anyone who you agree with on everything--unless you're the candidate. That might not work either. I've known some candidates who I'm sure argued with themselves.

Time to vote!

I voted for Chris Cannon. I know some people will disagree with that vote so let me say why:

• Chris was willing to support important aspects of the Change Congress pledges, including big support for transparency. He even took the time to meet personally with me on the pledge and talk about it.
• Chris has been a good friend to technology. Many technologists in the state who I know and trust are firm supporters of Chris Cannon. I've talked to Chris several times about technology issues and he's well informed and thinks carefully about them.

Now we're listening to speeches for statewide office. The only interesting race is for Treasurer. Go figure.

Ballot boxes (click to enlarge)

Gov. Huntsman spoke about his accomplishments. He made it clear he only intends to serve one more term (if he's elected, of course). Chuck Smith, running against Huntsman, gave a good speech and seems to have some good ideas, but he's not going to win. There's been no campaign to speak of.

Mark Walker is a former legislator with little experience in financial management. Richard Ellis is currently the Deputy Treasurer and a former directory of the Governors Office for Planning and Budget. But Ellis has been roundly criticized by the legislature and has little support there. I think it's more than Walker being "one of our own" with the legislature. I think Ellis has seriously made many of them mad with things he's said and done. Of course, I know how that feels. :-)

The Utah County Treasurer nominated Richard Ellis and said Ed Alter (current Treasurer had planned to do it, but was unavailable.) The nomination focused on Ellis' experience. Gordon Snow (Majority Whip) seconded the nomination. Ellis spoke about what he's done in the Treasurer's office: financial and technical innovation. Ellis gave a good speech.

Balloons waiting to fall above my head (click to enlarge)

David Clark, Majority Leader, nominated Walker. He noted Walker's integrity. John Valentine (Senate President) seconded. Mark Shurtleff and Ron Bishop (1st District Congressman) also spoke for Walker. He emphasized more investment of public funds for larger returns. It's interesting that our conservative legislature supports a less conservative financial manager for treasurer. He emphasizes his private sector experience--although he doesn't get specific since he has no financial experience that I've heard about. He seems to be running largely on his Republican credentials.

Results: Merrill Cook, Bill Dew, and Brian Jenkins advanced to the run off ballot for District 2. In District three, David Leavitt received 220 votes, Jason Chaffetz received 469 votes, and Chris Cannon received 338 votes. They'll all go to the second ballot. The other two received almost no support, so unless people change their vote, I'd expect to see Jason and Chris go to a third ballot. We could be here all day...

The conventional wisdom is that a vote for Leavitt or Chaffetz is a vote against Cannon. But that's not the case. In fact, I saw Leavitt and Cannon talking in the hall and the word going around the floor is that Leavitt is asking his delegates to vote for Cannon. Of course, that won't keep the final outcome from going to a primary vote in June. In fact, it would take a huge swing either way to avoid that. Greg Curtis, Speaker of the House, predicted 55% Chaffetz, 45% Cannon. I think it might be closer than that.

I snagged a seat at the press table: power and a table to put my computer on. Sweet!

While we were waiting for the second ballot to be counted, Senators Hatch and Bennett spoke. Basically cheerleading for Republicans. That's OK--this is the right crowd for it to be sure. Hatch says: "I was a Mitt Romney supporter, but that's over. If you can't get behind McCain, you might as well turn the election over to Barack Obama. That would be a catastrophe for the judiciary." Hatch says McCain will appoint the right kind of judges and that alone is a good enough reason to support John McCain. Hatch gets a standing ovation. No doubt that the man is popular with this crowd.

Along with all of these are the usual controversies surrounding voting and credentialing procedures. Some older and disabled delegates had a tough time getting to the ballot boxes apparently.

A row of Macs at the press table (click to enlarge)

Attorney General Mark Shurtleff and State Auditor Auston Johnson were elected by acclamation since they're running unopposed. We watched a McCain video. Mark Shurtleff spoke after showing us a video. I presume it's been prepared for the general election. Shurtleff gave a god talk and got a standing ovation. Balloons dropped. Basically anything to fill the time while they count votes.

The bags filled with balloons were hung above the press table, so they all fell on the floor around the press and not on the delegates.

Argh. Now we're doing party constitution changes. What fun. In the middle of the second amendment, someone went down and there was a call for a medic. There was a division called on the second amendment to replace winner take all with proportional representation in future presidential primaries. The amendment failed.

There will be a third ballot for the 2nd and 3rd Districts. In the 3rd District, Leavitt got 161 votes, Chaffetz got 529 votes, and Cannon got 356 votes in the second round. That gives Chaffetz over 50%, but he needs 60% to avoid a runoff. That's 630 votes it everyone stuck around and will vote on the third ballot. He needs 100 of Leavitt's votes to win outright.

People in Leavitt shirts are walking through the hall carrying Cannon signs. They're getting boo'd and the Rules Chairman is asking them to leave since campaigns are not allowed to campaign in the convention hall itself.

I'm going to go get ready to vote. They're not going to open the ballot boxes until we've heard the Bylaw changes because they're afraid people might leave. Ya think!?!

Jason Chaffetz running for Congress in the Third District (click to enlarge)

The first bylaw amendment is to allow the delegates that are bound to Mitt Romney to vote for McCain. People cheered wildly after the speech against the change. People here still love Romney. Someone made a motion to postpone he amendment indefinitely. Everyone really just wants to vote and go home, I think.

In the end, for the 3rd District, Jason Chaffetz came within 9 votes of being the nominee and not having have a primary with Chris Cannon on June 24th. The final tally was Chaffetz 59%, Cannon 41%. What a finish. I'll bet there's some Chaffetz supporters who went home early and are kicking themselves right now.

Tags: utah politics republican

Props to Rachel Strate, an Analyst from Epic Ventures (formerly Wasatch Ventures) who has offered to represent her Firm in providing food and drinks for the Social Media Developers Garage event on Tuesday. Rumor has it that they will be providing Pizza and drinks so come if anything for a free meal! The topic for the event will be a demonstration by Bungee on creating a Facebook App using their Google App Engine Killer, Bungee Connect. We’ll try to play some Wii afterwards as well.

Again, a big thanks to Epic Ventures for the food and Bungee Labs for hosting the event! If you would like to host or provide food for a future event (or even speak!) please let me know and we’ll make sure your company gets credit. This is a great opportunity for your company to get in front of a group of developers, bloggers and Social Media Evangelists for more exposure and future recruiting events.

If your in the greater Salt Lake area and love python swing by the meeting this evening! We’re doing a python editor head-to-head, should be fun!

Here are the details (there is also a calendar):

Utah OpenSUSE user group wiki page

I’m thinking about starting a series on this blog of hot startups that I find interesting in Utah. I’d really like to show to the world the great startup scene that Utah has to offer - hopefully other bloggers in the area can pitch in and join in this effort as well. I am relatively new to Utah, and am just getting to know the scene out here, so please don’t take this the wrong way. My hope is that this is only because I’m new to the area - honestly, I only know of one or two established startups. I know of many that are “in the works”, but only a few have an actual business model with customers and revenue stream (or venture/private equity/angel funding to hopefully get to that revenue stream). I’m hoping I am just not “in the know”.

Do you have an up-and-coming startup you’d like me to feature? Do you know of any that stand out to you? I really am hoping those in Utah can step out of the woodwork and share via the comments (I monitor FriendFeed as well so you can also comment there) what you know. I hope to then pick out the best and try to get the word out about what you’re doing. Speak up, or forever hold your peace!

So, if you live in the greater Salt Lake City area, there’s a pretty cool low key (and free!) conference coming up, the Utah Code Camp. I’ll be doing a little talk on getting data out of HTML with Python (utilizing lxml and twill). If your interested, you can register here.

Not Getting Things Done (click to enlarge)

There was a pretty big crowd at this morning's CTO Breakfast. Sam Curran had spent some time building an application on Google App Engine, so we had him demo his app and show us the code.

Overall, Google Apps looks like a very nice piece of infrastructure for building Web applications. The database integration with Big Table and Google's authentication platform add some good tools for quickly building applications.

We got into a pretty large discussion of the pros and cons of Google Apps, Amazon Web services, dedicated hosting, and so on. None of these services are directly competitive. They're complimentary in many respects. You could imagine many applications that would make use of all of them.

Speaking of Sam's application: a few days ago, I mentioned to Sam, Bryant and Devlin, that I liked putting things on lists because then I could get them out of my mind and if I lost the list, I never had to do them. A guilt-free way of not getting things done. The problem with online todo lists is they don't forget. I hate that! Sam picked up on that for his app and created a task list for people consumed with the guilt of unfinished tasks: Not Getting Things Done. Just put your tasks on the list and forget about them!

Tags: cto breakfast utah events web+services google python

It's time for another Utah CTO Breakfast. This Thursday at 8am at the Novell cafeteria (building G). We're a little early this month due to my imminent trip to China. Please bring any topics that have struck your fancy this month.

All are invited--the only entrance requirement is an interest in high-tech companies and products.

Here's a schedule of future events:

• Apr 17 (Thursday)
• May 30 (Friday)
• June 27 (Friday)
• July 18 (Friday)
• No breakfast in August
• Sept 25 (Friday)

I have created a Google Calendar with dates for the CTO breakfast that you can subscribe to.

Or if you'd rather subscribe from iCal or Outlook, here's the iCalendar link.

Tags: utah cto breakfast events

I just got back from my precinct caucus meeting (Republican) where I was elected by my friends and neighbors as precinct Vice Chair for the coming two years. I was conducting the meeting as Chair.

I love caucus meetings. This is true grassroots politics. Everyone asking question, voting for delegates to the state and county conventions, paper ballots. There's some good discussion and great participation.

I'm always shocked at how few people, relatively speaking, attend. We had a better turn out than I ever remember, but there were still only around 50 people there out of around 2000 in our precinct. Just showing up gives you a huge voice.

As for me, I ran on a platform of making my vote for congressional representative in Utah's Third district contingent on the degree to which the candidate was willing to take the Change Congress pledge. I explained the four points of the pledge, why I thought they were important, and how while I don't believe that there's general corruption problem in Congress, that I do believe money changes things and we need to find ways to reduce its influence. I felt like there was overwhelming support for that stance.

Tags: politics utah

The CTO Breakfast will be held this Thursday, March 27 at 8am in the Novell Cafeteria (Building G). Anyone interested in high-tech and product development is welcome. The discussion is free-form, so feel free to bring some topics to discuss.

Here is a list of upcoming meetings:

• Apr 17 (Thursday)
• May 30 (Friday)
• June 27 (Friday)

Please get them on your calendar!

Tags: utah events cto breakfast

Utah will hold caucus meetings tonight for the purpose of selecting delegates to the county and state conventions. Your voice is amplified many times over by being part of the process that decides who's on the ballot rather than just selecting from a few candidates in November.

The caucus meeting with be with people in your neighborhood--probably people you know. You can find out what precinct you live in by clicking here. Then you can visit the Republican or Democratic Web sites to determine where you should go. (If you're a member of a party other than these two, find your party Web site for caucus locations.)

Once you know where to go, just show up. Both the Republicans and Democrats are meetings at 7pm. You'll find it's a pretty friendly atmosphere. If you want to run as a delegate, it helps to take some friends with you who will vote for you. Being a delegate does take time and involve some meetings (not to mention the conventions themselves) but is a great way to further amplify your voice.

Personally, I'm planning to talk about Lessig's Change Congress movement (I wrote about it while I was at ETech) and my commitment to preferentially vote for candidates willing to take at least part of the Change Congress pledge. If enough delegates did this, we could at least change the part of Congress we're responsible for in Utah.

Tags: utah events politics

I was chosen, for the fifth year in a row, as a member of vSpring Capital's v|100 list. Actually, the reason I started Kynetx was so that I wouldn't get kicked off the v|100. :-) The list is supposed to be of people most likely to start a high-tech business in the next five years, I figured this was my last year before people would start getting suspicious.

From the announcement:

The v|100 was created in 2004 by vSpring Capital as a tool to recognize outstanding entrepreneurs who have ties to the state of Utah. Members of the v|100 become part of a community of entrepreneurs that fosters collaboration and support among its members as they build and grow some of the most exciting companies. Each year, vSpring asks members of the Utah business community to nominate individuals who are most likely to lead a successful startup technology venture in the next five to seven years in a c-level executive role. Those nominees who garner the most votes from their peers in a nominee-only second step of the annual voting process are then elected into the v|100.

"The number of nominations submitted this year exceeds all previous years and we are pleased with the results that the v|100 voting process produces," said Paul Ahlstrom, managing director of vSpring Capital. "New venture creation is critical to the growth of our economy, and the v|100 program consistently identifies individuals who are likely to generate successful ventures in the coming years. The quality of the v|100 recipients is an indication of the vibrancy of Utah's entrepreneurial ecosystem and talent pool," Ahlstrom said.

From 2008 Top 100 Venture Entrepreneurs @ SYS-CON Media
Referenced Mon Mar 17 2008 10:18:55 GMT-0600 (MDT)

I'm honored to be part of the list. It's a good group of people to be asso