Delaware Libertarian
Was there ever actually going to be a Public Option?
I'm starting to wonder.
With key Democrats like Max Baucus and Nancy Pelosi taking massive contributions from the health insurance lobbyists; with President Obama likewise accepting such contributions and cutting a sweetheart deal with the pharmaceutical companies, it looks more and more like the original plan may have been to feint left, then cut back to the right the whole time.
Look what corporate America has so far achieved:
Big Pharma, for a bribe of only $150 million, has been indemnified against losses in excess of $80 billion over the next decade.
Big Insurance, in exchange for having to actually treat some of its current customers, is seeing the purchase of its product made mandatory by the government, leading to the addition of tens of millions of new customers and rules that allow it to spread risk and cost across greater [possibly even inter-state] populations.
Big Law has managed to keep tort reform completely off the table, despite President Obama's carefully parsed non-promise in his speech last week.
Medicare is set to take tens of billions in cuts that rival what the GOP-controlled Congress wanted to do in the 1990s.
And nobody who currently lacks health insurance will benefit from any of these changes until 2014, even though the taxes to pay for them kick in within the next two years.
When I look at the particulars of the money at the larger scales, one fact emerges:
President Obama had far more interest in having a bill to sign in order to protect his own political future than he ever did in risking serious capital to champion the agenda that his followers desired.
That's primarily because David Axelrod knows that it was independents, not Democrats, who elected him President.
I could turn out to be wrong, but it's looking more and more to be the case.
With key Democrats like Max Baucus and Nancy Pelosi taking massive contributions from the health insurance lobbyists; with President Obama likewise accepting such contributions and cutting a sweetheart deal with the pharmaceutical companies, it looks more and more like the original plan may have been to feint left, then cut back to the right the whole time.
Look what corporate America has so far achieved:
Big Pharma, for a bribe of only $150 million, has been indemnified against losses in excess of $80 billion over the next decade.
Big Insurance, in exchange for having to actually treat some of its current customers, is seeing the purchase of its product made mandatory by the government, leading to the addition of tens of millions of new customers and rules that allow it to spread risk and cost across greater [possibly even inter-state] populations.
Big Law has managed to keep tort reform completely off the table, despite President Obama's carefully parsed non-promise in his speech last week.
Medicare is set to take tens of billions in cuts that rival what the GOP-controlled Congress wanted to do in the 1990s.
And nobody who currently lacks health insurance will benefit from any of these changes until 2014, even though the taxes to pay for them kick in within the next two years.
When I look at the particulars of the money at the larger scales, one fact emerges:
President Obama had far more interest in having a bill to sign in order to protect his own political future than he ever did in risking serious capital to champion the agenda that his followers desired.
That's primarily because David Axelrod knows that it was independents, not Democrats, who elected him President.
I could turn out to be wrong, but it's looking more and more to be the case.
WDEL - Monday September 14th 1-4 pm
1150 AM WDEL's Rick Jensen is taking some well-earned R&R this week.
On Monday I will be filling in as host of The Rick Jensen Show from 1-4 pm.
I have asked my good friend Jason Scott, founder of and former contributor to Delaware Liberal, to join me as special guest co-host.
Our lead topic will be 'Liberalism : Megalomaniacal Pseudo-Ideology or Mental Illness?'
Jason will also be speaking out for the first time about the cyberspace putsch that left him a blogosphere orphan. All will be revealed.
(Of course, I kid.)
Wilmington City Councilman and rising star Steve Martelli will be joining us in the 2pm hour to talk city politics, government and the future of Wilmington.
In the latter part of the show the Fightin' Flahertys, John and Colin, will join us for a freewheeling 4-way crossfire on hot topics, local and national.
Calls are welcome and encouraged : (302) 478-9335 or 1-800-544-1150
It should be a spirited 3 hours.
On Monday I will be filling in as host of The Rick Jensen Show from 1-4 pm.
I have asked my good friend Jason Scott, founder of and former contributor to Delaware Liberal, to join me as special guest co-host.
Our lead topic will be 'Liberalism : Megalomaniacal Pseudo-Ideology or Mental Illness?'
Jason will also be speaking out for the first time about the cyberspace putsch that left him a blogosphere orphan. All will be revealed.
(Of course, I kid.)
Wilmington City Councilman and rising star Steve Martelli will be joining us in the 2pm hour to talk city politics, government and the future of Wilmington.
In the latter part of the show the Fightin' Flahertys, John and Colin, will join us for a freewheeling 4-way crossfire on hot topics, local and national.
Calls are welcome and encouraged : (302) 478-9335 or 1-800-544-1150
It should be a spirited 3 hours.
Yeah, Speaker Nancy Pelosi: scourge of the health insurance industry?
Not.
Nancy Willing provides links to the details of Nancy Pelosi's cozy ties to health insurance lobbyists that, strangely enough, emerge right after the Speaker indicates she finds room to compromise on a public option being removed from the health reform plan.
Explain again how either wing of the Demopublican Party is anything other than corporate shills.
Yep: they care about you. They really do.
Nancy Willing provides links to the details of Nancy Pelosi's cozy ties to health insurance lobbyists that, strangely enough, emerge right after the Speaker indicates she finds room to compromise on a public option being removed from the health reform plan.
Explain again how either wing of the Demopublican Party is anything other than corporate shills.
Yep: they care about you. They really do.
McChrystal: No Al Qaeda in Afghanistan, but keep fighting anyway
Now that we have generals running our foreign policy in the Middle East and Central Asia, this is what you can expect:
Speaking on the eight-year anniversary of the September 11 terrorist attack, top US commander in Afghanistan General Stanley McChrystal says that he sees no indication of any large al-Qaeda presence in Afghanistan.
Gen. McChrystal’s comments come at a time when the Obama Administration is facing an increasing revolt over the ongoing war in Afghanistan, and officials have used the “threat” posed by al-Qaeda as their primary justification for continuing the conflict.
Seemingly oblivious to having already dismissed the conflict’s ostensible raison d’etre, the general continued to defend the war, maintaining that it was winnable given increased effort and insisting that, while he had no evidence to back it up, he “strongly believes” the war has prevented other terrorist attacks.
Meanwhile, the Taliban insurgency continues to spread; the Christian Science Monitor:
Long considered one of the most stable and peaceful parts of the country, the northern provinces have seen rising violence as heavy insurgent activity has spread to 80 percent of the country – up from 54 percent two years ago. (See map.) Under increasing pressure in southern Afghanistan and northern Pakistan, militants who have long sought to extend their reach have turned their attention to the north, where NATO has established a second supply route in the wake of debilitating attacks on its southern pipeline.
So what is the Obama administration doing in the region: doubling down, of course:
WASHINGTON - With hardly any debate, a powerful Senate committee Thursday approved President Barack Obama's $128 billion request for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan for the budget year beginning in October.
The move came as anxiety was increasing in the Capitol over the chances for success in Afghanistan and as Obama weighs whether to send more forces to the country.
The war funding was approved as the Appropriations Committee voted unanimously for a $636 billion spending measure for next year's Defence Department budget. The war funding would implement Obama's order this year to add 21,000 more troops to Afghanistan, which would bring the number of U.S. forces there to 68,000 by the end of 2009.
Yeah, change we can get our troops killed for nothing with.
Speaking on the eight-year anniversary of the September 11 terrorist attack, top US commander in Afghanistan General Stanley McChrystal says that he sees no indication of any large al-Qaeda presence in Afghanistan.
Gen. McChrystal’s comments come at a time when the Obama Administration is facing an increasing revolt over the ongoing war in Afghanistan, and officials have used the “threat” posed by al-Qaeda as their primary justification for continuing the conflict.
Seemingly oblivious to having already dismissed the conflict’s ostensible raison d’etre, the general continued to defend the war, maintaining that it was winnable given increased effort and insisting that, while he had no evidence to back it up, he “strongly believes” the war has prevented other terrorist attacks.
Meanwhile, the Taliban insurgency continues to spread; the Christian Science Monitor:
Long considered one of the most stable and peaceful parts of the country, the northern provinces have seen rising violence as heavy insurgent activity has spread to 80 percent of the country – up from 54 percent two years ago. (See map.) Under increasing pressure in southern Afghanistan and northern Pakistan, militants who have long sought to extend their reach have turned their attention to the north, where NATO has established a second supply route in the wake of debilitating attacks on its southern pipeline.
So what is the Obama administration doing in the region: doubling down, of course:
WASHINGTON - With hardly any debate, a powerful Senate committee Thursday approved President Barack Obama's $128 billion request for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan for the budget year beginning in October.
The move came as anxiety was increasing in the Capitol over the chances for success in Afghanistan and as Obama weighs whether to send more forces to the country.
The war funding was approved as the Appropriations Committee voted unanimously for a $636 billion spending measure for next year's Defence Department budget. The war funding would implement Obama's order this year to add 21,000 more troops to Afghanistan, which would bring the number of U.S. forces there to 68,000 by the end of 2009.
Yeah, change we can get our troops killed for nothing with.
What I'd like us to remember from the days after 9/11...
... is not to give in to fear.
While we remember the victims, celebrate the heroism of the responders and the passengers on Flight 93, let's also remember that in aftermath of 9/11 we gave in to our fears and allowed laws like the Patriot Act and warrantless wiretapping to shred our Constitution.
Let's remember that more American troops have died in Iraq and Afghanistan than citizens died on 9/11, and that tens of thousands more have received life-altering if not life-shattering wounds, to keep us safe, and yet....
We take off our shoes in airports while speaking deferentially to barely trained TSA Gestapo agents who have the power to seize your computer or your property for virtually no reason at all....
Our freedom of movement to places like Canada has been severely curtailed....
The Department of Homeland Security has become the single largest bureaucracy in American history....
Millions of Americans are on terrorist watch lists for no reason at all and have no recourse to get off....
Our government has authorized [and continues to authorize at places like Bagram in Afghanistan] the indefinite detention and torture of individuals completely in our power but deprived of any human status....
That our government continues to fight judicial oversight of its handling of prisoners and military tribunals....
9/11 is rapidly passing from history into memory.
I only hope--and I expect to be excoriated for this hope by more than one commenter--that we do not allow that day to be remembered as the day which began the destruction of America's constitutional republic because we were too afraid recall what Live Free or Die actually means.
While we remember the victims, celebrate the heroism of the responders and the passengers on Flight 93, let's also remember that in aftermath of 9/11 we gave in to our fears and allowed laws like the Patriot Act and warrantless wiretapping to shred our Constitution.
Let's remember that more American troops have died in Iraq and Afghanistan than citizens died on 9/11, and that tens of thousands more have received life-altering if not life-shattering wounds, to keep us safe, and yet....
We take off our shoes in airports while speaking deferentially to barely trained TSA Gestapo agents who have the power to seize your computer or your property for virtually no reason at all....
Our freedom of movement to places like Canada has been severely curtailed....
The Department of Homeland Security has become the single largest bureaucracy in American history....
Millions of Americans are on terrorist watch lists for no reason at all and have no recourse to get off....
Our government has authorized [and continues to authorize at places like Bagram in Afghanistan] the indefinite detention and torture of individuals completely in our power but deprived of any human status....
That our government continues to fight judicial oversight of its handling of prisoners and military tribunals....
9/11 is rapidly passing from history into memory.
I only hope--and I expect to be excoriated for this hope by more than one commenter--that we do not allow that day to be remembered as the day which began the destruction of America's constitutional republic because we were too afraid recall what Live Free or Die actually means.
Quarter-pounder Christianity...
... because the post is too good and the idea is too appalling to let Waldo keep it to himself.
I can't explain; drive over there and pick up an order of penitence with a side of gospel salad.
I can't explain; drive over there and pick up an order of penitence with a side of gospel salad.
A long day, and an obligatory health care post...
... even if I have nothing to say about the President's speech, because by now it's been done to death.
But here's how I know--not as a Libertarian but as an American--that the Federal government doesn't actually give a rat's butt about whether I--or Smitty, for that matter--goes broke due to health care bills, and that the so-called reform is all about creating new customers for health insurance companies.
Looking back through the documents assembled for last years' taxes the other day, I recalled exactly why we were glad to see 2008 end. With my wife's back surgery and my son's chronic fatigure and my younger daughter's braces we had over $13,500 in direct out-of-pocket health care expenses.
And we couldn't deduct a penny of it from our taxes.
Given our income [which is information you don't really need] we would have to have spent several thousand dollars more before we could deduct anything, and then we would only be able to deduct whatever amount went over a threshold of 7% of our combined income.
This is the logic of the government: I can deduct virtually all the mortgage interest on not one but two residences, and even line-of-credit interest for money that I borrowed for a vacation to Colorado or a new car as long as it was secured against real estate, but I cannot deduct a penny in medical expenses below 7%.
I can deduct money I spent on child care, but not money I spent to keep those kids from dying.
I can deduct money for adopting a child, but once the tyke gets home I am on my own with any medical bills.
The government recently gave away $3,500-4,500 in instant rebates to buy a car I might not otherwise be able to afford, but if I use that car to drive my children to the Emergency Room, tough shit.
The government will pay part of the freight if I put new insulation or solar panels in my home, but take my son to see a chronic fatigure specialist who is not covered by my insurance and the government turns away.
Don't get me wrong: I have problems will all these social engineering tax code manipulations that are designed to influence our behaviors by transferring other people's money to me--directly or indirectly--if I do certain things that special interests have lobbied the government to support.
But health care? No: the government currently does not tax health insurance premiums paid by my employer, but it also does not take into account that my employer is effectively decreasing my cash compensation when he does so.
Tomorrow the US government could decide to make all out-of-pocket medical expenses either a tax deduction or a tax credit on the Federal level and--to use President Obama's choice of imagery--pull thousands if not millions of Americans back from the brink of medical bankruptcy.
But the Congress has not even discussed the topic. Instead, we are discussing a health insurance reform that provides a new captive consumer base of millions of previously uninsured Americans who will now be forced to purchase their product in exchange for accepting new rules and controls on the 1-2% of their client base that costs them the most.
In other words: it's still about special interests--insurance companies and the pharmaceutical industry--and about providing you with the comforting illusion that the people who run the Federal government actually care about your health and your financial well-being.
But here's how I know--not as a Libertarian but as an American--that the Federal government doesn't actually give a rat's butt about whether I--or Smitty, for that matter--goes broke due to health care bills, and that the so-called reform is all about creating new customers for health insurance companies.
Looking back through the documents assembled for last years' taxes the other day, I recalled exactly why we were glad to see 2008 end. With my wife's back surgery and my son's chronic fatigure and my younger daughter's braces we had over $13,500 in direct out-of-pocket health care expenses.
And we couldn't deduct a penny of it from our taxes.
Given our income [which is information you don't really need] we would have to have spent several thousand dollars more before we could deduct anything, and then we would only be able to deduct whatever amount went over a threshold of 7% of our combined income.
This is the logic of the government: I can deduct virtually all the mortgage interest on not one but two residences, and even line-of-credit interest for money that I borrowed for a vacation to Colorado or a new car as long as it was secured against real estate, but I cannot deduct a penny in medical expenses below 7%.
I can deduct money I spent on child care, but not money I spent to keep those kids from dying.
I can deduct money for adopting a child, but once the tyke gets home I am on my own with any medical bills.
The government recently gave away $3,500-4,500 in instant rebates to buy a car I might not otherwise be able to afford, but if I use that car to drive my children to the Emergency Room, tough shit.
The government will pay part of the freight if I put new insulation or solar panels in my home, but take my son to see a chronic fatigure specialist who is not covered by my insurance and the government turns away.
Don't get me wrong: I have problems will all these social engineering tax code manipulations that are designed to influence our behaviors by transferring other people's money to me--directly or indirectly--if I do certain things that special interests have lobbied the government to support.
But health care? No: the government currently does not tax health insurance premiums paid by my employer, but it also does not take into account that my employer is effectively decreasing my cash compensation when he does so.
Tomorrow the US government could decide to make all out-of-pocket medical expenses either a tax deduction or a tax credit on the Federal level and--to use President Obama's choice of imagery--pull thousands if not millions of Americans back from the brink of medical bankruptcy.
But the Congress has not even discussed the topic. Instead, we are discussing a health insurance reform that provides a new captive consumer base of millions of previously uninsured Americans who will now be forced to purchase their product in exchange for accepting new rules and controls on the 1-2% of their client base that costs them the most.
In other words: it's still about special interests--insurance companies and the pharmaceutical industry--and about providing you with the comforting illusion that the people who run the Federal government actually care about your health and your financial well-being.
Irony: while Obama administration pursues a larger role for government in health care...
... the Review of U.S. Human Space Flight Plans Committee under the White House Office of Science and Technology has issued an executive summary of its upcoming report on NASA's future that calls for privatizing portions of the space program:
"Commercial services to deliver crew to low-Earth orbit are within reach," the panel wrote. "While this presents some risk, it could provide an earlier capability at lower initial and life cycle costs than government could achieve. A new competition with adequate incentives should be open to all U.S. aerospace companies. This would allow NASA to focus on more challenging roles, including human exploration beyond low-Earth orbit, based on the continued development of the current or modified Orion spacecraft."
What I find most interesting about this all is that in an era
--when we can blithely dump over $74 billion into two failing auto companies with little or no expectation of getting all our money back--
--when we can spend hundreds of billions on stimulus money at the drop of a hat--
--when we can spend tens if not hundreds of billions of dollars and thousands of American lives in two wars that most people don't really understand--
We can simply turn our back on basic research and manned spaceflight:
The Office of Management and Budget extended cuts initiated in NASA's fiscal 2009 budget, lopping more than $3 billion from NASA's long-range budget projections--money needed for development of the Ares 5 heavy lifter--last spring....
We used to look up.
"Commercial services to deliver crew to low-Earth orbit are within reach," the panel wrote. "While this presents some risk, it could provide an earlier capability at lower initial and life cycle costs than government could achieve. A new competition with adequate incentives should be open to all U.S. aerospace companies. This would allow NASA to focus on more challenging roles, including human exploration beyond low-Earth orbit, based on the continued development of the current or modified Orion spacecraft."
What I find most interesting about this all is that in an era
--when we can blithely dump over $74 billion into two failing auto companies with little or no expectation of getting all our money back--
--when we can spend hundreds of billions on stimulus money at the drop of a hat--
--when we can spend tens if not hundreds of billions of dollars and thousands of American lives in two wars that most people don't really understand--
We can simply turn our back on basic research and manned spaceflight:
The Office of Management and Budget extended cuts initiated in NASA's fiscal 2009 budget, lopping more than $3 billion from NASA's long-range budget projections--money needed for development of the Ares 5 heavy lifter--last spring....
We used to look up.
The downfall of Van Jones: a process comment by and about the New York Times
In a story today placing the Van Jones incident in larger context of political infighting and the question of Obama administration czars, the NYT retold the story of Jones' political destruction thus:
Jones' downfall is remarkable for its swift and personal nature.
The story begins with Beck, who called Obama a "racist" with a "deep-seated hatred for white people" during a "Fox & Friends" program on July 28. Seeking to back up his claim, Beck cited Jones as a "black nationalist who is also an avowed communist."
ColorOfChange.org, a group Jones helped launch in 2005, led an advertising boycott of Beck's show. Major advertisers, including Wal-Mart, Mercedes-Benz and HSBC moved their money elsewhere, but Beck's allies took to the Web.
On Sept. 1, the group DefendGlenn.com began circulating a video of a California speech in which Jones calls Senate Republicans "assholes" for their legislative tactics. The comment -- recorded last February before Jones joined the White House Council on Environmental Quality -- was in response to an audience member who lamented that Democrats were less effective than Republicans in using their majority to pass energy legislation.
Jones' reply: "Well the answer to that is, they're assholes."
He added, "Now, I will say this: I can be an asshole, and some of us who are not Barack Hussein Obama, are going to have to start getting a little bit uppity."
Beck made Jones a frequent target on his show, labeling him a "radical who wants to fundamentally change America." Beck reported that Jones participated during the 1990s in the former Bay Area collective STORM (Standing Together to Organize a Revolutionary Movement), which supported Marxist principles and "militant, direct action."
The Jones story reached a tipping point Sept. 3 when the conservative blog "Gateway Pundit" reported that the best-selling author of "The Green Collar Economy" signed a 2004 petition that called for congressional hearings and other investigations into whether the Bush administration allowed the Sept. 11 attacks to occur as a pretext for war in the oil-rich Middle East.
Mainstream media began asking questions of their own.
An Obama administration source told ABC News that Jones did not carefully review the language in the petition before signing it. Jones underscored that the petition "does not reflect my views now or ever."
It was too late.
I'm not going to talk at all about the justification for Jones' firing or the validity of anybody's comments. Instead, let's diagram the story as the NYT lays it out.
Charge: Glenn Beck [talk radio/cable news--New Media]
Counter: Colorofchange.org [internet organized political advocacy group--New Media]
Counter to the Counter: DefendGlenn.com [internet special-interest group organized in response--New Media]
Expansion: Gateway Pundit [major rightwing political blog--New Media]
Then the NYT says, after all that:
Mainstream media began asking questions of their own.
So Glenn Beck calls the President a racist and Van Jones a dangerous Marxist radical in the New Media and it is not really news for the MSM?
Color of Change organizes one of the most quickly effective sponsor boycotts in history via the New Media and it is not really news for the MSM?
Beck backers counter with DefendGlenn.com and track down damning video footage of Jones in the New Media and it is not really news for the MSM?
Gateway Pundit takes the story further with the 9/11 Truther petition in the New Media and only then does the story rise to the attention of the MSM?
By the NYT's own admission, It was too late for Jones to save his position by the time the MSM actually got around to covering the story. That means, I think [since a fairly large majority of Americans still does not get its news through the blogosphere or talk radio], that the first time most people even heard of Van jones would have been a day or so before he resigned.
But wasn't the whole story newsworthy for all sorts of reasons?
Are we actually watching an entire category of political stories move out of the general public's sight [even though all the content is there for the asking] because our MSM refuses to acknowledge the existence of its competition until the stories are virtually over?
Ironically, the same studied refusal by the WNJ to acknowledge the Delaware blogosphere until it is absolutely forced to do so appears to exist at the national level.
Jones' downfall is remarkable for its swift and personal nature.
The story begins with Beck, who called Obama a "racist" with a "deep-seated hatred for white people" during a "Fox & Friends" program on July 28. Seeking to back up his claim, Beck cited Jones as a "black nationalist who is also an avowed communist."
ColorOfChange.org, a group Jones helped launch in 2005, led an advertising boycott of Beck's show. Major advertisers, including Wal-Mart, Mercedes-Benz and HSBC moved their money elsewhere, but Beck's allies took to the Web.
On Sept. 1, the group DefendGlenn.com began circulating a video of a California speech in which Jones calls Senate Republicans "assholes" for their legislative tactics. The comment -- recorded last February before Jones joined the White House Council on Environmental Quality -- was in response to an audience member who lamented that Democrats were less effective than Republicans in using their majority to pass energy legislation.
Jones' reply: "Well the answer to that is, they're assholes."
He added, "Now, I will say this: I can be an asshole, and some of us who are not Barack Hussein Obama, are going to have to start getting a little bit uppity."
Beck made Jones a frequent target on his show, labeling him a "radical who wants to fundamentally change America." Beck reported that Jones participated during the 1990s in the former Bay Area collective STORM (Standing Together to Organize a Revolutionary Movement), which supported Marxist principles and "militant, direct action."
The Jones story reached a tipping point Sept. 3 when the conservative blog "Gateway Pundit" reported that the best-selling author of "The Green Collar Economy" signed a 2004 petition that called for congressional hearings and other investigations into whether the Bush administration allowed the Sept. 11 attacks to occur as a pretext for war in the oil-rich Middle East.
Mainstream media began asking questions of their own.
An Obama administration source told ABC News that Jones did not carefully review the language in the petition before signing it. Jones underscored that the petition "does not reflect my views now or ever."
It was too late.
I'm not going to talk at all about the justification for Jones' firing or the validity of anybody's comments. Instead, let's diagram the story as the NYT lays it out.
Charge: Glenn Beck [talk radio/cable news--New Media]
Counter: Colorofchange.org [internet organized political advocacy group--New Media]
Counter to the Counter: DefendGlenn.com [internet special-interest group organized in response--New Media]
Expansion: Gateway Pundit [major rightwing political blog--New Media]
Then the NYT says, after all that:
Mainstream media began asking questions of their own.
So Glenn Beck calls the President a racist and Van Jones a dangerous Marxist radical in the New Media and it is not really news for the MSM?
Color of Change organizes one of the most quickly effective sponsor boycotts in history via the New Media and it is not really news for the MSM?
Beck backers counter with DefendGlenn.com and track down damning video footage of Jones in the New Media and it is not really news for the MSM?
Gateway Pundit takes the story further with the 9/11 Truther petition in the New Media and only then does the story rise to the attention of the MSM?
By the NYT's own admission, It was too late for Jones to save his position by the time the MSM actually got around to covering the story. That means, I think [since a fairly large majority of Americans still does not get its news through the blogosphere or talk radio], that the first time most people even heard of Van jones would have been a day or so before he resigned.
But wasn't the whole story newsworthy for all sorts of reasons?
Are we actually watching an entire category of political stories move out of the general public's sight [even though all the content is there for the asking] because our MSM refuses to acknowledge the existence of its competition until the stories are virtually over?
Ironically, the same studied refusal by the WNJ to acknowledge the Delaware blogosphere until it is absolutely forced to do so appears to exist at the national level.
Cash for Clunkers as failed CPR for the auto industry, or: look, folks, a lot of your money is not coming back
Despite all the hoopla over the supposed economic success of Cash for Clunkers [you don't need links for that, just go check all the usual suspects], WaPo reports today that a Congressional oversight panel says--surprise, surprise--we're not going to get all the auto industry bail-out money back:
The federal government is unlikely to recoup all of the billions of dollars that it has invested in General Motors and Chrysler, according to a new congressional oversight report assessing the automakers' rescue.
The report said that a $5.4 billion portion of the $10.5 billion owed by Chrysler is "highly unlikely" to be repaid, while full recovery of the $50 billion sunk into GM would require the company's stock to reach unprecedented heights.
"Although taxpayers may recover some portion of their investment in Chrysler and GM, it is unlikely they will recover the entire amount," according to the report, which is scheduled to be released Wednesday.
The report also recommended that the Treasury Department act with more transparency and provide a legal analysis justifying the use of financial rescue funds for the automakers. The report was prepared by the Congressional Oversight Panel, which is overseeing the federal bailout programs.
In all, the government has invested $74 billion in the nation's auto industry, including $12.5 billion into auto financing giant GMAC and $3.5 billion into auto suppliers, according to the report.
But it's OK, you see, to have thrown the money out there to support two gigantically mismanaged companies after all:
The panel said the government may have averted economic catastrophe by taking on the rescue. The automotive industry represents about 6.5 percent of the manufacturing jobs in the United States.
"Preserving portions of Chrysler and General Motors might have resulted in savings for the government in other ways," the report said.
We need to be clear about this little bait and switch comment: The automotive industry represents about 6.5 percent of the manufacturing jobs in the United States.
According to the Congressional Research Service, GM and Chrysler account together for less than 40% of the automobile industry employees in North America [US plus Canada], and so--even had both companies failed so completely that everybody lost their job all at once--the result would impact 2.6% of the manufacturing jobs in the US, not 6.5%.
Since it is not like GM and Chrysler weren't selling any cars at all, the other companies would very probably have seen significant upsurges in their own sales and need for new production capacity. Unfortunately, the government decided to privilege GM and Chrysler over the other companies for what we now know was a free-money give-away.
I love it when we get spun: Yep, we almost certainly dropped billions of your tax dollars into GM and Chrysler that we'll never get back--and we're not even real certain where they went--but we did it to avert disaster and it worked, so be happy.
The federal government is unlikely to recoup all of the billions of dollars that it has invested in General Motors and Chrysler, according to a new congressional oversight report assessing the automakers' rescue.
The report said that a $5.4 billion portion of the $10.5 billion owed by Chrysler is "highly unlikely" to be repaid, while full recovery of the $50 billion sunk into GM would require the company's stock to reach unprecedented heights.
"Although taxpayers may recover some portion of their investment in Chrysler and GM, it is unlikely they will recover the entire amount," according to the report, which is scheduled to be released Wednesday.
The report also recommended that the Treasury Department act with more transparency and provide a legal analysis justifying the use of financial rescue funds for the automakers. The report was prepared by the Congressional Oversight Panel, which is overseeing the federal bailout programs.
In all, the government has invested $74 billion in the nation's auto industry, including $12.5 billion into auto financing giant GMAC and $3.5 billion into auto suppliers, according to the report.
But it's OK, you see, to have thrown the money out there to support two gigantically mismanaged companies after all:
The panel said the government may have averted economic catastrophe by taking on the rescue. The automotive industry represents about 6.5 percent of the manufacturing jobs in the United States.
"Preserving portions of Chrysler and General Motors might have resulted in savings for the government in other ways," the report said.
We need to be clear about this little bait and switch comment: The automotive industry represents about 6.5 percent of the manufacturing jobs in the United States.
According to the Congressional Research Service, GM and Chrysler account together for less than 40% of the automobile industry employees in North America [US plus Canada], and so--even had both companies failed so completely that everybody lost their job all at once--the result would impact 2.6% of the manufacturing jobs in the US, not 6.5%.
Since it is not like GM and Chrysler weren't selling any cars at all, the other companies would very probably have seen significant upsurges in their own sales and need for new production capacity. Unfortunately, the government decided to privilege GM and Chrysler over the other companies for what we now know was a free-money give-away.
I love it when we get spun: Yep, we almost certainly dropped billions of your tax dollars into GM and Chrysler that we'll never get back--and we're not even real certain where they went--but we did it to avert disaster and it worked, so be happy.
Science by polling?
According to polling data, between 48-55% of the American public does not believe the theory of evolution.
As many as 45% of the American public seems to believe that the Earth was created no more than 10,000 years ago.
Curiously enough, the Pew Center finds, this does not mean that people disrespect scientists, just that they aren't about to change their religious beliefs:
Interestingly, many of those who reject natural selection recognize that scientists themselves fully accept Darwin's theory. In the same 2006 Pew poll, nearly two-thirds of adults (62%) say that they believe that scientists agree on the validity of evolution. Moreover, Americans, including religious Americans, hold science and scientists in very high regard. A 2006 survey conducted by Virginia Commonwealth University found that most people (87%) think that scientific developments make society better. Among those who describe themselves as being very religious, the same number – 87% – share that opinion.
So what is at work here? How can Americans say that they respect science and even know what scientists believe and yet still disagree with the scientific community on some fundamental questions? The answer is that much of the general public simply chooses not to believe the scientific theories and discoveries that seem to contradict long-held religious or other important beliefs.
When asked what they would do if scientists were to disprove a particular religious belief, nearly two-thirds (64%) of people say they would continue to hold to what their religion teaches rather than accept the contrary scientific finding, according to the results of an October 2006 Time magazine poll. Indeed, in a May 2007 Gallup poll, only 14% of those who say they do not believe in evolution cite lack of evidence as the main reason underpinning their views; more people cite their belief in Jesus (19%), God (16%) or religion generally (16%) as their reason for rejecting Darwin's theory.
Now we have a new Rasmussen poll stating pretty unequivocally that more Americans disbelieve in the human contribution to climate change than believe in androcentric global warming:
Forty-seven percent (47%) of U.S. voters say global warming is caused by long-term planetary trends rather than human activity.
However, the latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 42% still blame human activity more for climate change, while five percent (5%) say there is some other reason.
Except for June when the two points of view were virtually tied, voters have been trending away from blaming human activity since January.
This is not a post about evolution, the age of the planet, or global warming, per se, but a post about how we tend to think about science.
Here's the key point: human beings either evolved via natural selection--or they didn't. The Earth is either just 10,000 years old--or it isn't. Human activity either figures heavily into global climate change--or it doesn't.
What people believe about those issues does not affect the truth or falsity of those issues one whit, although it has an awful lot to do with what kinds of policies we craft to deal with the issues of the day.
Scientists like to believe that what they do operates in some realm of rarified, abstracted, objective proof, and that once there is a consensus among scientists, everyone else should fall into line. After all, the general public cannot do the math or examine the evidence with the benefit of advanced degrees, can it?
And some science--like the science behind the engineering in the last jet airplane in which you crossed the country--gets proven to the public in the old-fashioned way: you ride it and it doesn't (usually) fall apart in the sky.
But scientists and even popular science writers [hello, Richard Dawkins!] have proven singularly inept at proving their points in the venue of public political and policy debates because ... nobody defers to them sufficiently and because glib folks with contrary ideas can sound convincingly enough like scientists to create controversies in the public mind where no such controversies exist in realm of academia.
One problem for scientists is that even when they are right it's not always good news. The march of technology doesn't always bring us closer to paradise on Earth: just think how lucky we are that physicists actually succeeded in bringing us nuclear weapons, what would we have done without them?
[Wait for it: somebody will show up here in the comments and tell me about what a boon the A-bomb was in avoiding the invasion of Japan or in forestalling the world domination of the Soviet Union. Wow, wish I'd known about those things in time to thank the guys at Los Alamos and Oak Ridge.]
The other problem for scientists is that, by and large, they make such shitty political leaders. The idea that people who think Yahweh walked around in the Garden of Eden with Adam and Eve 10,000 years ago get to vote is something they've never quite understood.
I don't think the problem, however, is really the inept social skills of scientists or the evangelicals out there waving a copy of Bill Dembski's Design Inference [which they can't read well enough to pick apart in the first place].
I think the problem may well be polling. Not on political candidates, but on everything. Everything.
It used to be that I could meet people, even discuss issues of the day with them, and view the conversation as a genuine interchange of what we each thought.
Now, before we start talking, both of us are already being tentatively placed into groups and assigned positions.
Most Southerners have questions about Barack Obama's birthplace....
Most people from Massachusetts are socialist liberals....
Most evangelicals want women kept barefoot and pregnant....
Most Democrats really do believe in gay rights....
The reality is that all people are complex mixes of often contradictory beliefs, carefully compartmentalized and held in tandem. My physical therapist is a devout, young-Earth Creationist evangelical with whom I do not talk politics or religion ... ever. But he also loves taking vacations out west [we have traded much experience and advice]; he is a Phillies fan; and he believes fervently in single-payer health care. Go figure.
One of my colleagues believes with equal fervor that George W Bush planned 9/11 to save his Presidency. Be stupid enough to mention the topic and his eyes light up and he backs you into a corner. But he is also one of our most effective organizers of international collaborations with other universities, an exceptionally serious amateur astronomer, and a talented labor negotiator.
Put either of these guys in the wrong poll and they are just nutcase numbers. As human beings and American citizens, however, both have value despite--perhaps because of--their quirks.
But universal polling on every damn opinion in the books has lead to two major consequences:
1) We divide and sub-divide people into finer and finer categories, damaging our ability to value them as individuals.
2) Our politicians become more interested in pandering to our (supposedly) expressed desires than in exercising the leadership they've been elected to display.
Here's my thought for today: instead of having a short deadline for health insurance reform, let's deal with the really serious issue first: polling reform.
And my reform is both simple and Shakespearian: first thing we do, we'll kill all the pollsters.
As many as 45% of the American public seems to believe that the Earth was created no more than 10,000 years ago.
Curiously enough, the Pew Center finds, this does not mean that people disrespect scientists, just that they aren't about to change their religious beliefs:
Interestingly, many of those who reject natural selection recognize that scientists themselves fully accept Darwin's theory. In the same 2006 Pew poll, nearly two-thirds of adults (62%) say that they believe that scientists agree on the validity of evolution. Moreover, Americans, including religious Americans, hold science and scientists in very high regard. A 2006 survey conducted by Virginia Commonwealth University found that most people (87%) think that scientific developments make society better. Among those who describe themselves as being very religious, the same number – 87% – share that opinion.
So what is at work here? How can Americans say that they respect science and even know what scientists believe and yet still disagree with the scientific community on some fundamental questions? The answer is that much of the general public simply chooses not to believe the scientific theories and discoveries that seem to contradict long-held religious or other important beliefs.
When asked what they would do if scientists were to disprove a particular religious belief, nearly two-thirds (64%) of people say they would continue to hold to what their religion teaches rather than accept the contrary scientific finding, according to the results of an October 2006 Time magazine poll. Indeed, in a May 2007 Gallup poll, only 14% of those who say they do not believe in evolution cite lack of evidence as the main reason underpinning their views; more people cite their belief in Jesus (19%), God (16%) or religion generally (16%) as their reason for rejecting Darwin's theory.
Now we have a new Rasmussen poll stating pretty unequivocally that more Americans disbelieve in the human contribution to climate change than believe in androcentric global warming:
Forty-seven percent (47%) of U.S. voters say global warming is caused by long-term planetary trends rather than human activity.
However, the latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 42% still blame human activity more for climate change, while five percent (5%) say there is some other reason.
Except for June when the two points of view were virtually tied, voters have been trending away from blaming human activity since January.
This is not a post about evolution, the age of the planet, or global warming, per se, but a post about how we tend to think about science.
Here's the key point: human beings either evolved via natural selection--or they didn't. The Earth is either just 10,000 years old--or it isn't. Human activity either figures heavily into global climate change--or it doesn't.
What people believe about those issues does not affect the truth or falsity of those issues one whit, although it has an awful lot to do with what kinds of policies we craft to deal with the issues of the day.
Scientists like to believe that what they do operates in some realm of rarified, abstracted, objective proof, and that once there is a consensus among scientists, everyone else should fall into line. After all, the general public cannot do the math or examine the evidence with the benefit of advanced degrees, can it?
And some science--like the science behind the engineering in the last jet airplane in which you crossed the country--gets proven to the public in the old-fashioned way: you ride it and it doesn't (usually) fall apart in the sky.
But scientists and even popular science writers [hello, Richard Dawkins!] have proven singularly inept at proving their points in the venue of public political and policy debates because ... nobody defers to them sufficiently and because glib folks with contrary ideas can sound convincingly enough like scientists to create controversies in the public mind where no such controversies exist in realm of academia.
One problem for scientists is that even when they are right it's not always good news. The march of technology doesn't always bring us closer to paradise on Earth: just think how lucky we are that physicists actually succeeded in bringing us nuclear weapons, what would we have done without them?
[Wait for it: somebody will show up here in the comments and tell me about what a boon the A-bomb was in avoiding the invasion of Japan or in forestalling the world domination of the Soviet Union. Wow, wish I'd known about those things in time to thank the guys at Los Alamos and Oak Ridge.]
The other problem for scientists is that, by and large, they make such shitty political leaders. The idea that people who think Yahweh walked around in the Garden of Eden with Adam and Eve 10,000 years ago get to vote is something they've never quite understood.
I don't think the problem, however, is really the inept social skills of scientists or the evangelicals out there waving a copy of Bill Dembski's Design Inference [which they can't read well enough to pick apart in the first place].
I think the problem may well be polling. Not on political candidates, but on everything. Everything.
It used to be that I could meet people, even discuss issues of the day with them, and view the conversation as a genuine interchange of what we each thought.
Now, before we start talking, both of us are already being tentatively placed into groups and assigned positions.
Most Southerners have questions about Barack Obama's birthplace....
Most people from Massachusetts are socialist liberals....
Most evangelicals want women kept barefoot and pregnant....
Most Democrats really do believe in gay rights....
The reality is that all people are complex mixes of often contradictory beliefs, carefully compartmentalized and held in tandem. My physical therapist is a devout, young-Earth Creationist evangelical with whom I do not talk politics or religion ... ever. But he also loves taking vacations out west [we have traded much experience and advice]; he is a Phillies fan; and he believes fervently in single-payer health care. Go figure.
One of my colleagues believes with equal fervor that George W Bush planned 9/11 to save his Presidency. Be stupid enough to mention the topic and his eyes light up and he backs you into a corner. But he is also one of our most effective organizers of international collaborations with other universities, an exceptionally serious amateur astronomer, and a talented labor negotiator.
Put either of these guys in the wrong poll and they are just nutcase numbers. As human beings and American citizens, however, both have value despite--perhaps because of--their quirks.
But universal polling on every damn opinion in the books has lead to two major consequences:
1) We divide and sub-divide people into finer and finer categories, damaging our ability to value them as individuals.
2) Our politicians become more interested in pandering to our (supposedly) expressed desires than in exercising the leadership they've been elected to display.
Here's my thought for today: instead of having a short deadline for health insurance reform, let's deal with the really serious issue first: polling reform.
And my reform is both simple and Shakespearian: first thing we do, we'll kill all the pollsters.
Tom Knapp: A Libertarian case for labor unions
A number of people who know me as a Libertarian question my other identification as a labor union president, naturally assuming that the two stances are somehow intellectually and politically incompatible. Tom Knapp does an excellent job explaining why this is not so:
Most self-described libertarians rail against the "anti-trust" laws, which purport to prevent companies from colluding, price-fixing, cornering markets, etc. Yet when workers form an organization to offer labor en bloc at a premium price through negotiated contract (as opposed to a la carte by the single worker under "at will" conditions), all of sudden they're "anti-competitive." Hogwash.
Yes, a union work force will generally demand (and get) higher wages under contract than a single worker would be able to negotiate on his own in "at will" employment. Yes, a union work force may well demand (and get) a "closed shop" agreement under which the employer will agree to hire only workers provided by the union.
By the same token, a company with a factory at which it manufactures CPUs in large quantity and of known quality will generally be able to demand (and get) a higher price for those CPUs from a computer manufacturer than will some guy who pulls up at the front gate with a trunk full of chips and a good story. As a matter of fact, there's a very good chance that the company with the factory will be able to negotiate an exclusivity deal on the provision of CPUs for that other company's computers.
In both cases, going with the larger, more reliable provider can be a good thing for the buyer.
Yes, unions demand a higher wage -- and that wage tends to keep the worker on the job for longer. Turnover in union shops is a small fraction of that in non-union shops. This means that the company isn't constantly fronting money to train new workers who aren't yet able to produce at a level which turns a profit for the company. In some cases, unions actually pre-train workers so that they have a good grasp of the job before they show up for their first day of work.
Knapp also makes the point that the primary impediment to union-management relations is often the State:
The state has always been involved in the labor market, and always on the anti-market side.
In the 19th century, government police and troops brutally suppressed strikes and murdered striking employers so that employers with friends in government could avoid paying market labor rates.
In the 20th century, a dog's breakfast of regulation benefited unions in some areas and aided their suppression in others -- distorting the labor market in both cases.
In areas where the political establishment favored (and was supported by) organized labor, unions ran amok, bleeding companies dry with unsupportable demands for higher wages and more benefits. The police and troops who had once shot down striking workers now stood idly by, looking the other way as union muscle broke windows, set fires and beat up "scabs" to get what they wanted. The law held the employer down while the union worked him over.
In areas where the political establishment opposed organized labor, that establishment was supported by employers who loathed the idea of paying market rates and wanted unions suppressed. Since doing so by the direct route -- call out the National Guard and crank up the machine guns -- had become socially unacceptable, they turned instead to "right to work" laws which ensured that even employers who thought a union was offering them a good deal were forbidden to negotiate exclusive contracts, and which required unions to represent, protect, and negotiate on behalf of workers who decided they didn't care to pay for that representation.
The onmostly significant point I think Tom misses in his post is that the "state" in this particular sense boils down not to some faceless entity, but the sum of individual politicians trolling for votes and/or massive campaign contributions. [Of course, Tom might argue that such is pretty much the definition of the State in some senses.]
There are some other complications--like who is in charge of regulating workplace safety and how those mechanisms should be set up--but I think Tom's point is pretty clear: there is no inherent contradiction between libertarianism and labor unions. In fact, in the anarcho-capitalist stateless society that Tom favors, they would be essential.
Most self-described libertarians rail against the "anti-trust" laws, which purport to prevent companies from colluding, price-fixing, cornering markets, etc. Yet when workers form an organization to offer labor en bloc at a premium price through negotiated contract (as opposed to a la carte by the single worker under "at will" conditions), all of sudden they're "anti-competitive." Hogwash.
Yes, a union work force will generally demand (and get) higher wages under contract than a single worker would be able to negotiate on his own in "at will" employment. Yes, a union work force may well demand (and get) a "closed shop" agreement under which the employer will agree to hire only workers provided by the union.
By the same token, a company with a factory at which it manufactures CPUs in large quantity and of known quality will generally be able to demand (and get) a higher price for those CPUs from a computer manufacturer than will some guy who pulls up at the front gate with a trunk full of chips and a good story. As a matter of fact, there's a very good chance that the company with the factory will be able to negotiate an exclusivity deal on the provision of CPUs for that other company's computers.
In both cases, going with the larger, more reliable provider can be a good thing for the buyer.
Yes, unions demand a higher wage -- and that wage tends to keep the worker on the job for longer. Turnover in union shops is a small fraction of that in non-union shops. This means that the company isn't constantly fronting money to train new workers who aren't yet able to produce at a level which turns a profit for the company. In some cases, unions actually pre-train workers so that they have a good grasp of the job before they show up for their first day of work.
Knapp also makes the point that the primary impediment to union-management relations is often the State:
The state has always been involved in the labor market, and always on the anti-market side.
In the 19th century, government police and troops brutally suppressed strikes and murdered striking employers so that employers with friends in government could avoid paying market labor rates.
In the 20th century, a dog's breakfast of regulation benefited unions in some areas and aided their suppression in others -- distorting the labor market in both cases.
In areas where the political establishment favored (and was supported by) organized labor, unions ran amok, bleeding companies dry with unsupportable demands for higher wages and more benefits. The police and troops who had once shot down striking workers now stood idly by, looking the other way as union muscle broke windows, set fires and beat up "scabs" to get what they wanted. The law held the employer down while the union worked him over.
In areas where the political establishment opposed organized labor, that establishment was supported by employers who loathed the idea of paying market rates and wanted unions suppressed. Since doing so by the direct route -- call out the National Guard and crank up the machine guns -- had become socially unacceptable, they turned instead to "right to work" laws which ensured that even employers who thought a union was offering them a good deal were forbidden to negotiate exclusive contracts, and which required unions to represent, protect, and negotiate on behalf of workers who decided they didn't care to pay for that representation.
The onmostly significant point I think Tom misses in his post is that the "state" in this particular sense boils down not to some faceless entity, but the sum of individual politicians trolling for votes and/or massive campaign contributions. [Of course, Tom might argue that such is pretty much the definition of the State in some senses.]
There are some other complications--like who is in charge of regulating workplace safety and how those mechanisms should be set up--but I think Tom's point is pretty clear: there is no inherent contradiction between libertarianism and labor unions. In fact, in the anarcho-capitalist stateless society that Tom favors, they would be essential.
How to cease being the world's superpower in two easy steps...
... in a post, by the way, that has nothing in particular to do with either Presidents Bush or Obama.
Step One: Borrow so much money from the Chinese that you are no longer allowed to criticize them, but they are empowered to critique your performance, hint that they can crash the dollar any time they so desire, and threaten to displace the dollar as the world's reserve currency....
Step Two: Swap out your dependence on Saudi oil with a dependence on petrochemical exports from greasy Vlad Putin's Russia:
Russia has taken center stage in oil exports. For the first time Russia has topped Saudi Arabia in oil exports. Russia exported about 7.4 million barrels per day in the first quarter compared with Saudi Arabia's 7 million barrels per day.
Russian supplies of energy to the US jumped 33% in the past six months compared with a drop of 29% for Saudi Arabia in the same period.
Short-term some folks see this as good news, because Russia currently needs petrodollars badly enough to want to undercut OPEC. Long-term, however, this means that both the wizened old men in Bejing and the once-and-future-Russian imperialists in Moscow will each have acquired a functional veto over US foreign policy....
Step One: Borrow so much money from the Chinese that you are no longer allowed to criticize them, but they are empowered to critique your performance, hint that they can crash the dollar any time they so desire, and threaten to displace the dollar as the world's reserve currency....
Step Two: Swap out your dependence on Saudi oil with a dependence on petrochemical exports from greasy Vlad Putin's Russia:
Russia has taken center stage in oil exports. For the first time Russia has topped Saudi Arabia in oil exports. Russia exported about 7.4 million barrels per day in the first quarter compared with Saudi Arabia's 7 million barrels per day.
Russian supplies of energy to the US jumped 33% in the past six months compared with a drop of 29% for Saudi Arabia in the same period.
Short-term some folks see this as good news, because Russia currently needs petrodollars badly enough to want to undercut OPEC. Long-term, however, this means that both the wizened old men in Bejing and the once-and-future-Russian imperialists in Moscow will each have acquired a functional veto over US foreign policy....
A view from the seventh grade...
... on President Obama's speech.
[I'd like to say this was from my own daughter, but she's in the eighth grade now, and apparently wasn't paying too much attention. This is from our neighbor's 12 year-old, who generally hates school.]
She told me on the way to dropping them at soccer practice that her social studies teacher had stopped class for the speech.
Then she said, "It was really interesting. He talked about his life and how tough it was to go to school. I never thought about a president having a hard time in school. I liked him."
I asked her what the social studies teacher did with the speech afterward, and she waved a hand, saying, "I don't know. After Obama stopped talking, I quit paying attention. Like, we heard the speech and we got what he was saying, so why's the teacher got to obsess about it for the rest of the period?"
Interesting for three reasons
1) Love him or hate him, the man can give a speech. And all those people who thought there were too many "I" references in the speech obviously missed his potential to make a connection by telling kids his own story.
2) Kids generally only take away 2, maybe 3, data points from 15 minutes worth of speech/lecture. This child got I understand you because I had it rough, too, and stay in school and work hard. Beyond that, nuances of policy and ideological positioning went right past her--as I suspect they did with almost all school kids who weren't being pumped full of preparatory opposition talking points.
3) I don't know if her teacher tried to do any DOE-approved lesson plans or not, because she wasn't paying close enough attention for them to have warped her brain. Why's the teacher got to obsess about it for the rest of the period? is possibly the best epitaph for this whole ridiculous non-event.
If somebody can find me evidence of children scarred for life or even mentally compromised into a sheeplike registration as Democrats as a result of this speech by a career politician, I'd love to see it.
Otherwise [and this is key for the people--who often include me--who disagree with the President's policies]: the best bet is to stop acting like you're so afraid that the man's every move will send the country careening into socialism. First off, his capitalist masters in the defense, legal, insurance, pharmaceutical, and entertainment industries need capitalism to survive, and he needs their contributions. Second: every time you do this, you only give the man more power.
[I'd like to say this was from my own daughter, but she's in the eighth grade now, and apparently wasn't paying too much attention. This is from our neighbor's 12 year-old, who generally hates school.]
She told me on the way to dropping them at soccer practice that her social studies teacher had stopped class for the speech.
Then she said, "It was really interesting. He talked about his life and how tough it was to go to school. I never thought about a president having a hard time in school. I liked him."
I asked her what the social studies teacher did with the speech afterward, and she waved a hand, saying, "I don't know. After Obama stopped talking, I quit paying attention. Like, we heard the speech and we got what he was saying, so why's the teacher got to obsess about it for the rest of the period?"
Interesting for three reasons
1) Love him or hate him, the man can give a speech. And all those people who thought there were too many "I" references in the speech obviously missed his potential to make a connection by telling kids his own story.
2) Kids generally only take away 2, maybe 3, data points from 15 minutes worth of speech/lecture. This child got I understand you because I had it rough, too, and stay in school and work hard. Beyond that, nuances of policy and ideological positioning went right past her--as I suspect they did with almost all school kids who weren't being pumped full of preparatory opposition talking points.
3) I don't know if her teacher tried to do any DOE-approved lesson plans or not, because she wasn't paying close enough attention for them to have warped her brain. Why's the teacher got to obsess about it for the rest of the period? is possibly the best epitaph for this whole ridiculous non-event.
If somebody can find me evidence of children scarred for life or even mentally compromised into a sheeplike registration as Democrats as a result of this speech by a career politician, I'd love to see it.
Otherwise [and this is key for the people--who often include me--who disagree with the President's policies]: the best bet is to stop acting like you're so afraid that the man's every move will send the country careening into socialism. First off, his capitalist masters in the defense, legal, insurance, pharmaceutical, and entertainment industries need capitalism to survive, and he needs their contributions. Second: every time you do this, you only give the man more power.
China: What Greenspan did wrong, and threatening to dump the dollar
You know you have hit the skids as a capitalist country when the Chinese are critiquing your central government policies like a robber baron watching a drunk spend his salary on Friday night:
Mr Cheng said the Fed's loose monetary policy was stoking an unstable asset boom in China. "If we raise interest rates, we will be flooded with hot money. We have to wait for them. If they raise, we raise.
"Credit in China is too loose. We have a bubble in the housing market and in stocks so we have to be very careful, because this could fall down."
Mr Cheng said China had learned from the West that it is a mistake for central banks to target retail price inflation and take their eye off assets.
"This is where Greenspan went wrong from 2000 to 2004," he said. "He thought everything was alright because inflation was low, but assets absorbed the liquidity."
And, by gosh, the Chinese actually start to sound like ... Ron Paul(?):
Cheng Siwei, former vice-chairman of the Standing Committee and now head of China's green energy drive, said Beijing was dismayed by the Fed's recourse to "credit easing".
"We hope there will be a change in monetary policy as soon as they have positive growth again," he said at the Ambrosetti Workshop, a policy gathering on Lake Como.
"If they keep printing money to buy bonds it will lead to inflation, and after a year or two the dollar will fall hard. Most of our foreign reserves are in US bonds and this is very difficult to change, so we will diversify incremental reserves into euros, yen, and other currencies," he said.
China's reserves are more than – $2 trillion, the world's largest.
"Gold is definitely an alternative, but when we buy, the price goes up. We have to do it carefully so as not to stimulate the markets," he added.
US Fed printing fiat money ... currency collapse ... gold as an alternative reserve currency ...
When they are not busy order extra kidneys from condemned criminals or tracing down the email addresses of their critics, those old men in Bejing can display some amazingly libertarian financial analysis.
[The first clause of that last sentence, kavips, probably explains why you can't access Delaware Libertarian from China.]
Mr Cheng said the Fed's loose monetary policy was stoking an unstable asset boom in China. "If we raise interest rates, we will be flooded with hot money. We have to wait for them. If they raise, we raise.
"Credit in China is too loose. We have a bubble in the housing market and in stocks so we have to be very careful, because this could fall down."
Mr Cheng said China had learned from the West that it is a mistake for central banks to target retail price inflation and take their eye off assets.
"This is where Greenspan went wrong from 2000 to 2004," he said. "He thought everything was alright because inflation was low, but assets absorbed the liquidity."
And, by gosh, the Chinese actually start to sound like ... Ron Paul(?):
Cheng Siwei, former vice-chairman of the Standing Committee and now head of China's green energy drive, said Beijing was dismayed by the Fed's recourse to "credit easing".
"We hope there will be a change in monetary policy as soon as they have positive growth again," he said at the Ambrosetti Workshop, a policy gathering on Lake Como.
"If they keep printing money to buy bonds it will lead to inflation, and after a year or two the dollar will fall hard. Most of our foreign reserves are in US bonds and this is very difficult to change, so we will diversify incremental reserves into euros, yen, and other currencies," he said.
China's reserves are more than – $2 trillion, the world's largest.
"Gold is definitely an alternative, but when we buy, the price goes up. We have to do it carefully so as not to stimulate the markets," he added.
US Fed printing fiat money ... currency collapse ... gold as an alternative reserve currency ...
When they are not busy order extra kidneys from condemned criminals or tracing down the email addresses of their critics, those old men in Bejing can display some amazingly libertarian financial analysis.
[The first clause of that last sentence, kavips, probably explains why you can't access Delaware Libertarian from China.]
America: World's Largest Prison?
The only thing wrong with this post from Classically Liberal is that it gives too much power to former President Bush and doesn't have Americans themselves accepting the responsibility for what happened. As Rachel Carson said, in a very famous from Silent Spring: "The people had done it themselves."
At any rate:
The fear-mongering of Bush, combined with the hysterical cries of the "secure the border" crowd led to new restrictions. Of course, contrary to what the hysterics says, these restrictions actually restrict Americans not terrorists or would-be gardeners and day laborers.
The war on terror was a fraud from the start, it was always a war on Americans. Every measure that was passed was used, first and foremost, against Americans not against potential threats to the country. All the new spying on bank accounts isn't being used to crack down on drug cartels or international terrorists but on Americans who have funds overseas, where the greedy hands of politicians have a harder time grabbing them.
To "secure our borders" the government also imposed new rules on how Americans are allowed to travel. Of course, it wasn't Americans who flew the planes on 9/11 but Muslim terrorists, all of whom had official permission to enter the U.S. To protect you from the people they let in they restrict your movement.
Perhaps you don't think these new regulations and controls of Americans actually restricts movement. The data is in and it proves that it does. In 1972 Canada started keeping track of how many Americans visit that country. In the last five years the numbers have dropped in half....
Any economist will tell you that when you drive up the cost of something the demand goes down. Cost doesn't just mean how much money you pay. It also means how much hassle you have to go through to secure something, and what you have to give up in order to obtain it. Forcing Americans, who are visiting Canada for a shopping trip, to carry as passport meant that the number of visitors dropped. Passports aren't free, there is a great deal of hassle, more than ever actually, in order to get government permission to travel. That is what a passport is, it is government permission for you to travel. Something that was once consider a right of all free people is now considered a privilege which governments can dole out, and withhold, at will.
The world is a poorer place because of the morons in Homeland Security. They have trapped millions of Americans within the United States and they have discourage many millions more from visiting the U.S. Airlines are now avoiding connecting flights in the U.S. because the travel Gestapo mistreats and abuses visitors to our country. So, these measures are now keeping Americans from traveling abroad and keeping foreign visitors from coming here. Hundreds of millions of dollars of profits, both here and abroad, have been destroyed by this heavy-handed government intrusion. Government is the great wealth destroyer.
At any rate:
The fear-mongering of Bush, combined with the hysterical cries of the "secure the border" crowd led to new restrictions. Of course, contrary to what the hysterics says, these restrictions actually restrict Americans not terrorists or would-be gardeners and day laborers.
The war on terror was a fraud from the start, it was always a war on Americans. Every measure that was passed was used, first and foremost, against Americans not against potential threats to the country. All the new spying on bank accounts isn't being used to crack down on drug cartels or international terrorists but on Americans who have funds overseas, where the greedy hands of politicians have a harder time grabbing them.
To "secure our borders" the government also imposed new rules on how Americans are allowed to travel. Of course, it wasn't Americans who flew the planes on 9/11 but Muslim terrorists, all of whom had official permission to enter the U.S. To protect you from the people they let in they restrict your movement.
Perhaps you don't think these new regulations and controls of Americans actually restricts movement. The data is in and it proves that it does. In 1972 Canada started keeping track of how many Americans visit that country. In the last five years the numbers have dropped in half....
Any economist will tell you that when you drive up the cost of something the demand goes down. Cost doesn't just mean how much money you pay. It also means how much hassle you have to go through to secure something, and what you have to give up in order to obtain it. Forcing Americans, who are visiting Canada for a shopping trip, to carry as passport meant that the number of visitors dropped. Passports aren't free, there is a great deal of hassle, more than ever actually, in order to get government permission to travel. That is what a passport is, it is government permission for you to travel. Something that was once consider a right of all free people is now considered a privilege which governments can dole out, and withhold, at will.
The world is a poorer place because of the morons in Homeland Security. They have trapped millions of Americans within the United States and they have discourage many millions more from visiting the U.S. Airlines are now avoiding connecting flights in the U.S. because the travel Gestapo mistreats and abuses visitors to our country. So, these measures are now keeping Americans from traveling abroad and keeping foreign visitors from coming here. Hundreds of millions of dollars of profits, both here and abroad, have been destroyed by this heavy-handed government intrusion. Government is the great wealth destroyer.
For Labor Day: King Vidor's "Our Daily Bread"
For the working people of America, slaves and immigrants, artisans and drill-press operators, at least once a year we can stand completely "above party"....
Celebrate Labor Day with one of the true American classics, King Vidor's 1934 Our Daily Bread [plot summary and critique here]. Aside from being an amazing film [the ditch-digging scene is justly one of the more famous segments in early American talking movies], it is a sentimental tribute to working people, immigrants, heartless capitalist bastards, and the success of cooperative labor.
To call it a paen to socialism is to underestimate what King Vidor was trying to accomplish, but what the hell.
As a political piece it is at best naive, but you can still get swept away with the passion, verve, and optimtism of King Vidor's vision, and--besides--the easy sensuality of Karen Morley still stands out more than seventy years later. [Morley died in 2003; checking her bio page I was astounded to discover that she was born in 1909 in Ottumwa IA--a town many viewers actually thought was made up as a hometown for Radar O-Reilly in MASH.]
OK, so she wasn't that believable either as the perennial loser's wife or the farmer's wife, who cares?
This is a movie, however, about what working people can accomplish--probably the seminal movie about that, and entertaining as hell to boot. Here are the first six of twelve segments: if you get hooked, you can find the remainder on YouTube.
[With thanks to Waldo, who first insisted I watch this movie in ... 1978.]
Celebrate Labor Day with one of the true American classics, King Vidor's 1934 Our Daily Bread [plot summary and critique here]. Aside from being an amazing film [the ditch-digging scene is justly one of the more famous segments in early American talking movies], it is a sentimental tribute to working people, immigrants, heartless capitalist bastards, and the success of cooperative labor.
To call it a paen to socialism is to underestimate what King Vidor was trying to accomplish, but what the hell.
As a political piece it is at best naive, but you can still get swept away with the passion, verve, and optimtism of King Vidor's vision, and--besides--the easy sensuality of Karen Morley still stands out more than seventy years later. [Morley died in 2003; checking her bio page I was astounded to discover that she was born in 1909 in Ottumwa IA--a town many viewers actually thought was made up as a hometown for Radar O-Reilly in MASH.]
OK, so she wasn't that believable either as the perennial loser's wife or the farmer's wife, who cares?
This is a movie, however, about what working people can accomplish--probably the seminal movie about that, and entertaining as hell to boot. Here are the first six of twelve segments: if you get hooked, you can find the remainder on YouTube.
[With thanks to Waldo, who first insisted I watch this movie in ... 1978.]
Brainbreaker for a Sunday morning: Vilenkin's Principle of Mediocrity
Scientists like to believe that they deal in objective data, and that cultural biases play little part in their experiments and observations, even though sociologists studying scientists have known that this is not the case for some time. A prime example [and I cannot give a link here because nothing from the paper version of the 1993 study has made it onto the net as near as I can tell] is a study of biologists in Japan examining the mating habits of certain primates. The scientists, thankfully, filmed all of the primate interactions in their study, which made the following experiment possible:
The original team of biologists was all Japanese males, and, based on what they saw, they reached a set of ten major conclusions about primate sexual behavior. With their permission, the sociologists then gave the raw data [the tapes and other experimental notations] to a group that was 50% female, but held equivalent credentials. The second group, of course, was not given the first group's conclusions. What a surprise! The second group, because the female researchers brought different perspectives and asked different questions about gender/sexual relations, came up with an entirely different set of conclusions, including four that completely contradicted the original research. All from exactly the same evidence.
So who was right? Interesting question.
The validity of this question is not limited, however, either to subjective observations or to biology, but this sort of observational bias shows up in all sort of subtle ways.
For example, cosmologist Alexei Vilenkin has posited what he terms The Principle of Mediocrity to explain why other regions of space that we cannot see and will never be able to see are likely to be similar [especially in terms of natural laws] to those we can observe [Warning; Heavy sledding for a Sunday morning ahead]:
Quantum fluctuations in the course of eternal inflation ensure that all possible values of the constants are realized somewhere in the universe. As a result, remote regions of the universe may drastically differ in their properties from our observable region. The values of the constants in our vicinity are determined partly by chance and partly by how suitable they are for the evolution of life. The latter effect is called anthropic selection.
If some "constant" varies from one region of the universe to another, its value cannot be predicted with certainty, but we can still try to make a statistical prediction. Suppose, for example, I want to predict the height of the first man I am going to see when I walk out into the street. Having consulted the statistical data on the height of men in the United States, I find that the height distribution follows a bell curve with a median value at 1.77 meters. The first man I meet is not likely to be a giant or a dwarf, so I expect his height to be in the mid-range of the distribution. To make the prediction more quantitative, I can assume that he will not be among the tallest 2.5% or shortest 2.5% of men in the United States. The remaining 95% have heights between 1.63 and 1.90 meters. If I predict that the man I meet will be within this range of heights and then perform the experiment a large number of times, I can expect to be right 95% of the time. This is known as a prediction at 95% confidence level.
In order to make a 99% confidence level prediction, I would have to discard 0.5% at both ends of the distribution. As the confidence level is increased, my chances of being wrong get smaller, but the predicted range of heights gets wider and the prediction less interesting.
A similar technique can be used to make predictions for the constants of nature. Suppose the Statistical Bureau of the Universe collected and published the values of some constant X measured by observers in different parts of the universe. We could then discard 2.5% at both ends of the resulting distribution and predict the value of X at a 95% confidence level.
What would be the meaning of such a prediction? If we randomly picked observers in the universe, their observed values of X would be in the predicted interval 95% of the time. Unfortunately, we cannot perform this experiment, because all regions with different values of X are beyond our horizon. We can only measure X in our local region. What we can do, though, is to think of ourselves as having been randomly picked. We are just one in the multitude of civilizations scattered throughout the universe. We have no reason to believe a priori that the value of X in our region is very large or small, or otherwise very special compared with the values measured by other observers. Hence, we can predict, at 95% confidence level, that our measurement will yield a value in the specified range. The assumption of being unexceptional is important in this approach; I called it "the principle of mediocrity".
First, understand that I understand that in using the example of human heights, Vilenkin is employing an explanatory metaphor rather than a rigorous mathematical proof. Nonetheless, metaphors are probably more important than those proofs in some ways, because human beings tend to reason and imagine metaphorically, or--to put it another way--the metaphor will more often lead to thinking about the proof than the proof will lead to thinking about the metaphor.
That said, Vilenkin's observations about the height of human beings is both understandable and correct, but recent research suggests that it means almost exactly the opposite of what he thinks it does.
Human beings, it turns out, have so little statistical variations in height [especially among populations] that they are not unexceptional--within the animal kingdom they are quite exceptional.
From Wired:
Crunch the numbers on the animal kingdom’s sizes and shapes, and humans differ from each other far less than most species. The reason why is a mystery.
“We don’t have an answer. We have this interesting observation, but the explanation is an open hypothesis,” said evolutionary biologist Andrew Hendry of McGill University.
Hendry and Queens University biologist Ann McKellar combed through the scientific literature on body size and length in more than 200 species, from insects to fish to birds and, of course, humans.
In terms of sheer mass, humans variation was par for the animal course. So was the height difference between populations — between, say, the average Maasai man and the average Australian aborigine. But when it came to variation within a population, such as that Maasai or aboriginal village, humans had less variation than 95 percent of all the species studied. The results were published Tuesday in Public Library of Science ONE.
Through most of human history, it seems that evolution stretched or shrunk people to fit their local environments, then rigidly enforced the size limits. People were no taller or shorter than their neighbors.
So Vilenkin's statement, The first man I meet is not likely to be a giant or a dwarf, so I expect his height to be in the mid-range of the distribution. To make the prediction more quantitative, I can assume that he will not be among the tallest 2.5% or shortest 2.5% of men in the United States, is--in fact--not a global observation, but one specifically limited by his residential environment. In this case it is the United States
But what would happen to his example if he were told that he had been dropped in some random, unknown location in Africa, which contains far higher proportions (the Massai on one end and !Kung on the other) of peoples at the extreme ranges of human heights? The average height would be much the same, but the variability would be much higher. Or, to put it in terms of his theory, his own average height would have become significantly less unexceptional, less mediocre as a result.
Vilenkin's Principle of Mediocrity has always bothered me since I read it. It is an understandable attempt to speculate on unknown conditions from a single data point, but the validity of the theory is heavily dependent upon the choice of examples that one uses for comparison. It is just as easy to select classes of items for comparison wherein the statistical mean is much less helpful in predicting with any confidence what the next, randomly selected example of the set will look like.
To suggest but one example, what if--instead of height--I am trying to predict whether the next person I randomly meet will have an innie or an outie belly button? I have no real idea what the normal distribution of these characteristics is, but I know that there will be far more difficulty in making a prediction about height with 95% confidence. Why? Because I am selecting based on a single, effectively binary characteristic, whereas height is the summation of multiple characteristics all blended together, and actually tells me nothing much useful about bone strength, nutrition, muscle density, or anything else except ... average height.
Vilenkin's Principle of Mediocrity is ultimately an exceptionally important example of an unexceptional reality: even scientists tend to understand the world and form their hypotheses in ways that are consistent rather than at variance with their cultural assumptions and their very human insistence that the area and the people around them are representational rather than exceptional.
The original team of biologists was all Japanese males, and, based on what they saw, they reached a set of ten major conclusions about primate sexual behavior. With their permission, the sociologists then gave the raw data [the tapes and other experimental notations] to a group that was 50% female, but held equivalent credentials. The second group, of course, was not given the first group's conclusions. What a surprise! The second group, because the female researchers brought different perspectives and asked different questions about gender/sexual relations, came up with an entirely different set of conclusions, including four that completely contradicted the original research. All from exactly the same evidence.
So who was right? Interesting question.
The validity of this question is not limited, however, either to subjective observations or to biology, but this sort of observational bias shows up in all sort of subtle ways.
For example, cosmologist Alexei Vilenkin has posited what he terms The Principle of Mediocrity to explain why other regions of space that we cannot see and will never be able to see are likely to be similar [especially in terms of natural laws] to those we can observe [Warning; Heavy sledding for a Sunday morning ahead]:
Quantum fluctuations in the course of eternal inflation ensure that all possible values of the constants are realized somewhere in the universe. As a result, remote regions of the universe may drastically differ in their properties from our observable region. The values of the constants in our vicinity are determined partly by chance and partly by how suitable they are for the evolution of life. The latter effect is called anthropic selection.
If some "constant" varies from one region of the universe to another, its value cannot be predicted with certainty, but we can still try to make a statistical prediction. Suppose, for example, I want to predict the height of the first man I am going to see when I walk out into the street. Having consulted the statistical data on the height of men in the United States, I find that the height distribution follows a bell curve with a median value at 1.77 meters. The first man I meet is not likely to be a giant or a dwarf, so I expect his height to be in the mid-range of the distribution. To make the prediction more quantitative, I can assume that he will not be among the tallest 2.5% or shortest 2.5% of men in the United States. The remaining 95% have heights between 1.63 and 1.90 meters. If I predict that the man I meet will be within this range of heights and then perform the experiment a large number of times, I can expect to be right 95% of the time. This is known as a prediction at 95% confidence level.
In order to make a 99% confidence level prediction, I would have to discard 0.5% at both ends of the distribution. As the confidence level is increased, my chances of being wrong get smaller, but the predicted range of heights gets wider and the prediction less interesting.
A similar technique can be used to make predictions for the constants of nature. Suppose the Statistical Bureau of the Universe collected and published the values of some constant X measured by observers in different parts of the universe. We could then discard 2.5% at both ends of the resulting distribution and predict the value of X at a 95% confidence level.
What would be the meaning of such a prediction? If we randomly picked observers in the universe, their observed values of X would be in the predicted interval 95% of the time. Unfortunately, we cannot perform this experiment, because all regions with different values of X are beyond our horizon. We can only measure X in our local region. What we can do, though, is to think of ourselves as having been randomly picked. We are just one in the multitude of civilizations scattered throughout the universe. We have no reason to believe a priori that the value of X in our region is very large or small, or otherwise very special compared with the values measured by other observers. Hence, we can predict, at 95% confidence level, that our measurement will yield a value in the specified range. The assumption of being unexceptional is important in this approach; I called it "the principle of mediocrity".
First, understand that I understand that in using the example of human heights, Vilenkin is employing an explanatory metaphor rather than a rigorous mathematical proof. Nonetheless, metaphors are probably more important than those proofs in some ways, because human beings tend to reason and imagine metaphorically, or--to put it another way--the metaphor will more often lead to thinking about the proof than the proof will lead to thinking about the metaphor.
That said, Vilenkin's observations about the height of human beings is both understandable and correct, but recent research suggests that it means almost exactly the opposite of what he thinks it does.
Human beings, it turns out, have so little statistical variations in height [especially among populations] that they are not unexceptional--within the animal kingdom they are quite exceptional.
From Wired:
Crunch the numbers on the animal kingdom’s sizes and shapes, and humans differ from each other far less than most species. The reason why is a mystery.
“We don’t have an answer. We have this interesting observation, but the explanation is an open hypothesis,” said evolutionary biologist Andrew Hendry of McGill University.
Hendry and Queens University biologist Ann McKellar combed through the scientific literature on body size and length in more than 200 species, from insects to fish to birds and, of course, humans.
In terms of sheer mass, humans variation was par for the animal course. So was the height difference between populations — between, say, the average Maasai man and the average Australian aborigine. But when it came to variation within a population, such as that Maasai or aboriginal village, humans had less variation than 95 percent of all the species studied. The results were published Tuesday in Public Library of Science ONE.
Through most of human history, it seems that evolution stretched or shrunk people to fit their local environments, then rigidly enforced the size limits. People were no taller or shorter than their neighbors.
So Vilenkin's statement, The first man I meet is not likely to be a giant or a dwarf, so I expect his height to be in the mid-range of the distribution. To make the prediction more quantitative, I can assume that he will not be among the tallest 2.5% or shortest 2.5% of men in the United States, is--in fact--not a global observation, but one specifically limited by his residential environment. In this case it is the United States
But what would happen to his example if he were told that he had been dropped in some random, unknown location in Africa, which contains far higher proportions (the Massai on one end and !Kung on the other) of peoples at the extreme ranges of human heights? The average height would be much the same, but the variability would be much higher. Or, to put it in terms of his theory, his own average height would have become significantly less unexceptional, less mediocre as a result.
Vilenkin's Principle of Mediocrity has always bothered me since I read it. It is an understandable attempt to speculate on unknown conditions from a single data point, but the validity of the theory is heavily dependent upon the choice of examples that one uses for comparison. It is just as easy to select classes of items for comparison wherein the statistical mean is much less helpful in predicting with any confidence what the next, randomly selected example of the set will look like.
To suggest but one example, what if--instead of height--I am trying to predict whether the next person I randomly meet will have an innie or an outie belly button? I have no real idea what the normal distribution of these characteristics is, but I know that there will be far more difficulty in making a prediction about height with 95% confidence. Why? Because I am selecting based on a single, effectively binary characteristic, whereas height is the summation of multiple characteristics all blended together, and actually tells me nothing much useful about bone strength, nutrition, muscle density, or anything else except ... average height.
Vilenkin's Principle of Mediocrity is ultimately an exceptionally important example of an unexceptional reality: even scientists tend to understand the world and form their hypotheses in ways that are consistent rather than at variance with their cultural assumptions and their very human insistence that the area and the people around them are representational rather than exceptional.
Great songs are immortal: The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down
One of the songs on the Zach Brown Band's album Foundation is a cover of The Band's The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down. Here's a snippet:
Joan Baez also covered the song:
Of interest here is that Joan got the lyrics wrong. You can hear her plainly sing when so much cavalry came in the opening lines. Actually, the line is when Stoneman's cavalry came, a reference to Major General George Stoneman's 1865 cavalry raid through southern Virginia and North Carolina.
You can hear it clearly when the great Johnny Cash covering the song:
But as much as I love Cash, nobody--and I mean nobody--is ever going to touch The Band, especially in a live concert setting [this is the clip from The Last Waltz]:
As the man said in the beginning of the clip: Naw, it's not like it used to be.
A little music, rather than politics, to end off a lazy Saturday evening....
Joan Baez also covered the song:
Of interest here is that Joan got the lyrics wrong. You can hear her plainly sing when so much cavalry came in the opening lines. Actually, the line is when Stoneman's cavalry came, a reference to Major General George Stoneman's 1865 cavalry raid through southern Virginia and North Carolina.
You can hear it clearly when the great Johnny Cash covering the song:
But as much as I love Cash, nobody--and I mean nobody--is ever going to touch The Band, especially in a live concert setting [this is the clip from The Last Waltz]:
As the man said in the beginning of the clip: Naw, it's not like it used to be.
A little music, rather than politics, to end off a lazy Saturday evening....
Why we just couldn't ever let the Transformers out of Gitmo
Via Waldo from a variety of sources, this blog comment nails it:
Can someone remind me what it is the NIMBY crowd thinks these detainees are going to do once transferred to the U.S.? They act like these guys are half-MacGyver, half-Houdini, and half-Lecter. Do they think they're Transformers or X-Men or something, and that as soon as these mostly low-level terrorists touch U.S. soil they're going to shoot lasers from their eyes and throw cars at people?
If this proves anything, it's that the Bush-era scare tactics worked better than we thought. The Republican Party has gone from the party of fear to the party of being afraid. If the left ever acted like pansies about something the way the right has about this, they'd be taken to task and labeled "weak" or "soft".
And as for that party of being afraid part, there's this:
From The Daily Dish, an interesting pathology of today's Republicans- they're closet cases who project their own demons as the solutions to public policy. They scared of learning (keep the kids home Tuesday), scared of things that might scare them (the President's breakfast choices carry subliminal messages), scared of sex (teenagers, gays, overbreeding immigrants, unmarried teens unless a parent is running for vice president), scared of moderation in any form (Christianists might stay home and not vote for them), scared of the idea that a white America could elect a black president....
There's an important process point here: in the 1994 Gingrich Revolution, the Republicans briefly captured the image, as Colin Powell once said, of being the party of ideas.
Most of the ideas didn't work, just like most of the ideas being hawked today by the Democrats won't ultimately work either, but ideas have power. They stimulate the imagination, breed hope, and open minds to new possibilities. For a political party, to develop the public perception that you don't just oppose the other party's policy agenda, but that you don't have any substantive ideas of your own is the kiss of death.
There is also [hint, hint] a message in there for Libertarians and Greens and all would-be third-party types.
Can someone remind me what it is the NIMBY crowd thinks these detainees are going to do once transferred to the U.S.? They act like these guys are half-MacGyver, half-Houdini, and half-Lecter. Do they think they're Transformers or X-Men or something, and that as soon as these mostly low-level terrorists touch U.S. soil they're going to shoot lasers from their eyes and throw cars at people?
If this proves anything, it's that the Bush-era scare tactics worked better than we thought. The Republican Party has gone from the party of fear to the party of being afraid. If the left ever acted like pansies about something the way the right has about this, they'd be taken to task and labeled "weak" or "soft".
And as for that party of being afraid part, there's this:
From The Daily Dish, an interesting pathology of today's Republicans- they're closet cases who project their own demons as the solutions to public policy. They scared of learning (keep the kids home Tuesday), scared of things that might scare them (the President's breakfast choices carry subliminal messages), scared of sex (teenagers, gays, overbreeding immigrants, unmarried teens unless a parent is running for vice president), scared of moderation in any form (Christianists might stay home and not vote for them), scared of the idea that a white America could elect a black president....
There's an important process point here: in the 1994 Gingrich Revolution, the Republicans briefly captured the image, as Colin Powell once said, of being the party of ideas.
Most of the ideas didn't work, just like most of the ideas being hawked today by the Democrats won't ultimately work either, but ideas have power. They stimulate the imagination, breed hope, and open minds to new possibilities. For a political party, to develop the public perception that you don't just oppose the other party's policy agenda, but that you don't have any substantive ideas of your own is the kiss of death.
There is also [hint, hint] a message in there for Libertarians and Greens and all would-be third-party types.
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