Superelectric

Mitt Romney: good with sudden movements

2012-01-17T12:00:00.000-06:00

But Romney’s awkwardness seems to endear him to audiences, because he’s trying so hard. He spends an enormous amount of time after the speeches shaking hands, taking pictures and holding babies. Beads of sweat form on his forehead as he throws himself graciously into the crowds. He also has a nice startle response. When something unexpected happens, his face lights up and you get a burst of happy humanity out of him.

Mitt Romney: the perfect candidate for old timey flash photography.

No True Libertarianism...

2012-01-17T01:23:00.000-06:00

Nice little blog post about how there is a lack of examples of successful libertarian regimes, or at least regimes which libertarians would accept as true libertarian governments. The basic problem is that, when the rubber hits the road, we're talking about anarchy and misery:

This, by the way, is why racism, theocracy and libertarianism go hand in hand, when from a philosophical point of view they should have little to do with one another. The negative effects of the lack of a central government are so obvious in developing countries that wherever the social order fails as in Somalia, it must have been due to bad religion, or the defect of having been born to an inferior race.

This, of course, isn't going to convince anybody on the Volokh Conspiracy, but it's a pretty persuasive point.

The Chemical Garden

2011-12-30T16:55:00.000-06:00

Science experiments, ambient music, Thomas Mann, what more could you ask for?

Why Legal Education Sucks, Part 3567

2011-11-09T22:01:00.000-06:00

Legal education and the heir of Slytherin:

Law schools and the country's largest law firms have long occupied — and jealously guarded — the most coveted corners in the American legal profession. Indeed, these institutions perpetuate each other's lock on power and prestige. Every city has its collection of "BigLaw" firms — highly leveraged partnerships performing a wide range of legal services on behalf of the corporate and institutional clients that control our society's greatest concentrations of wealth. BigLaw draws its talent from the most highly credentialed students emerging from our law schools. Without elite grades, no student stands a chance of scoring a BigLaw interview, let alone a BigLaw job.

All of this would make a little more sense if legal education bore any resemblance to the practice of law. Instead, it's a weird form of hazing.

Sometimes you don't get a second bite at the apple.

2011-10-25T21:17:00.000-05:00

From Firedoglake, we have Debating the Effectiveness of the Latest Administration Housing Initiative:

The Administration can brag about all the housing programs they’ve put in place. But the truth is that because of HAMP and the other failures on this front, the link between borrowers and their government has been severed. I’m sure there is a large and growing universe of people who won’t take up this program because they’ve been burned one too many times. Or they’ve heard about a friend or neighbor who was burned. The danger from HAMP to liberal notions of government operating as a helping hand hasn’t been fully understood by the technocrats in Washington.

This reminds me of the "haircut" issue. The "haircut" issue is this - if you are uncertain about getting your hair cut, you can start conservatively, cutting only a little bit. If that turns out to be too little, you can always go back and trim more. Similarly, in policy making, you can respond to a problem by doing a little bit. If it's not enough, you can go back and do more.

Of course, in the real world, the consequence of doing too little and failing is often that your failure keeps you from doing anything more. Your stimulus wasn't enough? The failure of the stimulus to revive the economy is then used as proof that any stimulus wouldn't work. Similarly, if your homeowner assistance programs haven't worked in the past, maybe you won't be able to persuade homeowners to participate in the future.

The best policy is to get it right the first time.

But I worked hard to earn that money...

2011-10-17T13:53:00.001-05:00

One of the lines I keep hearing in defense of Wall Street and against the protestors is some variation on "Shut your yap, work hard to earn like the Wall St people, or be grateful because they pay your taxes."

Why should anyone feel grateful for the financial sector? Now, these people earned their money, at least in the sense that they paid their dues and devoted their lives to finance. But is their reward of incredible wealth commensurate with the good they provide for society? Three years into this economic mess, it's hard to believe that they're worth the trouble.

This is somewhat the theme of Paul Krugman today. He says:

Not coincidentally, the era of an ever-growing financial industry was also an era of ever-growing inequality of income and wealth. Wall Street made a large direct contribution to economic polarization, because soaring incomes in finance accounted for a significant fraction of the rising share of the top 1 percent (and the top 0.1 percent, which accounts for most of the top 1 percent’s gains) in the nation’s income. [....]

All of this was supposed to be justified by results: the paychecks of the wizards of Wall Street were appropriate, we were told, because of the wonderful things they did. Somehow, however, that wonderfulness failed to trickle down to the rest of the nation — and that was true even before the crisis. Median family income, adjusted for inflation, grew only about a fifth as much between 1980 and 2007 as it did in the generation following World War II, even though the postwar economy was marked both by strict financial regulation and by much higher tax rates on the wealthy than anything currently under political discussion.

Then came the crisis, which proved that all those claims about how modern finance had reduced risk and made the system more stable were utter nonsense. Government bailouts were all that saved us from a financial meltdown as bad as or worse than the one that caused the Great Depression.

You see, until a few weeks ago it seemed as if Wall Street had effectively bribed and bullied our political system into forgetting about that whole drawing lavish paychecks while destroying the world economy thing. Then, all of a sudden, some people insisted on bringing the subject up again.

In short, they weren't heroes - they royally screwed the pooch. And they did so with a nice helping of government intervention. Now, if these guys were all doing really great things, maybe I could buy the "they work hard for their paycheck," but they tanked our economy and then got the government to foot the bill for their fuckup.

Why anyone would defend such a practice is beyond me.

Time Poll: Occupy Wall Street is more popular than Tea Party

2011-10-13T12:20:00.000-05:00

Complete results here. Some highlights:

Occupy Wall Street: 54% favorable, 23% unfavorable
Tea Party: 27% favorable, 33% unfavorable
Do wall street and its lobbyists have too much Washington influence? 86% agree, 11% disagree
Is the rich/poor gap too large? 79% agree, 17% disagree
Financial executives responsible for the meltdown should be prosecuted. 68% agree, 28% disagree

That's pretty favorable.

That Vangelis Blade Runner sound

2011-10-13T11:24:00.000-05:00

It's a beautiful sound, and now you know how to make it!

Media Matters tells a story about Larry Summers

2011-10-12T12:19:00.001-05:00

In We Need a New System, Media Matters tells a story in which Larry Summers, former Treasury Secretary, runs into a young protestor holding a sign reading "We need a new system."

It turned out Larry Summers had seen the girl too and was eagerly telling his guests about an interaction he had with her:

And so I asked the girl: 'What is this new system that you want? Tell me about it!' And the girl had nothing. Nothing! She had no fucking clue what this magical new system was supposed to be. No one is saying that there aren't problems with the world economy the way it is today. But these kids out there -- they don't know what they want!"

"Mr. Secretary," said Zack. "You've got 50 economics PhDs in this room who pretty much run the world economy. And you're asking that girl for a better system? Aren't the solutions your job? You admit billions are living in hell, but it's up to that girl to fix it?"

Summers chuckled and the conversation moved on."

Among Larry Summers' accomplishments: successful arguments in favor of reducing corporate and capital gains taxes, opposition to unemployment insurance and welfare payments, opposition to the Kyoto protocol, deregulation of banking, deregulation of derivatives contracts, advocating against salary caps for executives of companies that received bailout money, and losing Harvard a million bucks.

And oh, yeah, when he was Chief Economist at the World Bank (an organization designed to help poor countries), he wrote this memo:

Just between you and me, shouldn't the World Bank be encouraging MORE migration of the dirty industries to the LDCs [Least Developed Countries]? .... I think the economic logic behind dumping a load of toxic waste in the lowest wage country is impeccable and we should face up to that. .... I've always thought that under-populated countries in Africa are vastly UNDER-polluted, their air quality is probably vastly inefficiently low compared to Los Angeles or Mexico City.

He said it was a joke, but still: Christ, what an asshole!

Partisan Prejudice

2011-10-11T13:58:00.001-05:00

The other day I mentioned how badly partisan Instapundit is. More of it today. He writes:

DON’T KNOW MUCH ABOUT THE CONSTITUTION: Ezra Klein. “As Klein has astutely observed, the Constitution is all confusing and stuff because it was written like 100 years ago.” One can only imagine Klein’s snark if Sarah Palin had made the same error.

This is dishonest.

First, Ezra Klein didn't make a constitutional mistake, he reported somebody else's mistake. Follow the Instapundit link, it takes you to a WSJ blog post* taking Klein to task for reporting that Ron Klain confused the 22nd and 20th amendments. Ezra Klein didn't make the mistake, he reported somebody else's (incredibly trivial) mistake.

And as for that "all confusing and stuff" claim, it's hokum, too. Watch the video link provided by the WSJ - it's clear to see. Not only does Klein not use such goofy I'm-so-stupid language, he makes the reasonable claim that the Constitution is not particularly clear, due to the language used and the passage of time. This is 100% true.

A certain sort enjoy holding up the Constitution, thumping it like a bible, making claims about its contents with great conviction. That certainty is bunk. What does the Constitution say about warrantless wiretapping, for instance? We're talking about a document written before there were wires. Glenn Reynolds is a professor of (among other subjects) Constitutional Law. Surely he knows that people don't always find the Constitution to be clear and unambiguous.

But oh, I hear the rejoinder, this isn't about Ezra Klein's (non-)mistake, it's about the hypocrisy. You see, if Sarah Palin had written that, then Klein would be all over him. Set aside the fact that this is just the childish defense "he did it too" in intellectual drag. The claim itself is false. Klein has defended Palin against scurrilous attacks. Not only that, he did it in private to a group of other liberals. Remember the Journolist scandal?

Journolist was an email discussion group among many prominent liberals, Klein included. Among the subjects discussed on the list was Sarah Palin, who is sometimes hounded by opponents over the provenance of her child Trig. On this subject, Klein wrote:

Palin’s relationship with her children — however they may have come to her — strikes me as pretty far out of bounds. By all accounts she’s a wonderful mother, and devoted to her fifth son. Leave this be.

A wonderful, devoted mother. This isn't slander, this is completely decent, upstanding behavior. More important, this is how Klein acts in the company of other liberals, in relative privacy. If ever there was a situation to act like a partisan ass, this is it. But he was a stand-up, good guy.

Unlike Instapundit, who tosses off snark so easily. The truth is all there. As long as you judge the evidence without prejudice against the liberal, it's clear. What, then, to make of Instapundit? Dishonest or irrational - which is the worse trait in a scholar of the law?

*The WSJ blog also calls the overall article "an interminable apologia for the failure of the Obama administration's so-called stimulus of 2009," which isn't true. This is the article that I discussed here and used as a basis for my own criticism of Obama.

A Rascally Rabbit

2011-10-11T12:46:00.000-05:00

Obama's Reaction to the Recession

2011-10-10T13:22:00.000-05:00

There's a very nice article by Ezra Klein discussing what the Obama administration did to respond to the financial crisis. Bottom line: the severity of the problem was greater than they thought.

I think that Obama isn't aggressive enough, and this article provides some support for this argument. Klein says that the administration thought that you could do a little bit, and if the country needed more stimulus, you could always go back and add more. Says Jared Bernstein, labor economist and former Chief Economist and Economic Policy Adviser to Joe Biden:

“If you’re at the barber and they don’t cut your hair short enough, you can always ask them to go a little further,” Bernstein says. “That’s sort of how I thought about stimulus policy. I don’t think we could have done more in February of 2009 based on political and implementation constraints. But I probably didn’t recognize how hard it would be to go back to the barbershop.”

Sadly, when it became apparent that the stimulus wasn't enough, Obama's opponents were happily calling the stimulus a failed strategy and effectively blocking any further stimulus. Bottom line: being cautious with the stimulus screwed the administration. And the country.

Also interesting is this graph:

The two smooth curves show what Obama used to sell his plan. They represent the projected unemployment rates with and without the stimulus plan. The idea was: hey, look at how much better things will be with the stimulus. Of course, the problem was much worse than anyone thought: the jagged line that is above both curves represent the actual, much higher, unemployment rate. Ouch.

And as for the administration's various programs to address the housing crisis: basically little of the money has been spent, and the mortgage servicers are so busy foreclosing that they don't give a rats ass about restructuring anybody's payments. ProPublica has a piece on this subject that's worth reading, it recounts how poorly these homeowner assistance programs have done.

Krugman, though generally approving, thinks Klein lets the administration off the hook too much. Krugman notes that he's been saying this all along and the administration was just foolishly optimistic/ignorant to do anything differently. He concludes:

Now, Ezra may be right that none of this would have made much difference. But the White House was weak and confused in the face of a political and economic debacle, when it should have gone all out.

And you know what? It should still go all out. The chances of success are lower than they would have been if it had taken a strong position two years ago, but it ain’t over until it’s over.

It would be nice, but will it happen?

There are a lot of stupid law profs in this world

2011-10-09T13:22:00.001-05:00

STILL WAITING FOR THE LEFTY BLOGGERS TO DEFEND Obama’s crackdown on medical marijuana. I mean, you …

It's a classic damned if you do, damned if you dont. Support obamas hypocrisy on medical marijuana and you're a mindless zealot. Fail to do so and you suck because, well, you just do...

Of right wing law profs, only half of the gang at Volokh succeed at being anything other than foaming-at-the-mouth partisans.

Streetcars are cool

2011-10-08T14:03:00.001-05:00

In The American Conservative, William Lind on how the lots of street cars ruined major cities.

Elsewhere, the ripping up of streetcar lines and their replacement with buses also ripped the urban fabric. Most people like riding streetcars, but almost no one likes riding a bus. The substitution of buses for electric streetcars drove most former streetcar riders to drive. When people took the streetcar to town — and every American city or town with 5,000 or more people once had streetcars — they also spent a lot of time on Jane Jacobs’ all-important sidewalks. There, they performed multiple functions: eyes on the street, office worker, restaurant diner, shopper, theater-goer and more.

Once they drove into the city, their time on sidewalks dropped and with it shrank the number of roles they filled. They drove as close to their (usually single) destination as they could, parked, and walked only as far as necessary. When their business was done, their car drew them like a magnet and as soon as they could press the starter pedal they were gone. Stores, restaurants, and theaters moved to the suburbs where parking was easier. In time offices followed, and the city’s sidewalks emptied except for the occasional beggar or wino.

link

I would love to ride streetcars, especially through my hometown of st louis. Its sad to see those unused rails in the streets.

Threading the needle

2011-10-08T13:42:00.001-05:00

Veal Pen Preachers and Conservative Idolatry of Teh Market is an Ugly Combination

On firedoglake, a discussion of the clarity of the biblical jesus' teachings on wealth, debt, poverty. Turns out that the prince of peace is no fan of mega millionaires. Of course, this should be obvious to anybody who has actually heard or read the gospels.

It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven.

There's no ambiguity there.

Kruggers on the protestors

2011-10-07T13:52:00.000-05:00

Confronting the Malefactors - NYTimes.com:

In the first act, bankers took advantage of deregulation to run wild (and pay themselves princely sums), inflating huge bubbles through reckless lending. In the second act, the bubbles burst — but bankers were bailed out by taxpayers, with remarkably few strings attached, even as ordinary workers continued to suffer the consequences of the bankers’ sins. And, in the third act, bankers showed their gratitude by turning on the people who had saved them, throwing their support — and the wealth they still possessed thanks to the bailouts — behind politicians who promised to keep their taxes low and dismantle the mild regulations erected in the aftermath of the crisis.

Given this history, how can you not applaud the protesters for finally taking a stand?

Damn straight.

It's not a trap.

2011-10-03T10:52:00.001-05:00

The UC Berkeley paper mets the guy who voiced Admiral Ackbar and Bib Fortuna: Across the stars: The Clog spends an afternoon with Admiral Ackbar

Health insurers full of shit, should be replaced by single payer.

2011-09-27T22:34:00.000-05:00

Health Insurers Seek Higher Premiums - NYTimes.com:

The increase in premiums was striking because in a poor economy, many people put off going to doctors, to avoid co-payments and higher deductibles. Despite a decrease in the use of medical services, companies have defended higher premiums — and their high profits — reasoning that their costs would rebound once the economy recovered.

Ho ho ho. I also anticipate an economic rebound and would like a pay increase commensurate with this anticipated better economic conditions.

I am always surprised when people are opposed to going to government run health care. Do such people seriously think that the private insurance companies are doing a good job?

"Female characters are only insatisable, barely-dressed aliens and strippers because someone decided to make them that way."

2011-09-22T20:12:00.003-05:00

"Female characters are only insatisable, barely-dressed aliens and strippers because someone decided to make them that way. It isn't a fact. It isn't an inviolable reality, especially in a comic book universe that has just been rebooted. In the end, what matters is what you choose to show people and how you show them, not the reasons you make up to justify it. Because this is comics, everybody. You can make up anything."

Via

howdy everybody

2011-09-20T14:18:00.001-05:00

I'm just watching some davis cup tennis

Inside the Law School Scam: Publishing

2011-08-12T17:56:00.000-05:00

The blog Inside the Law School Scam has received a lot of attention lately, as it is a "tell-all" about the failures of legal education written from the point of a tenured law prof at a top tier university. The blog is well-written and worth reading. I want to focus on his writing about legal scholarship, especially from this post:

Even more problematically, despite all the changes in legal academic life over the past few decades, the law school world has done next to nothing to create a system of peer review publication. 99.37% of legal academic work is still published in student-run law journals, of which, because of the increased emphasis on publishing, there are now several hundred. The system, in other words, is hardly designed to reward and encourage genuine academic rigor.

In more than one way, American law students are currently getting the worst of all worlds. Law schools have become somewhat more academically serious places, but quite incompletely (as always all these observations apply to greatly different degrees across the hierarchical spectrum of schools), and in any case most law students are not interested in paying $200,000 for an academic experience. Meanwhile, law schools remain as uninterested as ever in anything resembling actual vocational training. They remain largely dominated by a doctrinal model of teaching and scholarship that is neither academically serious nor of much practical vocational value. In short, students at the contemporary law school end up paying enormous amounts of money for something that they aren't getting, and in many cases wouldn't want even if it were being provided to them.

Exactly this. I went to law school after having worked for a cardiology journal, and I was shocked to learn that law journals are not blind peer-reviewed.

Instead, students, sometimes with consultation from staff, pick the articles that are published. Those who know the least about the law and have the most tenuous grasp on the subject are in the position of deciding what is published and what is not. It's a completely irrational system and an offensive one.

Law school isn't a training ground for lawyers, and it doesn't have intellectual rigor. It's full of shit and really expensive.

Also interesting is the author's identity. According to Inside Higher Education:

The author identifies himself only as "a tenured mid-career faculty member at a Tier One school." He agreed to reveal his identity to Inside Higher Ed, and his description is accurate. He teaches at a law school that doesn't make the "top 10" lists, but that is generally considered the best in its state and is well regarded nationally.

That description fits, I'm sure, several law schools, but it caught my attention because it accurately describes my law alma mater, Washington University in St. Louis.

Jobs, Not the Debt

2011-08-12T14:07:00.000-05:00

Paul Krugman today

Check out the opinion page of any major newspaper, or listen to any news-discussion program, and you’re likely to encounter some self-proclaimed centrist declaring that there are no short-run fixes for our economic difficulties, that the responsible thing is to focus on long-run solutions and, in particular, on “entitlement reform” — that is, cuts in Social Security and Medicare. And when you do encounter such a person, you should be aware that people like that are a major reason we’re in so much trouble.

For the fact is that right now the economy desperately needs a short-run fix. When you’re bleeding profusely from an open wound, you want a doctor who binds that wound up, not a doctor who lectures you on the importance of maintaining a healthy lifestyle as you get older. When millions of willing and able workers are unemployed, and economic potential is going to waste to the tune of almost $1 trillion a year, you want policy makers who work on a fast recovery, not people who lecture you on the need for long-run fiscal sustainability.

Yup. The people who claim to be the adults taking tough but responsible positions are being tough and irresponsible.

Decades of Republican rhetoric about government waste and socialism ruin the economy and prevent any useful solutions to the problem. How can serious business interests - and I count here anybody with enough education to be involved in finance - continue to support Republican candidates and policies?

Compassion and Entitlement Programs

2011-08-12T13:12:00.000-05:00

The Daily Show
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The Heat Index: Socialist Plot

2011-08-10T11:33:00.000-05:00

The Colbert Report
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Accurate Emulation

2011-08-09T23:39:00.000-05:00

It ain't easy:

Honestly, even with all of the issues listed above, we've only scratched the surface of accurate emulation. Take the case of DICE, the digital integrated circuit emulator. Here is an emulator that works at the transistor level for absolutely perfect recreation of the very first video games ever created. To run Pong at about 5-10fps, DICE requires a 3GHz processor. Yes, you read that right: no computer processor at this time that can run Pong at the circuit level at full speed. It's not that DICE is a slow program; indeed, it is very well optimized. It's that there is enormous overhead to simulating every last transitor propagation delay.

"First our firearms, then our farms"

2011-08-09T21:22:00.000-05:00

John McCain vs Tea Party audience:

Tea-party activists called McCain 'out of touch' when the senator said he didn't know about United Nations 'Agenda 21.'One man described the initiative as a 'takeover of the United States of America by taking over our farms.'

'First, our firearms, then our farms,' another man added.

Agenda 21 is the UN's sustainability program. While this is a general program for improving the environment and social justice, to the crazy right wing, it means a plot to install a totalitarian one world government. Which is a real risk. I mean, I remember when the UN took our guns away and the Reptoids took control of the Trilateral Commission.

Ah, it's all good fun. Until your federal building gets bombed, of course.

When Robamney Attacks

2011-08-09T13:17:00.000-05:00

Politico reports on an unnamed Democratic strategist who claims that the Obama campaign is gearing up for negative attacks against Mitt Romney. I have no idea if this source is legit. While I, like many, have often wished that Obama were more aggressive with his opponents, I am skeptical. Obama's track record doesn't inspire faith.

The Politico article references the 2004 Bush/Kerry election, I keep thinking about the 2000 Bush/Gore election. In 2000, it was unthinkable for liberals to vote Nader. It would split the liberal vote and become a de facto vote for Bush. In fact, that happened (among other things). Does that dynamic hold true any longer?

With Obama and Romney, I'm not so sure it does. How different is an Obama administration from a Romney administration? Romney's no wild-eyed Tea Party true believer. His Massachusetts health care program is very much like our current national program. He is a former businessman and a slick politician. I have infinitely more confidence in Mitt Romney than I ever did in George W Bush. And Obama has hardly been a voice for progressive policies. So if there's not much difference, how bad a result is it if Romney wins?

Let me be clear: I do not advocate voting for Mitt Romney. At all. But I think the lack of a clear distinction between Obama and Romney makes it a lot more palatable to vote for a third party candidate, specifically a Green candidate.

I am sick of the compromise of the Democrats. A majority of Americans consistently say they are in favor of single-payer health care. Polls also show that a majority of Americans are willing to pay higher taxes to have it. And yet the pathetic "public option" is just too liberal for the liberal party to accept. Instead we have a plan that, even if it implements significant improvements in the current system, is such piecemeal hash that it's easy to mock and tough to love. Democrats had the House, Senate, and Presidency. And this was the best they could do?

Voting Green becomes more and more tempting.

Enema Man and Snoopy Snoopy Poop Dog

2011-08-08T11:55:00.000-05:00

One of the problems with letting your blog lie fallow for a year is that you miss lovely stuff like this. Alan Simpson, former Senator from Wyoming:

“This is a fakery,” Simpson said on Fox News. “If they care at all about their children or grandchildren, and sometimes I doubt that – I think, you know, grandchildren now don’t write a thank-you for the Christmas presents, they’re walking on their pants with the cap on backwards listening to the enema man and Snoopy Snoopy Poop Dogg, and they don’t like them!”

My lawn, get offa it.

"Who Rules America: An Investment Manager's View on the Top 1%"

2011-08-06T12:10:00.000-05:00

Who Rules America: An Investment Manager's View on the Top 1%

This article describes the various tiers of super-wealth in the US, with a breakdown of where they come from. Of the real power players, they all come from finance.

"Were Our Enemies Right?"

2011-08-04T12:42:00.002-05:00

Asks quasi-conservative David Frum:

Imagine, if you will, someone who read only the Wall Street Journal editorial page between 2000 and 2011, and someone in the same period who read only the collected columns of Paul Krugman. Which reader would have been better informed about the realities of the current economic crisis? The answer, I think, should give us pause. Can it be that our enemies were right?

Well, of course. When I read The Volokh Conspiracy, I am delighted by the legal analysis, and then they bring up politics and I'm stunned. WTF? How could reasonable people hold such unreasonable beliefs?

Libertarian economics is pie-in-the-sky thinking. A story is constructed that makes rational sense, or at least appeals to our sense of good story-telling. That persuasive aesthetic is why people follow it.

In fact, libertarians reject commonly-accepted rational analysis. From Wikipedia: "Austrian economists reject empirical statistical methods, natural experiments and constructed experiments ....."

If you have to reject rational thought in order to believe libertarian economics, then you might as well be sacrificing goats.

Barack Obama - the Herbert Hoover Remix

2011-07-28T11:41:00.000-05:00

Barack Hoover Obama: The best and the brightest blow it again, by Kevin Baker in Harper's Magazine is a fascinating read, and I learned a lot about Hoover from it.

Most satisfying in it is the following. When the Democrats took the Presidency, House, and Senate, we Democrats expected great things to follow - it was a tremendous opportunity for new Democratic programs.

"Instead, we have seen a parade of aged satraps from vast, windy places stepping forward to tell us what is off the table. Every week, there is another Max Baucus of Montana, another Kent Conrad of North Dakota, another Ben Nelson of Nebraska, huffing and puffing and harrumphing that we had better forget about single-payer health care, a carbon tax, nationalizing the banks, funding for mass transit, closing tax loopholes for the rich. These are men with tiny constituencies who sat for decades in the Senate without doing or saying anything of note, who acquiesced shamelessly to the worst abuses of the Bush Administration and who come forward now to chide the president for not concentrating enough on reducing the budget deficit, or for “trying to do too much,” as if he were as old and as indolent as they are.

And that's exactly the feeling I had, and it has no doubt added to my general frustration with Obama.

How I Learned To Play Guitar

2011-07-26T12:13:00.001-05:00

Nice reminiscence.

My mom, a classical music fan, signed me up for lessons, because that’s how it was done. So unfortunately, I learned to read music right away. I plucked out the introductory songs in the Mel Bay classical guitar book, but quickly grew frustrated. I quit after ‘Ode To Joy’, the last song in that book. I now believe that the act of reading music engaged the wrong part of my brain. The lessons confused me, because though I enjoyed making progress, I didn’t see myself heading to that place of performing folk songs on the back porch, and I was completely unaware that there might be multiple valid approaches to an instrument. I just knew that what I was experiencing was not what I had envisioned.

This couldn't be truer. Those miserable Mel Bay type books teach you how to tune and then want you to pick out simple melodies, which just isn't what most people want out of guitar. For most popular music, being able to play rhythm is VASTLY more important.

The rest of this article is excellent, an inspiring tale of starting your own band despite feeling inadequate.

NASCAR Prayer

2011-07-25T12:19:00.001-05:00

The Cost of Rihanna

2011-07-21T11:49:00.000-05:00

NPR runs down the costs of producing material for Rihanna. Not surprisingly, she doesn't have a coterie of trusted producers. Rather, the label sets up a camp to create her album.

Amusing: the article notes the defensiveness about labels bribing radio programmers - the standard line is, "Oh, that used to be the case, but now it's different."

Which is something I believe I've heard more than once before.

Totally War.

2010-06-30T17:37:00.002-05:00

When Andrew Breitbart offers $100,000 for a private email list-serv archive, essentially all bets are off. Every blogger or writer who has ever offered an opinion is now on warning: your opponents will not just argue against you, they will do all they can to ransack your private life, cull your email in-tray, and use whatever material they have to unleash the moronic hounds of today's right-wing base.

sez Andrew Sullivan.

Ok, first of all, getting the Journolist database is not some coordinated right wing conspiracy to ferret through the trash of mainstream journalists to uncover whether they drink wholesome American Coke or pinko Pepsi. It's the Journolist.

Second, both the left and the right argue that the biases of the media affect public perception. On the left, it's all about corporate ownership. On the right, it's liberal journalists. It's a question on everybody's mind.

Third, this is just a case of bloggers getting hoist on their own petard. Prominent bloggers were on the Journolist. The fact that there was some level of chumminess among them is relevant - it's how consensus is formed. I frequently see lefties complain about the chumminess of the Washington press corps - if you were a Gore fan in 2000 or a Hillary fan in 2008, you couldn't escape this critique. It's only fair to turn that lens to new media, as well.

I like blogs precisely because they broaden the scope of conversation about subjects of national importance. Reading TPM during the recount was liberating. When I first heard about the Journolist, I felt very disappointed. I thought the point was to challenge conventional wisdom, not to form a new consensus.

And finally, "they will do all they can to ransack your private life"? Really, like making regular and incessant demands that a prominent woman politcian's gynecologist release their patient's medical records?

How is that on the classy side of the sleaze line?

David Bowie - Oh You Pretty Things

2010-04-08T19:00:00.002-05:00

One of the best Bowie discs out there is "Bowie at the Beeb", a compilation of BBC live performances from 1968-1972. The material covers Bowie's early, unsuccessful Deram material through the Ziggy Stardust era. The former material is presented in a really sweet stripped down form. "Let Me Sleep Beside You" loses its goofy gloss to become amazingly sweet. The set as a whole highlights Bowie's songwriting. The Ziggy-era band is great, too, and I tend to prefer their cover of Waiting for the Man to the Velvet Underground original.

I know that Station to Station, Low, and Heroes are currently the most highly regarded of Bowie's albums. I like them, too, especially Station to Station and Heroes (side 2 of Low is a bit of a blur for me). But this BBC compilation is what I listen to most frequently - the songwriting just seems especially strong.

Billboard Hot 100

2010-03-30T13:08:00.002-05:00

The Billboard Hot 100 as of today, March 30, 2010.

1. Rude Boy by Rihanna. All I want to say is that I found Umbrella to be obnoxious due to the fact that "umbrella" has three syllables, not the incessant tetrasyllabic pronunciation favored by Rihanna in this song. Also execrable for "inspiring" the too-similar and "Halo" by Beyonce.

2. Nothin' On You by B.o.B Featuring Bruno Mars. This isn't called "Beautiful Girls". At first, you think he's singing about playing the field, then you realize it's a sweet ode to fidelity. And who wouldn't want a girl like this: "Baby you the whole package/Plus you pay your taxes". Bonus: "And just like that girl, you got me froze/Like a Nintendo 64". My N64 never froze. But my Wii while playing Lego Indiana Jones, well that's another story.

3. Telephone by Lady Gaga. I'm generally ambivalent about her. Just Dance was garbage. The fan hyperbole for fairly generic dance pop puzzles me. That said, I like this one. The sweet harp intro evokes pleasant nostalgia for Brandy & Monica's The Boy is Mine. Oddly underplayed on the Bay Area pop station Wild 94.9. If not here, where?

4. Need You Now by Lady Antebellum. I can understand not hearing this one on Wild 94.9. Sweet tune, with the distinctive I-iii chord change in the chorus, like Goodbye Horses by Q Lazzarus.

5. Break Your Heart by Taio Cruz featuring Ludacris. Generic.

6. Imma Be by Black Eyed Peas. I am unpersuaded by the argument that the idiotic lyrics of the Black Eyed Peas ruin any enjoyment to be gained from these songs. I'm a New Order fan, after all. That said, the other singles, particularly Boom Boom Pow and I Gotta Feeling, were better.

7. Hey Soul Sister by Train. Tuneful enough, but I can't shake the feeling that the song is suddenly going to bust into that ukulele version of Somewhere Over the Rainbow.

8. BedRock by Young Money. I thought this song was #1 in the country. In fact, it maxed out at #2. Like a Michael Bay movie, it's just dopey enough to be ingratiating. Frequently makes me want to rip the radio out of the car, though.

9. TiK ToK by Ke$ha. Dance pop done right - fun chorus beats with rapping so goofy it warms the heart. "the dudes are lining up cause they hear we got swagger/But we kick em to the curb unless they look like Mick Jagger" What? Mick Jagger is 66! "I'm talking about everybody getting crunk, crunk/Boys tryin' to touch my junk, junk" That's funny. "Wake up in the morning feeling like P Diddy?" What? A thing is obscure when its meaning is hidden, often with deep personal resonance for the speaker. It is a sweet poetic fault in Gerard Manley Hopkins and, apparently, in Ke$ha.

10. Baby by Justin Bieber featuring Ludacris. Bad and bland. Justin Bieber's constant presence on the Twitter "Trending" sidebar serves to remind me that most Twitter users are Not Me.

BONUS LISTING

11. Carry Out by Timbaland featuring Justin Timberlake. This is my favorite song on the radio right now, for its lovely beat. I fear this dates me horribly, as I remember when Timbaland was popular the first time around and I know how long ago that was. Still, cracking number!

I'm the church and I've come to claim you with my iron drum

2010-03-17T12:56:00.001-05:00

John Cale plays his song "Paris 1919". Although it features none of the electric viola work with which he augmented the Velvet Underground, it's a pretty good song nonetheless.

Old Palm Pre Nonsense

2010-02-04T15:37:00.000-06:00

Front Row

2010-01-28T13:07:00.004-06:00

My first impression of Front Row was so positive - this crazy mac thing has a remote control, and you can use it to browse your media stuff. That's AWESOME, I love it!

But then I ran into difficulties - I had trouble importing files into iTunes. I imported Iron & Wine like 5 times before I figured it out - the files had damaged tags, so iTunes (Apple's media management software) couldn't recognize them. Ok, that's a pain. I stuck into a Windows program, rewrote the tags, and then it worked.

And then I decided I wanted to watch movies over the network. This turned out to be a challenge. The answer was to connect to the network share, and to drop a symbolic link to the mac filesystem into the "Movies" folder, so that I could make Front Row browse to that share.

But then the first time that the mac slept, it severed the connection to the remote volume. After lots of research, I've found no simple solution. Apparently you can write a script to automatically mount a volume when the computer wakes from sleep, and there may be pay software out there, but no thanks on both counts.

My solution so far - since I was moving my media to external hard drives anyway, I just plug that sucker into the mac. No problem. So I run Front Row, browse to Movies movies volumes mybook tv ds9 and I can watch all the Rene Auberjonois I want. It works, though I wouldn't say it "just" works.

Of course, I have another hard drive in the living room, connected to the nice stereo, and that drive has all my music. I can't listen to any of it through Front Row. Because that music isn't in the iTunes database, it doesn't exist as far as Front Row is concerned. And I'm not about to let iTunes get its hands on that folder. I don't want to force all my computers to use iTunes. I don't even know how I'd go about dealing with the fact that I have one archive of the music which must be accessible to several computers. It's a solution that just doesn't work for me.

Maybe it's years of windows use, but I am very much accustomed to the model that my computer files are organized by a filesystem hierarchy, and programs must access that hierarchy to work. I hate synching, and the attendant requirement that I lose control over my filesystems and access to those filesystems.

That's why my mp3 player is now just my Blackberry Curve. I plug it into my computer, browse the filesystem, see what's there. I can drag a new folder into it at any time and delete folders at will. I don't have to run any program other than explorer to do this. I don't need any special cables to charge it, either, because I just plug it into a usb port. It's such a simple solution. I love it to death.

I'm sure iTunes could do something similar if I were using an iPod, but I'd have to add the music to the iTunes database and then figure out how to put a selection of music on the iPod. And that's assuming I didn't run into any Iron & Wine-style problems.

And I'm thinking about all this because of that badly-named iPad. I'm sure some people will like it, but I don't get it. I feel like you're paying a premium for a crippled computer. Like the iPhone, it's designed to lock you into using Apple products and Apple stores to get all your content, and I don't want that. For less than half the price of the iPad, I could have a netbook that would offer a real keyboard, the ability to run a much larger selection of applications, similar battery life, similar or better portability (having seen how many broken iPhone screens there are out there, I wonder how that big glass is going to fare), and a higher-resolution display.

Mostly, it looks like a media player to me, and it lacks an HD display. It's a big glass box that you throw in your backpack and sometimes you surf the web on it.
And maybe it's goofy to turn a netbook on its side to read comics, but I've done it and it works really, really well.

But the best part is that I don't have to pay one company every time I want to do something on my netbook. I bought the damn computer, and it will do what I want it to with the music and movies that I already have. Also, my netbook cost me less than half what the iPad will cost. I don't get it.

The Biggest Advantage of the Electric Cigarette

2009-12-22T11:44:00.000-06:00

Soleil is French for Sun

2009-12-15T13:03:00.003-06:00

I love this Badly Drawn Boy song - the chorus starts "Soleil all over you, warm sun pours over me". Perfect for these grey days.

Another favorite "sun" song of mine is David Bowie's Memory of a Free Festival, here presented in appropriately "ragged and naive" cover form by a band of British optometry students:

As the students explain in the video, the band makes heavy use of an institutional VCS3 synthesizer, made by EMS. EMS, oddly enough, advertised its synthesizers with nun imagery. The synthesizers sound - thick and analog - used on early Doctor Who. The effect - satori must be something quite the same.

Philadelphia Parking Authority

2009-12-09T15:37:00.002-06:00

plus blocked fire hydrant plus fire truck equals hypocrisy comedy gold.

The Dark Knight

2009-12-09T14:38:00.002-06:00

A Metafilter thread about a video mocking The Dark Knight's plot holes yields this interesting comment by user rokusan:

[...] the screenplay had a lot of buzz [....] because the structure was unexpectedly tight (despite the running time) and it was even darker than expected. I do remember, too, that it was presented to me as "it's about relentlessness." [....]

The War on Terror buzz was because at the time, it was seen in some circles as unusually brave/crazy to attack or mock the USA's illegal surveillance apparatus: the movie shoved the wrongness of it at the audience by having one of America's Most Trusted Voices™ tell us how wrong it was. Big Budget Hollywood hadn't taken an anti-government stance much in recent times. This was unusual, and I think a lot of folks anticipating a "comic book" story didn't expect it. [....]

I continue to be really surprised at the love for this movie (currently #9 on IMDB's top 250). I am doubly surprised at the excitement over the tightness of the thing - I thought it made no sense at all, like it's plot went through the blender. Scenes just come and go. Most famously - what happened at the end of the joker's home invasion? The scene ends with no resolution.

I like Heath Ledger in TDK, but that's about it.

Muscle March

2009-12-04T14:22:00.001-06:00

Ethics of Ditching Your Mortgage

2009-12-01T15:01:00.003-06:00

Good Metafilter discussion about whether you should default on your home loan when the value of the home is way below the mortgage amount.

Homes are immensely personal, and the discussion highlights the extent to which personal fondness for homes and senses of morality unite to cause people to make irrational decisions about their houses. There's a sad tale in there of a guy whose dad refused to go into bankruptcy out of a sense of honor, and the negative impact it had on his family.

Catching up with TPM

2009-12-01T12:26:00.003-06:00

Josh Marshall brings the snark with the headline Great Moments in CNN Journalism. So what's the problem with CNN?:

I think I just heard CNN report that the CBO says the senate health care plan will make everyone's premiums higher but that there will also be some subsidies to help with some but not all of the increases. In case you missed it, we describe here what the report actually says.

OK, so apparently CNN grossly misrepresented the CBO report. So how did TPM describe it? Let's look at Marshall's link:

According to CBO, average premiums in the individual market would increase 10 to 13 percent because of provisions in the Senate health care bill, but, crucially, most people (about 57 percent) would actually find themselves paying significantly less money for insurance, thanks to federal subsidies for low- and middle-class consumers, than they would under current law.

What? Isn't CNN, or more precisely, Josh Marshall's offhand recollection of CNN reported, accurate?

Sure, "everyone's premiums" is not "average premiums", and "some" isn't "most"*, but the CNN statement wasn't inaccurate. This is really splitting hairs, and it's not fair to demand precision when judging what "I think I just heard." And to slap the ultra-snarky judgmental title "Great Moments in CNN Journalism" is unfair.

*57% also isn't 95% or 85% or 65%. Let's not act like there's a huge majority here.

California Girls into the Grammy Hall of Fame

2009-11-25T14:16:00.003-06:00

And rightly so.

I love this song. I remember I was watching a Beach Boys documentary and I heard this great song that I didn't remember, it was just harmonizing and it sounded great. Initially I was determined to find what song this was, then I realized that I was listening to the isolated backing vocals for California Girls.

I think that the complexity of the music gets a little lost because of the silly lyrical content and the goofy David Lee Roth version, but this song is great and is very well put together. It was the major accomplishment just prior to Good Vibrations and the Brian Wilson implosion.

Plus, I married a California Girl, so it's extra special to me!

Brian Wilson discusses Norwegian Wood

2009-11-19T14:49:00.001-06:00

Here:

Norwegian Wood is my favourite, too. The lyrics are so good, and so creative, right from the first line: “I once had a girl/ Or should I say, she once had me.” It’s so mysterious. Is he into her, or she into him? It just blew my mind. And in the end, when he wakes up and she’s gone, so he lights a fire. “Isn’t it good? Norwegian wood.” Is he setting her house on fire? I didn’t know. I still don’t know. I thought that was fantastic.

I wonder the same thing myself.

Waiting Room

2009-11-18T19:04:00.000-06:00

As I sit in a waiting room and browse a 2005 issue of Vanity Fair, I realize that Watergate's Deep Throat was infinitely more interesting as a mystery than as Mark Feld.

My Name is Mok

2009-11-16T15:00:00.003-06:00

As part of my bday celebration yesterday, we watched a cheesy favorite movie of mine - Rock n Rule. It's a rock musical cartoon about a post-apocalyptic world inhabited by anthropomorphized dogs, cats, and rats. The heroes are musicians, Cheap Trick and Debbie Harry supply their songs. The nemesis is a Mick Jagger-inspired necromancer named Mok ("Mok, the legendary superrocker, has retired to Ohmtown"). Mok's speaking voice is supplied by Don Francks (who also voiced Boba Fett in the Star Wars Holiday Special cartoon). Mok's songs are supplied by none other than Lou Reed.

LOU!

Lou's My Name is Mok is my favorite song from the movie, and the video is what I remember from having watched this as a child on cable. It's not the best movie in the world, it is too kiddy for adults, and oddly adult for kids. The plot's a bit of a mess. But it's still charming, and I really enjoy Mok and his songs and Debbie Harry's main tune:

Plus, Iggy Pop has a cameo as the "Monster From another Dimension"! Nice work, Mr. Osterberg.

"There's No I In Indie"

2009-11-10T18:01:00.002-06:00

"I just said that Mario Galaxy was my game of the year. Why does it feel like I said my favourite book is The Da Vinci Code?"

And that starts a discussion of the hipsterizing of computer games. Most notably, there's actually somebody out there who thinks You Have to Burn the Rope is the best game of the year.

And on the lazy days the dogs dissolve and drain away.

2009-10-26T16:57:00.001-05:00

The world it goes and always waits the day we are awaiting.

I am going to throttle Mad Men

2009-09-14T17:46:00.002-05:00

Look, it's a good show, but nothing ever fucking happens. I am banging my head against the wall because I know that nothing is going to come of any possible plot developments. There's no anticipation. Oh! Don's going to sleep with that teacher! Maybe!

And then the cheesy dream sequence from last night. This season has been the worst, and I think it's on the way down. The NYT had it right: "When your biggest revelation of the night is that Pete and Trudy Campbell are pretty good dancers, it may be time to pick up the pace."

Blorb

2009-09-08T17:31:00.000-05:00

McBlorb.

Michael Hurley - The Rue of Ruby Whores

2009-08-20T12:42:00.002-05:00

NSFW for cartoon boobies and junk.

I heard this song on KALX and loved it instantly. They played a more stripped down version, from Hurley's album Weatherhole. I prefer that version - Hurley and guitar, with goofy faked trumpet sounds. It's a perfect match for the stoned out cowboy feel of the song.

I've tried to find lyrics for this daggone song online, but no luck.

Fountain streams of pills

2009-08-04T20:14:00.001-05:00

From a SubMerge interview with Justin Lovato:

"He has a series of paintings in which a ubiquitous hand guides fountain streams of pills to lethargic characters, filling up their stomachs, heads and backs.

'It's a funny take on where we obtain our ideals.'"

So, would that be "ha ha" funny or ... what?

Gorgoroth on inspiration

2009-08-04T11:16:00.001-05:00

God loves guns

2009-07-31T16:23:00.002-05:00

"God fearing attorney"* is the title of this craigslist job posting:

Wanted – Attorney who is God fearing and would like to receive a high place in heaven. I want to start up a non-profit named JAIL – Jointly against illegal legislation. We will inspect what our elected have voted on and bring ethics charges against them. It shouldn’t take long before they begin to listen to the voters. Any vote against the second amendment should bring a charge. How about voting for a bill you didn’t read? The list is limitless, but the outcome is very positive. Needs to be honest, truthful and care about this country. You can contact me by phone

"Illegal legislation" has the alliterative lilt and provocatively contradictory construction to make a fine rap lyric. Sadly the phrase is a kook fave.

*Dangling participle.

Birdy Nam Nam - The Parachute Ending

2009-07-28T12:15:00.002-05:00

When the octopus squash moss defeats the intergalactic aztec, I am reminded of the George Harrison song "Isn't it a Pity".

Particularly the da-da-dah part.

Superheroes

2009-07-22T11:45:00.001-05:00

Superhero Mural

Milo is a cat

2009-07-22T11:03:00.002-05:00

Fuck Yank Sing

2009-07-20T17:09:00.002-05:00

I had to say that. I just ate at this dim sum restaurant and here is my review:

Food Goodness: Good, not great. Bad crabcake, bad sesame ball. Mostly fine. You'd find better food in virtually any chinatown.

Service:Bad. The servers are impatient and pushy. I like prompt service, I don't like pushy service. They also show only certain dishes and not others, so while I was offered many variations on steamed-stuffing-in-wrapper, I had to seek out other items. Also - one server shouted about her beef in my ear.

Value: ROTTEN TO THE FUCKING CORE. This place is so ridiculously overpriced that I was shaking with anger at the end of the meal. I don't mind paying a lot for a good meal, but when I do pay a lot, I expect good food and good service. I got serviceable food and shitty service. All of the pushy rushing leaves the impression that you're being scammed to run up the bill as quickly as possible. This is obviously the business model.

So fuck Yank Sing because they charge 3x what their food is worth, and eating there is a pain in the ass.

Death of Newspaper Editors - STL Post-Dispatch

2009-07-08T13:24:00.002-05:00

American Journalism Review discusses the loss of editors in US newspapers by focusing on changes in the St. Louis Post Dispatch.

For instance, Reust sees less creative time applied to the "accuracy and tone" of headlines. He also worries that writers and editors brainstorm less. "The general time devoted to good writing is almost nonexistent now," he says.

I read the STL P-D on and off for a few years a few years ago, and was struck by how little actual reporting about St. Louis or Missouri took place in that paper. If you could turn to the paper to learn about the city and state you lived in, through understanding the political players and city policies, then you would have something worth reading and something that would foster openness and democracy. Instead, it was all fluff and bullshit.

The Family Circus

2009-07-06T15:12:00.000-05:00

Related. I love Lovecraft.

Tilden Park - SF View

2009-06-27T14:54:00.000-05:00

Michael Jackson Beatboxing

2009-06-26T01:16:00.001-05:00

The Rolling Stones invite you to try Rice Krispies

2009-06-23T14:31:00.000-05:00

8 bit keyboard cat

2009-06-17T08:16:00.002-05:00

While I feel a little guilty for posting this, in my defense that 8 bit cat is really adorable.

Stand by Me

2009-06-16T20:50:00.001-05:00

This isn't what I voted for

2009-06-16T12:06:00.001-05:00

Well, I sort of thought this was what I was voting for.

Depends what you mean by "stretch," I guess.

2009-06-10T11:47:00.003-05:00

"It is not a stretch to compare the San Francisco board's actions to that of the Nazi Germany policy of Gleichschaltung, vilifying Jews as an auxiliary to and laying the groundwork for more repressive policies, including the final solution of extermination."

So says Richard Thompson, president of the Thomas More Law Center. The Center is representing Catholics pissed off at the SF board of supervisors.

The Vatican ordered Catholic Charities not to place orphans with same sex parents, saying to do so "would actually mean doing violence to these children." The board said the order's "hateful and discriminatory rhetoric is both insulting and callous" and that the agencies should still place kids with same sex parents.

The Catholics sued under 1983 but a District Court dismissed and a 9th Circuit panel just affirmed the dismissal. So the Thomas More people are speaking out, and they're bringing Hitler to the party.

The San Francisco Chronicle's reporters must have thought this a bit over the top, because they got the More people to walk the quote back a bit. Thomas More spokesman Brian Rooney says:

"We're not saying that the resolution is going to lead toward extermination of Catholics" .... "The problem with having governments vilifying religions and their tenets is that it's a slippery slope to instigate acts of violence."

Which is funny, because the original quote kinda went out of its way to suggest that the SF Board's "shame on you" resolution was the first step to mass Catholic slaughter.

Richard Thompson did say 'this is like when Hitler laid the groundwork for genocide.' He didn't just give you the "Hitler" setup, he delivered the "extermination" punchline. But the best part of Thompson's original quote is that he said "It is not a stretch," like it's a natural conclusion. A city council passes a finger-wagging resolution, of course the first thing on my mind is the Holocaust. Similarly, when somebody takes up two parking spots, I immediately think "Anschluss!"

Setting that ridiculousness aside, apparently Gleichschaltung has less to do with vilifying Jews and more to do with the consolidation of political power and establishing totalitarianism in Germany.

Hearts and Minds

2009-06-09T11:10:00.002-05:00

Wouldn't you think some stuff, like calling men "women" to try and pump them up, is culturally specific and therefore not that useful in these circumstances? Also, if I had really divided loyalties, does this speech motivate me to join the US cause wholeheartedly?

For me, I find this sort of speech terribly demotivating. After two sentences, I'm thinking "why do I have to listen to this douchebag screaming at me?"

The kicker, though, is when the soldier tells the cops to grab a bunch of guns and enter into armed combat. The cops ask for equipment, and are given a quick "fuck you, man up" in response.

Charming.

EFF Wins Me Over

2009-06-03T17:55:00.002-05:00

Well, the EFF finally won me over. You see, the Supreme Judicial Court for Suffolk County ruled in their favor, ordering the police to return the homophobic hacker's computer equipment.

But the best part is that the EFF press writeup finally highlights the right issue. Smack dab in the first paragraph we get:

Not only is this an enormous victory for Calixte himself, but the ruling is also the highest state court opinion to repudiate the nascent law enforcement "trend" of charging internet users who violate websites' terms of service as criminals.

Calixte, recall, sent emails from Yahoo and Gmail which claimed to be from his roommate, announcing that the roommate was gay. The cops then nicked Calixte's stuff under an unauthorized use statute.

I am happy that the EFF is finally on the right track with this one. Heck, the EFF post even links to the same Volokh Conspiracy post I noted earlier. So good for them!

The court opinions are a little weird. You can read them here, as the April 22 Order Re: Motion and the May 21 Supreme Judicial Counsel Order. Both touch very briefly on the email/unauthorized use statute aspect of the case. Reading the Commonwealth's materials, the state didn't seem too interested in defending such an application of the law.

Fire Alarm

2009-05-02T07:29:00.000-05:00

I like Rebecca Tushnet's 43(B)log

2009-04-27T19:38:00.000-05:00

For posts like this, in which she notes that Thaler and Sunstein give explicit direction to their readers to engage in copyright infringement by googling a poem.

What's nuts is that there's not a lot of difference between what Thaler and Sunstein, two well-respected professors, did and what the Pirate Bay guys did. Neither provide copyrighted material, both point out very clearly how to get it.

The Rural Alberta Advantage

2009-04-27T17:43:00.002-05:00

Live at St. Louis' Billiken Club, performing "Frank AB":

I like this song a lot. It's like Neutral Milk Hotel, except more Canadian. There's a funky homemade video for Frank AB on youtube, with original footage culled from the movie Gummo. This is their best song, but the album Hometowns is worth a listen. I wish the female backup vocals were a little stronger, but then anything's going to pale beside the dude's voice.

EFF ducks the issue in Boston College Linux case

2009-04-22T07:40:00.005-05:00

I previously wrote about the Boston College Linux user, represented by the EFF, whose computer equipment was seized by police. The District Court judge denied the EFF's motion to quash, and the EFF will appeal. Although there's no opinion, you can find several other court documents here.

The EFF has also updated its Deeplinks blog post to defend its deceptive publicity attempts. The response is more horse hockey.* Instead of addressing an issue that touches on the rights of virtually every person who uses the internet, the EFF is pushing a bogus story about supposed persecution of Linux users.

The EFF's Deeplinks blog originally said that "the investigating officer argued that the computer expertise of the student itself supported a finding of probable cause to seize the student's property". The blog then asked "Should Boston College Linux users be looking over their shoulders?". EFF wanted people to believe that the suspect was targeted just because he's a Linux user.

The internet happily took up this bogus cause. Credulous stories hit digg, reddit, and slashdot. Currently, the number one google result for "boston college linux" is "Linux Use Illegal at Boston College". Linux use is not now and never has been illegal at Boston College. This is bullhonkery.*

The warrant alleged that the suspect sent prank emails and that these emails are a crime. U of Dayton law prof Susan Brenner (who uses 1337 in her blog's name) confirms this: "his use of Linux is not being defined as a crime; instead, it’s simply evidence that connects Calixte to the emails at issue."

The EFF replied to Prof. Brenner. EFF maintains that the warrant's reference to Linux is unfair. First, EFF says that "no 'connection' is provided by the operating systems" because the witness didn't specify that the suspect used Ubuntu Linux. He could have used another flavor of Linux or, heck, even a Windows terminal. EFF's second response is that the warrant makes an unfounded assertion that the student uses Linux to hide illegal activities, and that "[t]he unwarranted implication -- that because the student used an "uncommon" operating system and/or is technically sophisticated, he is more likely to be engaged in criminal activity -- should give one considerable pause."

The warrant makes no such implication. The warrant clearly states the connection. The witness reported that the suspect used a second operating system to engage in illegal activities. Boston College's server logs confirmed that the suspect used Linux to commit the alleged crimes (sending prank emails). The server logs clearly identify both the suspect and the fact that the suspect uses Ubuntu Linux. Independent confirmation of a witness's story is a strong indicator of the witness's reliability. The suspect's Linux use is therefore vitally important to the search warrant.

There is no "baseless assertion that a computer science major's use of 'two different operating systems' must be 'to hide his illegal activities'". There are allegations of specific activities confirmed by a reliable, disinterested, independent source. The Deeplinks author doesn't want to acknowledge that the server logs finger the suspect - he's happy to push the fable that it's the suspect's Linux use and not the alleged emails which supply probable cause.

As for the notion that the witness didn't specify the flavor of Linux, that's splitting hairs. Linux adoption stands at about 1-2%, and only 2 students in the dorm used Linux. The suspect is in a pretty small minority of computer users. Also, the witness reported that the suspect used two operating systems (with separate logins), so we can rule out the use of the Windows terminal.

It's a shame that the EFF is going with this "Boston College Outlaws Linux! Shock! Horror!" story, because there's a real legal issue here that's relevant to far more people than just Linux users (among whom, again, I number). Namely, should the state be able to punish violations of website Terms of Service contracts as a crime? This is a key issue in the Lori Drew case. It's an issue that touches on the rights of virtually every single internet user. Instead of focusing on the important issue, the EFF engaged in deceptive fear mongering. What a load of bullbutter.*

*I don't want to offend any delicate sensibilities. Also, I love wikipedia.

Whirring Motor Bohemian Rhapsody

2009-04-21T17:31:00.000-05:00

A Little Life Lesson

2009-04-21T10:11:00.001-05:00

Putting "horseshit" in the title of your blog post doesn't help your google ranking.

EFF engages in deception in Boston College Linux case

2009-04-17T08:13:00.001-05:00

Reposting yesterday's entry out of curiosity

The EFF is misleading people in its defense of Riccardo Calixte, a Boston College student whose computer equipment was recently seized by police. EFF are spreading the story that Boston Police seized Calixte's property because he uses Linux and that's inherently suspicious. This is not the case. The warrant doesn't claim that Linux use is illicit behavior. The warrant alleges that Calixte played a prank on his roommate which may be criminal. While the warrant mentions Calixte's Linux use, it does so in a cursory manner to help identify Calixte. It is not a crime to run Linux in Massachusetts.

EFF's Deeplinks blog says "Boston College Campus Police: 'Using Prompt Commands' May Be a Sign of Criminal Activity", and it asks a question that will get the article linked across the web, "Should Boston College Linux users be looking over their shoulders?". The warrant in question, which you can read here as exhibit A, reports the testimony of Calixte's roommate ("Roomy"), who said that Calixte "uses two different operating systems to hide his illegal activities. One is the regular B.C. operating system and the other is a black screen with white font which he uses prompt commands on."

Ok. If you need to, take a break to laugh at that description of a command prompt. Tee hee tee hee.

The EFF highlights the mention of a command prompt, and the story spreads through the net-o-sphere that Boston College police think that Linux use is inherently suspicious and probably criminal:

So basically they're coming for you Linux users. (First, they came for the Ron Paulies, and I did nothing....) This is an appealing tale which garners publicity for the EFF's case, but it is not true.

The warrant doesn't say that Linux use is criminal. Instead, it alleges that Calixte played a prank on Roomy and that this prank is a crime. According to Roomy, he and Calixte got into a fight and Calixte retaliated. Roomy says that Calixte fucked up Roomy's computer. Roomy also says that Calixte sent email to a Boston College listserv which pretended to be Roomy coming out of the closet. The emails linked to a profile Calixte set up on adam4adam, a gay personals site, Rooomy says. These are the allegedly criminal activities, not Calixte's Linux use.

Calixte's Linux use is relevant because it helps identify Calixte as the prankster. According to BC's DHCP logs, a Linux computer, registered on the network as "bootleg-laptop", sent the email. Calixte had previously registered machines on the network as "bootleg-laptop". Another log showed access of adam4adam by a computer running Linux and registered by Calixte. The computer was registered as "calixtri-ubuntu". In the entire 154-student residence hall, only 2 computers ran Linux, and only 1 accessed adam4adam. If the computer which performed the gay spoof ran Linux, and only 2 computers in the hall ran Linux, then the fact that Calixte used Linux is totally relevant.

The Linux use isn't the criminal activity, it's an identifying characteristic. It's ludicrous to suggest that this warrant criminalizes Linux use. It's like saying that a warrant that cites fingerprint evidence criminalizes the possession of fingers.

In fact, I suggest that you go read the EFF's Memorandum in Support of its Motion for Emergency Relief. You will find find a grand total of three sentences in that fifteen page brief which discuss the command prompt. It is a minor aside to section III(C)(1) on page 9. The EFF's real arguments? They spend 5-6 pages arguing that the alleged acts aren't crimes under Massachusetts law and 3.5 pages attacking Roomy's reliability. Maybe I missed it, but I think the brief ignores the warrant's allegation that Calixte damaged Roomy's computer.

Now, let me say that I generally support the EFF and their work (I linked approvingly to them here. It's a funny little video.). I think that they provide a valuable service fighting for the rights of users against a legal system that's stacked against the little guy. I am also a Linux user. But this is just so much fear-mongering. The police are not hunting down Linux users. Running bash in Boston does not make you a cyber Martin Luther King.

I would like to credit Reddit. Although the users voted up the original EFF story twice, they also overwhelmingly upvoted the comment by sfanetti debunking the bogus claims. To quote node_n's summary of the situation:

"God Damn it! I got tricked by another TOTALLY misleading fucking headline. I just read the whole search warrant and got the rest of the story. The way the story was presented made BC and the police sound as if they are insane at best. The real story is different.
Thanks for your fake "story," acrylicist. Dickhead!"

Dickhead, indeed.

EFF engages in FUD horseshit in Boston College Linux case

2009-04-15T18:19:00.003-05:00

The EFF is misleading people in its defense of Riccardo Calixte, a Boston College student whose computer equipment was recently seized by police. EFF are spreading the story that Boston Police seized Calixte's property because he uses Linux and that's inherently suspicious. This is not the case. The warrant doesn't claim that Linux use is illicit behavior. The warrant alleges that Calixte played a prank on his roommate which may be criminal. While the warrant mentions Calixte's Linux use, it does so in a cursory manner to help identify Calixte. It is not a crime to run Linux in Massachusetts.

EFF's Deeplinks blog says "Boston College Campus Police: 'Using Prompt Commands' May Be a Sign of Criminal Activity", and it asks a question that will get the article linked across the web, "Should Boston College Linux users be looking over their shoulders?". The warrant in question, which you can read here as exhibit A, reports the testimony of Calixte's roommate ("Roomy"), who said that Calixte "uses two different operating systems to hide his illegal activities. One is the regular B.C. operating system and the other is a black screen with white font which he uses prompt commands on."

Ok. If you need to, take a break to laugh at that description of a command prompt. Tee hee tee hee.

The EFF highlights the mention of a command prompt, and the story spreads through the net-o-sphere that Boston College police think that Linux use is inherently suspicious and probably criminal:

"God Damn it! I got tricked by another TOTALLY misleading fucking headline. I just read the whole search warrant and got the rest of the story. The way the story was presented made BC and the police sound as if they are insane at best. The real story is different.
Thanks for your fake "story," acrylicist. Dickhead!"

Dickhead, indeed.

Inadvertent theology

2009-04-15T09:48:00.002-05:00

A couple months ago I posted about a wacky little rant cribbed from a rapture-oriented forum. The ranter assumed the authorial pose of a toddler throwing a temper tantrum, demanding rapture by god to leave this sinful existence.Judging by a comment I just received on the post, I stepped into the middle of a thorny theological debate:

So is the "day of God" (II Pet. 3:12) - which you admit is at least 1000 years ahead - also imminent because we're told to be "looking for" it? Also repeat the pretrib myths about the "Jewish wedding stages" and "Jewish feasts" (where's your "church/Israel dichotomy" now?)

I don't know, I completely forgot where I left it.

Cab Calloway sings St. James Infirmary

2009-04-09T08:21:00.000-05:00

in a Fleischer Studios Betty Boop cartoon:

Charming, goofy lo-fi linux ad

2009-04-08T11:51:00.003-05:00

I've been messing around again with a little linux lately. It's been an easier process for me now than it was ten years ago when I tried to put Red Hat on an aging desktop. Ubuntu and Puppy Linux have been my distros of choice.

On my bulky five year old I've tried out Ubuntu. With no configuration, it worked right off the Live CD, which is great. On the down side, the fonts are ugly. Here's reddit on Ubuntu Firefox:

Blech. I don't consider myself a font nazi - Comic Sans is fine by me - but clumsy font rendering really bugs me. I think that the problem might be solved by copying Windows fonts into Ubuntu, but blogs discuss the option in such cagey terms that there must be licensing issues. Regardless, these ugly fonts make it hard for me to use Ubuntu for everyday browsing.

On the sexiest computer I've ever owned, the super slim ten year old Dell Latitude LS, with its powerhouse PIII 400 MHz processor and 12G hard drive, I've opted for a smaller installation. Puppy Linux runs mostly reliably, but it won't remember my wireless settings from session to session. It's a pain in the ass to set up ndiswrapper each time I want to browse the internet. Which is a lot. I've had other issues, but these may be of the Dell's decrepitude. The Dell also only has an external CD drive connected by a proprietary cable that likes to come unplugged, so Live CDs are inconvenient.

I wish that these distros offered a Windows installer that would set up a dual boot without partitioning. Live CD's are nice, but I have a gig here or there to spare (on my five year old, at least) for the option to choose OS at boot-up and not worry about setting shit up again. The Live CD mentality seems to stick Linux in a bit of a mental ghetto - sure, you dabble in it, but you wouldn't want to commit to using the OS full time.

I would also very much like to get GeeXbox running on the Dell, but it won't. That distro acts as a Front Row-style operating system, turning the computer into a dedicated media player. I would love such a program, particularly if it would let me browse a filesystem for mp3's, a feature lacking in Front Row.

I can certainly envision the time when I stop using Windows altogether and move to a Linux installation - it seems like a fun adventure.

I would probably also start saying "GNU-Linux" habitually.

Nicholas Cage Japanese Pachinko Commercials

2009-04-02T07:52:00.000-05:00

April Fools Day jokes on the internet

2009-04-01T10:01:00.004-05:00

Three sentences from now, I'm going to say something really funny.

Seriously, just two sentences from now, I'm gonna be fucking hilarious.

After the next sentence, internet hyperbole will achieve literal truth as you fall from your seat and tumble to and fro convulsing with guffaws.

This is the penultimate sentence.

TWO MEN WALKED INTO A BAR - THE THIRD ONE DUCKED! AHHH! I AM SO WACKY!

Internet April Fools jokes are generally not funny and always predictable. Reddit readers summarize thus:

OK, I kind of like the reddit joke. But upside down youtube? Happily, the days of April 1 jokes on Metafilter may be over.

ScreamBody

2009-03-26T20:57:00.000-05:00

It's also worth checking out the Blendie on her website. It's a blender that you have a blender-y conversation with.

Tiny Sweaters

2009-03-25T22:01:00.001-05:00

Eerie fashion show.

Sleazy Immigration Law

2009-03-24T08:09:00.002-05:00

Giving a seminar on how to comply with the letter of the law while disregarding its intent.

iPhone Level App

2009-03-16T17:22:00.000-05:00

Popular Mechanics reviews some iPhone Apps and discovers that, with respect to the spirit level app, you can't just slap your phone on something and tell whether it's level. You need to calibrate the app first. Which means that you need to level your level before you level. So it turns out that there is not, in fact, an app for that.

Sci Fi Channel is going to rebrand itself as "Syfy"

2009-03-16T11:11:00.001-05:00

They need own a name, it seems:

"We couldn’t own Sci Fi; it’s a genre," said Bonnie Hammer, the former president of Sci Fi who became the president of NBC Universal Cable Entertainment and Universal Cable Productions. "But we can own Syfy."

Which is all well and good. Except that the name you own is pronounced "Siffy" and evokes the mental image of either a sock puppet (below) or syphilis.

Bibio in the Fairyland of Color

2009-03-11T21:56:00.003-05:00

Since I posted that Juana Molina video for La Verdad, I have had that song running through my head until it slowly morphed into another similar song. Today I found relief from the torment of not remembering. I was thinking of Bewley in White by Bibio. Here's a video of the song set to old footage of Holland. Bewley starts when the tulips first appear around :21 and runs for the next four and a half minutes before blending into another Bibio tune

Folky guitar plus shenanigans equals fun. I think Bibio has a new record out.

Raiders of the Lost Ark Story Conference

2009-03-11T02:58:00.001-05:00

Mystery Man on Film posted a 125 page transcript of a story conference held by George Lucas, Steven Spielberg, and Lawrence Kasdan for Raiders of the Lost Ark. The blog highlights excerpts, including the revelation that Marion and Indy had an affair when Marion was only 15 years old. Said Lucas:

Fifteen is right on the edge. I know it's an outrageous idea, but it is interesting. Once she's sixteen or seventeen it's not interesting anymore. But if she was fifteen and he was twenty-five and they actually had an affair the last time they met.

This is alluded to in the film, but not so explicitly. Marion tells Indy "I was a child. I was in love. It was wrong and you knew it." The film isn't explicit about ages, though. I always assumed Marion was saying "I was naive", not "I was jailbait."

The ages of the actors don't really prove whether the encounter was illegal or just unhappy. Karen Allen was 28 (birthday 10/05/51) when Raiders was filmed (06-09/80), Harrison Ford was 37-38 (birthday 7/13/42). As Lucas wanted, they are ten years apart in age. How old were they when they got it on? Marion says "I've learned to hate you in the last ten years." Ten years prior, Allen was 18, but it's not certain whether she's being precise or playing her actual age. Seems, though, like she's on the safe side of legality there.

I suppose that it's a matter of changing standards, but I'm surprised that Lucas would flirt with the possibility that the 25 year old male hero of the movie would have a relationship with a 15 year girl. Or think that a 25/16 relationship would be safe.

Watchmen Opening Credits Sequence

2009-03-07T20:24:00.002-06:00

The Watchmen movie doesn't do a lot of digesting its source material to present it in a newer, cinematic manner. It's more a rough transcription of the source. One of the few scenes that adapts the original material in an original manner is the opening credits sequence, a little history lesson montage about the world of Watchmen.

You can watch the credits sequence online.

Watchmen

2009-03-07T07:47:00.002-06:00

I liked 300 a whole lot more than I liked Watchmen. With 300, the plot is minimal and well-suited to goofy, over-the-top action scenes. Watchmen has subtler thematic material which clashes with the tone of the film.

The basic premise of the comic is: what if superheroes existed in the real world? What's the psychology behind their motivation and how would other people react to them? In this environment, such action scenes don't make sense. When Nite Owl and Silk Spectre fight off the gang, limbs are snapped to funny angles and spurt blood and knives are jammed into throats. It's jarring.

The worst is the sex scene. Following a spell of erectile dysfunction on the sofa, Nite Owl finally mounts Silk Spectre in the owl ship, swapping gratuitous poses for the camera as Leonard Cohen throatily warbles something wretched. It isn't sexy or sweet, it's mostly a little funny. There's a similarly jarring moment when the movie plays Sounds of Silence - the elements of soft, subtle humanity seem completely out of place in this kind of action movie.

For all the fidelity to the plot, there's not much fidelity to the tone of the comics. It is faithful, more or less, to the plot. Jackie Earle Haley and Jeffrey Dean Morgan are great as Rorschach and the Comedian, Billy Crudup does a passable HAL-9000 impression as Dr. Manhattan. It's not terrible, it's just not that good.

My recommendation - read the comic, it's better.

OK, I'm going to talk about the end scene now, so there will be some spoilers.

The comic largely sticks to a format of nine panels per page, arranged in a three by three grid. Frequently, a few of these panels will be fused together, but the regular pattern dominates the book. When the comic depicts the squid's devastation, it switches to one panel per page for six pages. You see bodies bloody and strewn about the streets. It's striking and forces the reader to confront the human reality of Veidt's plan. This is the climax of the story, and how the characters react to this event are important. The movie, previously quite happy to show bloodied body parts, glosses over the holocaust, showing only some property damage. The movie robs the story's climax of its emotional weight. This is intentional, apparently, because of 9/11 sensitivity. This sensitivity doesn't keep a gratuitous shot of the twin towers out of an earlier scene.

And of course I would have preferred the squid.

Juana Molina - La Verdad

2009-03-05T19:10:00.001-06:00

Low-key folky guitar tune accented by subtle fun electronics.

Ferris Wheel On Fire

2009-03-02T15:18:00.000-06:00

Unreleased Neutral Milk Hotel song from around the time of In the Aeroplane Over the Sea.

"I Want The Rapture Right Now!!!

2009-02-28T16:18:00.000-06:00

From the Rapture Ready forum:

Okay, I don't care if I sound like a 2-year old in the toy store. I don't care if I am going to be spanked or put on time out! I don't care if my tantrum in the grocery store is causing people to stare and making my daddy embarrassed! I don't care that I am sprawled out like a rag doll on the floor... ...if he pretends to walk away and leave me I will just cry louder!!!

I don't care that I've cried so hard I am now making those stupid hiccup sounds with snot running down my nose....as I take heaving breaths trying to still cry but now I am too tired...I just look defeated and pathetic.....I DON'T CARE, I DON'T CARE, I DON'T CARE!

Because after all my cutting up and fussing and whining and crying, and even if I did not get what I wanted...my daddy is going to take me home, feed me, bath me, and tuck me in bed with my favorite animal And I will be happy in the morning when I wake up.

Father, come take me home.....NOW....please...

Though you should really read the original, if only to see the smileys, including one smiley-getting-raptured-to-heaven.

Top Chef Disappoints

2009-02-26T10:02:00.002-06:00

Fucking Hosea? That little unfaithful weasel?

The worst part was seeing him piss on poor Carla. Carla should have kept control of her menu and she should have stuck to her guns more, true. But for Hosea to stand there and say "Richard's talented but I made sure that I made my own food" is 100% pure dick. It's clear that she knew that. That's why she broke down in tears.

Worst Top Chef since season 2.