The Fletcher Memorial

Her Name

2011-02-28T23:06:00.000-08:00

One of the more amusing things I see in people is their, often inexplicable, ability to do exactly the opposite of what any observer thinks they would do. This is never more clear and more confusing to watch than when it comes to matters of the heart.

I think most people have been there. That situation where you go all in- you learn everything you possibly can about someone, put in the time and effort and love that it takes to know them at a level that goes beyond physical or emotional attraction- only to see them turn away and run to someone else that won't take the time or put in the love and dedication to know them. You watch them run to someone you know will never love them or give them the support they need.

This is a rather...logical...take on an emotional issue. And emotion trumps logic any day. We don't choose who we love. And there's no accounting for taste. But it's brutally depressing to be on the receiving end. To be the person that puts in the dedication to knowing someone and being there for them and picking them up every time they stumble...only to be left for someone that doesn't love them and takes them for granted.

This song is for all of those people that have had to live through the trauma. It's about knowing a girl down to her soul and having to watch her be with someone that can barely remember her name. It's about knowing that she still cares but, for whatever reason, just runs keeps running. At the heart of it all it's about loving her enough that you can endure watching her be with someone that will never love her the way she deserves.

This is my second favorite thing I ever wrote. This one was a lot of blood and tears. It was hard. Not hard to write lyrically- that actually came pretty readily. It was more because this was an emotionally devastating ride. When things hit so close to home there are times when you want to quit because it feels like the next line or next thought will push you over the edge. But that's part of why I write...the catharsis. When it's done and you look back and you've created something that you like so much and means so much to you...it takes some of the edge off the pain. It's like a narcotic- it doesn't take the pain away but it dulls that sharp edge and lets you function enough to keep going. Anyway, I like this one a lot and I hope it means something to you too.

Her Name
(Key of C)

Pink carnations are her favorite flower
Orange blossom is her favorite smell
The way she curls her right hand in
is her poker tell

Horses are her favorite past-time
She loves dancing in the rain
She always has a beautiful smile
even when she's in pain

I know you think she's looking at you
but the light, it never touches her eyes
I know you think she cares for you
but you can feel the distance in her smile
I know all the places she goes,
I knew them long before you came.
I know all the secrets she hides,
you don't even know her name

She's fragile like a winter snowflake
that melts when it touches your skin
She's stronger than she'll ever admit
but she'll break before she'll ever bend

She loves driving for the sake of it
The movement calms her down
She loves to argue just to prove a point
and "It's Christmas Again, Charlie Brown"

I know you think she likes to look at you
but the light it never touches her eyes
I know you think she cares for you
but you can feel the distance in her smile
I know that she's thinking of me
in some dark corner of her brain
I know all the secrets she hides,
you don't even know her name

Being like her mom is her biggest fear
Being with me is next
She always had a way with words
and she could always read the subtext
I know that she's thinking of me
when she takes off her dress
and when she's done she stares at the dark
and lights her cigarette
She sees my reflection in the twisting smoke,
a mirror of her feelings,
as I evaporate from her breath
and into the ceiling.

The drama of girls makes her crazy
she makes friends with all the boys
Her smile captures hearts like an orphan
Her anger drives her to destroy

She doesn't give her heart up easily
but when she does she goes all in
She's easy to break and hard to remake
Making her cry is a sin

I know you think she's looking at you
but the light it never touches her eyes
I know you think she loves you too
but you can feel the distance in her smile
I know all the pain that she hides,
I knew her long before you came.
I know all the faces she has,
you barely even know her name

I know all the places to touch
that get the blood pounding in her veins
I know all the buttons to push
to turn her into pleasure from pain
I know all the secrets she hides
I knew them long before you came
I know where she got all her scars
Boy, you don't even know her name

A Precious Thing

2011-02-01T23:13:00.000-08:00

A new month is here and a new song seems fitting.

When you tell people you write or enjoy writing they always want to know what you write. I assume they want to hear murder mysteries or Westerns or something of that nature. So when people ask me what type of songs I write I tell them I write love songs. They usually come from a dark place and are born out of my own insecurity and pain but, at the heart of it, they're about love, fractured as it may be.

Writing about something happy is hard for me because that's not where my inspiration comes from. But there are those rare things in life that I find important enough to tackle artistically even if they are out of my comfort zone.

My daughter will be four months old in 10 days. I wrote this for her.

A Precious Thing

I was there for your first breath
Picked you up when you bumped your head
I was there when you fell asleep and when you woke

I hope you learn that love is kind
I hope you learn that justice is blind
I hope the world doesn't teach you fear or teach you hate

I hope you run with open arms
I hope you dance even when it storms
I hope you face the things everyone else hides from

It's a precious thing
A new chance, a new beginning
An empty page, a place to write your story
It's a precious thing
A new life, a new beginning
A tiny girl, who's too good for this world
It's a precious thing

I was there for your first tear
kept you warm and soothed your fear
I was there when you cried all night and when you smiled

I hope you learn how to laugh
I hope you learn that pain will pass
I hope you learn to forgive because time goes too fast.

I hope you learn to take a chance
I hope you find a true romance
I hope you offer your heart but never lose yourself

It's a precious thing
A new chance, a new beginning
An empty page, a place to write your story
It's a precious thing
A new life, a new beginning
A perfect girl, who's too good for this world
It's a precious thing

Carry On

2011-01-02T21:38:00.000-08:00

First post of the new year. So happy new year to everyone. Maybe this year will be better than the last. Adam Duritz for the win!

Anyway, here's my first song of the year. Fittingly, it's actually the very first song I ever wrote. Not my best work or even my favorite but it does have a certain nostalgia for me, particularly the middle two verses.

Carry On

Roll on down back to your home.
Maybe you’ll find out why you feel so alone.
It’s hard on me to see you down like this,
but maybe it’s better this way and the hurt will pass

Take a stand. Find something you believe in.
Make a friend before you wind up hating everyone
And make amends with the one you love before they’re off and gone
Where will you find the strength you need

To carry on
To carry on
To carry on
To carry on

I know you tried so hard to put it all aside
but you can’t forget the way you felt that night.
And when we said goodbye in the cold California dawn,
how was I to know we’d be so unresolved.

Stop my breath before I speak your name
and burn my lips with this unrequited flame.
I promise I’ll take the blame for making us so weak and overgrown.
Where will I find the strength I need

To carry on
To carry on
To carry on
To carry on

Speak your mind before your brain explodes.
Lay it down before it gets too heavy for you to hold
and it drags you down. Your heart is tied to your sleeve just like a stone.
Now where will you find the love you need

To carry on
To carry on
To carry on
To carry on

Hurt Me

2010-11-18T10:58:00.001-08:00

Well, I'd say it's been an eventful time since I posted anything. Had a kid, changed jobs, and now I'm trying to finish up the last of my scientific work so that I can make a clean break. Busy as a bee. Although bees are busy dying from CCD (that's colony collapse disorder for those that don't keep up with apiarists), so maybe I would rather be busy like a woodchuck or a squirrel or a nymphomaniac.

The selection today comes from something I wrote over the course of several years. A lot of songs take only days, at least to get lyrics and a musical backbone. Others you start and then get distracted. I find that these are the hardest to finish because after so much time has passed you find yourself in a different place with a different mind set and a different take on things. Of course, some themes are so universal (or people do shit to you for so long) that you don't really forget them. In these cases, coming back can lend new insight or just let you get those few lines that were missing.

Neil Young, during an interview, said that he only wrote one song at a time because "songs are jealous." I don't think it's jealousy so much as selfishness. I tend to work on several at once, often with them feeding back and improving each other. But there are those occasional things that demand full attention or they refuse to come at all. This was one of the latter.

This is a song about letting people hurt you because you'd rather hurt than see them hurt (how many times can you use hurt in a sentence?). It's a sacrifice we all make at some point, but a lot of people (read: me) let it go too far and end up suffering for things that are completely out of their control. We also let it go on far too long, even when it's obvious that the sacrifice isn't enough to make someone else happy and never will be. So for all you people out there that ever let yourself hurt for someone else, this is for you.

Hurt Me
(Key of Gm)

Verse:
Fm Gm Fm Bb Gm
Fm Gm Fm Bb Gm
Bb C(III) Dm(V) C(III) Dm(I)
A5 Gm

Chorus:
C Dm(I) (x4)

Breakdown:
Bb C(III) Dm(V) C(III)/Dm(V)/C(III)/Dm(V) (stacatto) (x2)
Bb C(III)
Dm(V) C(III) Dm(I)
A5 Gm

I don't understand how you grew to be so mean
So unsympathetic and stepping on my dreams
When it's silence I need most that's when you want to scream
I'd do anything to ease your suffering

I know you're angry that life turned out this way
The suicide line's busy. You've been on hold for days.
And you won't walk away because you're so afraid to change
I'll be there when your smile turns to rage

So hurt me
Hurt me
Hurt me
If it makes you feel better

I don't understand how you grew to be so cold
So unlike the girl I knew when she was young
My tongue licking your wounds didn't help to ease the pain
I'll still be here when your sunshine turns to rain

I know that you know that it's wrong
I know that you can't put it down
The power fuels your hunger
And the hunger feeds your pain
I'm still here if you need someone to blame

So hurt me
Hurt me
Hurt me
if it makes you feel better

Coalesce

2010-09-28T23:17:00.000-07:00

I've always been a fan of the concept album. I appreciate the thought, talent, and work that goes into creating a musical ensemble that creates a larger picture or message with its individual pieces. I also like that each part must be understood on its own terms before being pieced into the larger story.

Concept albums are like ogres. They have layers.

Many moons ago, I tried my hand at a concept album. It was an abject failure in the sense that I only wrote four things and then lost focus. There was one thing that came out of it that I really liked. It's a song about loneliness and the things people do when they feel lonely. It's pretty old. I started it in high school and finished it a few years later. For some reason I thought of it today while I was driving home, so I had to find it and post it.

Coalesce

She leaves the tv on
just to feel like somebody cares.
Even the empty words
are better than the empty air.

"My patience may be wearing thin"
she says to her reflection.
"I just need a break from this
monotonous seduction.
In between the spaces where
we used to talk and keep our thoughts
There only lives the aftermath
of angry words we can’t take back."

As this feeling coalesces
she slips on unconsciousness
just to make a thicker skin.
Her own is wearing pretty thin.
She twists the strings of levity into
something only she can see.
A sacrificial offering
to the gods of Mirth and Mockery.

"It’s the crumbling façade"
she says.
"I’m the last horse on the carousel
and the circus wasn’t popular,
once they released the animals."

As this feeling coalesces into something
just a little bit untamed,
she slams on the brakes and says
"I never meant to feel this way."

In Your Arms

2010-09-15T17:01:00.000-07:00

It's been crazy the last few weeks. Baby related things, work travel, mountains of data, deciphering programs written in Russian...you know, the usual. On top of that my research position is ending in December so I'm preparing to switch to full time teaching, which involves wrapping up all my current projects and getting new ones started (it's an amazing amount of work to build a class from scratch).

In my spare time I've also been working on three new songs. Some people like to work on one thing at a time, but I find that jumping back and forth between a few different things helps when you get stuck. The song below is pretty self explanatory so I'm just going to let it ride. This is my third favorite thing I've written. Maybe not third best but definitely third favorite. Now that we have a piano in the house the music to this one may actually get finished since it's meant for piano. Enjoy.

Minor correction: This is an old song. It's my third favorite thing in my entire collection, not third favorite amongst the current crop. Just to clear up any confusion. By the time I get around to posting "new" stuff it's liable to be as old as this stuff is already.

In Your Arms

You are empty
I am full of pride
We can't back down
even though we’re so torn up inside
You're still hungry
and you just can't leave now
The show must go on
even if there is no crowd

I am the firefly in your jar
the one you shake when you want to smile
All I want to do is shine for you
or never shine again

You are glass
I'm leaving fingerprints on your surface
You are sharp
You've etched your name into my heart
I’m content
to stay by your side
or just be in the same room
It makes me feel like I'm alive

I am the caterpillar in your jar
just give me some time and I could be beautiful
I love you out from behind these walls
but it's never the same

as being in your arms
as being in your arms
as being in your arms
I just want to be in your arms tonight

Pictures of you
rolling through my head
stealing my breath
until there’s nothing left inside
but these regrets
of all the things we’ve done to ourselves

Everything inside of me
has been corrupted by the girl I need
and all the gold in the world won’t bring her back

I miss you
The beating of your heart comforts me
Favor me
Favor me with one more sterling smile
before I leave
and all of this becomes a memory

I am the caterpillar in your jar
just give me some time and I could be beautiful
I love you out from behind these walls
but it's never the same

as being in your arms
as being in your arms
as being in your arms
I just want to be in your arms tonight

Debbie

2010-08-20T10:32:00.000-07:00

If you write about things you don't know anything about, it comes across as fake. It's painfully obvious when a 12 year old sings about love and relationships that someone else wrote the song and the kid has no idea what they're singing about. It takes away from some of the emotion because it's disingenuous. I always thought you should write or paint or sing about what you know. After all, how can you make people think, feel, or understand something that you have never experienced? There's always room for some creative liberty but the central theme, ideas, and emotions invoked have to be real or people will recognize the work as fake and will ignore it.

That being said, I knew a harridan. She was a harpy then and I doubt anything has changed in the twelve years since I last saw her or in the decade or so since I wrote this. The choruses are about Debbie (hence the title), the verses are about her daughter. The song has a very back-and-forth feel, with the regular lines being sung while the lines in parentheses are spoken. This one always makes me a little sad because it's something I watched happen. We all do things that are hurtful at some point, but it's even worse when kids get caught in the middle. They learn from watching and imitating far more than they learn from being told.

Debbie

Debbie how could you leave your daughter cold?
Never taught her to love, only taught her how to own.
Debbie why did you leave a broken home?
Now your daughter's in pain, but you just walk away.

Keeping the day at bay with her sleeping pills,
(the light bores into her skull through the curtains)
the headache’s fierce, but less so than the truth
(mommy's gone and the house is getting dark)

She fills the night with cheap reflections,
(she reaches out for something steady)
tries to read but her eyes are failing
(now she's got no one to turn to)

Debbie, when will you see how she cries?
Never taught her to love, only taught her to despise.
Debbie, who died and made you such a selfish bitch?
Life was rough, so you take it out on your kids.

She falls in love, but don't know what it means
(the happiness is interpreted as guilt)
She takes her pills with an alcoholic kick
(her dreams are plain, but at least they're something)

Everything good was burned by her own two hands
(baby girl got caught in a cruel world)
Tried to save her, but her heart is growing numb
(don't give in, or you'll end up like your mom)

Debbie, what did you do to keep her down?
Never taught her to laugh, only taught her how to drown.
Debbie, I'd give my last breath
to save your daughter's smile and to warm her breast.

Debbie, look at the damage that we've done.

Like I Do

2010-08-11T23:11:00.000-07:00

I've spent a lot of my life people watching. Not creepy stalker watching. It's more of a fascination with the hilarious, cruel, illogical things we do. I can't stop. It must be some kind of sick voyeurism.

One common thread is that people in relationships do things that are absolutely, positively, unabashedly ridiculous. My favorite thing in this category is this: people that choose to end a relationship with someone that they know will always be there only to turn around and start a relationship (or a string of relationships) with a bunch of people that won't be there. I still don't understand and I don't think I ever will.

I know there are difficulties in any relationship, but finding someone that does, in fact, care for you unconditionally is such a rare thing. Why would you throw that away, only to turn around and give yourself to someone that doesn't care about you with any depth? It doesn't make a whole lot of sense, but people do it every day. I don't know...is it the greener grass syndrome, the fact that we're biologically predicated toward change, or some other factor that causes us to throw away people that are willing to take the time to know us and care about us for people that only appear to care? Whatever it is, we've all been there. That's the idea behind this song.

Musically, this is a little different. I don't typically compose riffs but this song is built around 3 little guitar riffs. Two of the riffs are played over the short choruses. The third is played over the final line of each verse. The first three lines of each verse are a simple D5/C5/A5 progression.

Like I Do

Nobody knows you
Nobody cares
Nobody sees you
Like I do

In the pale glass dawn
When you wake up all alone
Do you think of me?
Or do you just shrug off the cold?

I know it's been a few years
since the last time I heard your voice
but somebody mentioned your name
and it brought up all of the pain

The memory of your touch
still ripples across my skin
The heat of your eyes struck me numb
and your smile would still my tongue

Nobody feels you
Nobody cares
Nobody hurts you
Like I do

[Instrumental]

Nobody holds you
Nobody cares
Nobody trusts you
Like I do

On the long ride home,
the last time that we ever spoke
I swore you would fade with time
like a ghost into the fog

Truth is I couldn't forget you
so instead I swallowed the shame
And just kept on pretending
That everything was ok

I knew you were searching
for something that you didn't see
I would be there to catch you
When you finally found it was me

But you reached a different conclusion
and wound up being alone
Now do you see me as you turn out the lights
and the nights get longer and cold?

Nobody knows you
Nobody cares
Nobody loves you
Like I do

D Pedal

2010-07-28T11:39:00.000-07:00

This is my latest creation and I wanted to talk about the composition and process for a bit since they were both complex. I've been writing lyrics since I was in high school and (somewhat) writing music since college. While the lyrics range from the very simple to the very complex, the music tends to be extraordinarily simple. I don't compose melodies. The lyrics are the melody. That's where I always put the focus because I'm a lyrically driven song writer and listener. If I don't like the lyrics it makes it much harder for me to like the song. And good lyrics will often overcome bad music for me. My chords are there to set the mood, keep the rhythm, and make things more interesting. That's why almost everything I put chords to contains only simple rhythm chords. If I'm not feeling lyrically inclined, I will just fiddle with chords for hours until I hit on a chord or combination that evokes a few lines. Once those lines are in place, the rest tends to follow (eventually).

That's how this song evolved- I had the first four chords and, after playing them for awhile, I got the first two lines. It then sat dormant for several years. About a month ago I was fiddling around with it again, just playing it over and over and then the next two lines came. After that, it went pretty fast, writing itself in less than a week. One of those fortuitous happenstances I guess, where the chords and the first few lines reminded me of something current that I could use to keep going. I find that happens a lot- something I started years ago but never finished becomes the basis for something today or music I've had laying around for a decade finally gets lyrics worth keeping. Just goes to show- never throw out your creative work.

It's often very difficult to move from verse to chorus to verse. You want to maintain the idea but change up the rhythm, sound, or style. You also want to find a set of chords that play nicely but differently and, eventually, loop back to where you started with a natural sound. This is possibly the most musically complex song I've done, so I thought I'd post a bit about it as well.

The song uses a neat musical trick called a pedal (hence the post title). The trick involves using different chords but all of those chords share a note. In this case, you'll notice most of the chords have a D title. The key of D contains a single sharp (F#) and every chord in the progression I've used is rooted on the D an octave above middle C (for those of you that know your music notation). When you play it on guitar, your ring finger never leaves D on the 2nd string. The pedal helps tie the song together, giving you a constant reference point and a musical focus.

As for the lyrics- the song is quite simply about people that build their own walls and then refuse to ask for help to tear them down. The first part is about wanting something so bad you hold on for dear life, the second part is about not being willing to compromise even to get what you want, and the last part is a split- it's part realizing what you are doing and part having someone else realize you are still locking them out even when they're willing to help.

Note: I've written a ton of stuff (and easily thrown out triple that while editing). This is one of my favorites- definitely top ten and possibly even top five.

Saved

Verses: D5 Dsus2
Gsus2 G/B
Csus2 Cadd9 D
Chorus: D5/F Cadd9 Dsus4/G D/F#
D5/F Dsus4/G D/F#
D5/F Cadd9
D5/F Cadd9
D5/F Dsus4/G D/F#

She’s the first to know
but the last to go
even though it’s hopeless

She’ll fight on ‘til the end
just to say she did
even when she can’t win

The boys that she finds
become the men she’ll despise
when her heart comes back to Earth

She’s just a girl in his mind
She wants to be a woman in his eyes
even with the price her self-worth

No one knows where she goes
when she wants to cry
She brings it on herself
a damsel in distress
She won’t let herself be saved

She clings to her pride
like a blushing bride
It’s a place to hide

But it doesn’t keep her warm
or protect her from the storm
that soaks her to the bone

The pieces of her life
float by in black and white
She never could see the gray

The middle ground she needs
was flooded too deep
She hates appearing weak

No one knows where she goes
when she needs to cry
She brings it on herself
this damsel in distress
who won’t let herself be saved

She holds on way too long
Long after he is gone
Long after he’s moved on

She tries so hard to fix
mistakes that were his
She can’t let done be done

It’s these faults I adore
down to her neurotic core
They keep me at her door

But she’ll never let me in
any deeper than her skin
It’s too hard to begin again

No one know where she goes
when she wants to cry
She brings it on herself
She's just a damsel in distress
Who won’t let herself be saved

No one knows where she goes
or why she hurts herself
She cannot escape
the walls that she creates
but she won’t let herself be saved
No, she won’t let herself be saved

I like mine better than Death Cab's

2010-07-23T01:00:00.000-07:00

I wasn't expecting the onslaught of album reviews from Adam, but I suggest you read them because they are entertaining and he spends more time listening to music in one day than most people do in a week. Also, I would suggest listening to any albums he recommends because they're usually worth becoming intimate friends with. Without his recommendations I would never have found the awesomeness that is Jenny Lewis.

For myself, I'm picking a different type of song to post than my previous few. For some reason, over the course of my life, I've attracted more than my share of people that are broken. We all have moments when we need someone. But some of us are just inclined to savage bouts of emotional self-torture (myself included). I must have a "Troubled People Need Apply" sign on me that I am unaware of, because they always seem to find me. I'm the ghost whisperer of emotionally troubled people, but without the huge rack and huge paycheck.

To me these people are projects, a chance to fix in them what I can't seem to fix in myself, and for whatever reason I just can't say no. I'm not sure whether it's because I like that they depend on me or the power I have over them or the rush of knowing that someone in the depths of misery now has a chance to keep going forward. No matter the reason for me putting them back together, it's devastating to watch them slide right back into those patterns that created the problem. That happens far too often. Sometimes I think it's because people need misery but mostly I think it's because we're creatures of habit more than we are creatures of common sense. Whatever the reason, the fact remains that empathy, sympathy, and my own time, energy, and tears are no guarantee that putting someone back together emotionally and psychologically will make them any stronger than they were before they came into my life. That's really the story this song tells- watching someone self-destruct, doing all you can to be there for them, and still not having the power to stop it. It's not about futility or fatalism- it's about being utterly helpless but pushing on anyway.

Some years ago my home town had a pretty serious fire, to the point where a large portion of the town was surrounded by 15 foot walls of flame. While watching it all happen, it became more than just a fire. It became an analogy and a metaphor for those emotionally and psychologically fragile people that I couldn't help. It became a setting; an external, physical backdrop for the internal, emotional turmoil.

(Sorry Death Cab- as much as I love everything you do, I like my fire song better. It's a bit biased, but there you have it.)

Ashes fall

Every time she walks into the room with that bottle in her hand
I know it’s going to be a long, long night
Her brain is full of whiskey and her heart is full of gin
and her body’s telling me to get the lights
She hits the bed like fire then her body turns to ice
She falls asleep in nothing but her bra
I’m standing in the doorway that leads into the room
hoping that she’ll get well soon

My town is burning down tonight
There’s nothing I can do but sit and watch
The ashes fall like rain outside my window pane
as she takes another drink like it would help put out the flames

She leaves the house in style with a slit up past her thigh
She stands out on the corner so that all the boys can see
Her tongue it burns like lightning as she screams into the sky
Calling for another round to help forget her life
She’s jaded and she’s used, she’s jagged and abused
Her skin is smooth but her soul is badly bruised
To her I’m just the place she’ll turn when anger’s run its course
I’m the one that will forgive her, even though it hurts

My town is burning down tonight
There’s nothing I can do but sit and watch
The ashes on the breeze find me on my knees
praying that she’ll find a way to conquer this disease

My town is burning down tonight
There’s nothing I can do to quench the flames
While the ashes fall like snow through the orange and hellish glow
I cradle her against the heat as she cries herself to sleep

Album Review: Cloud Cult - Light Chasers

2010-07-19T18:57:00.000-07:00

I grew up in Southern California in the 1990s and was witness to the rise of teen-targeted pop-punk as a national hit-making trend. One of the members of Blink-182 was expelled from my high school and, like most of my classmates, I viewed Blink-182 as an iconic band when Dude Ranch broke onto the Billboard charts. Yet I distinctly remember the moment when I realized that the band was full of shit: the release of 'What's My Age Again?' off 1999's Enema of the State. Listening to a near-30 year old unfold the ultimate douchebag tale of snubbing a hot chick and then posing as the police to scare her mother was about as asinine as near-40 year old millionaire Billie Joe Armstrong penning a concept album about disillusioned youth in the 21st century. Of course, this didn't stop Enema... from eventually going five-times platinum, but it did portend a sudden shift for Blink-182 into exclusive wheelhouse-swinging pop-punk which found diminishing returns (and fans) on future albums.

Cloud Cult, as a band, has existed in a similar way for years, specializing in gut-punching tales of loss and songs of hopeful redemption that put John Darnielle to shame. Yet with the passage of time and removal from the catalyst for Craig Minowa's initial bout of brutally personal songwriting (see: child, death of) that earned Cloud Cult a following between 2003 and 2006, the sincerity and motivation is less clear. Cloud Cult is feeling more like a chore than a vibrant creative entity these days, especially on their new album. Light Chasers trudges the same abstract territory as ever: love, loss, mortality, redemption, yet with the same diminishing returns as Mark Hoppus, nearly old enough for regular prostate exams, bemoaning the fact that Caller ID stunts his ability to make prank calls. Light Chasers is Cloud Cult's Enema Of The State, just without the marketing power needed to ram it up the charts.

Of course, Light Chasers isn't without its charms and high points. 'The Baby - You Were Born' is as genuine a sentiment as anything Craig has recorded in the past 4 years; it's the kind of song that I might someday sing to my own children as I put them to sleep. But that sincerity is followed by the strange, hissing, confusing jungle-clamor of 'The Lessons - Exploding People', where an obnoxious robotic voice sings gems like "do what you do because what is done is done". And at the song's halfway point, a chugging, Californication-era Red Hot Chili Peppers bassline kicks the door down for all of 25 seconds before radio static and hissing takes over, bleeding into the next track and a half. 'The Mission: Unexplainable Stories', at least until the vocals kick in, is wonderfully relaxing, but it's immediately followed by 'The Departure: Today We Give Ourselves to the Fire', which is the exact opposite of everything that made 'When Water Comes To Life' one of the standout tracks from 2008's Feel Good Ghosts (Tea-Partying Through Tornadoes), even as it co-opts that track's theme. And I can't be the only person to realize that most of 'The Invocation (p.1) - You'll Be Bright' (if you're getting sick of the naming convention, you're not alone) is a few angsty sighs away from being a later Dashboard Confessional track, with all the over-the-top crescendos and platitudes that entails.

From start to finish, Light Chasers is spotty, ho-hum, and suspiciously disingenuous, confusing emotive shouting and zillions of instruments with real sentiment. The Cloud Cult catalog is just too large at this point to justify delving into the slag pile of Light Chasers for the few promising geodes hidden underneath. What Blink-182 found as their album sales sagged into the new millennium and their demographic grew up and moved on is applicable here: swinging within your wheelhouse is an alright maneuver, but you can't expect fans to find the same routine exciting the second, third, or fourth time around. It's much harder to hit someone who knows your reach.

Album Review: Where Astronauts Go To Hide - Amongst Friends

2010-07-19T18:53:00.000-07:00

Where Astronauts Go To Hide used to be a band from Minnesota; as of June, 2010, the brainchild of guitarist and songwriter Josh Pederson is called Holyoke, hailing from Chicago. But just as Mark Kozelek will always be Sun Kil Moon by a different name, Astronauts can't escape their roots as a coffee-house rip-off of Okkervil River which would somehow seem more genuine as a comic strip homage in Questionable Content.

No lie: about a minute and a half into my first listen of Where Astronauts Go To Hide's final album under that name, Amongst Friends, I paused the music to check Wikipedia: did Will Scheff have a self-indulgent side project that I didn't know about?

Amongst Friends is a floor to ceiling study of Okkervil River's stylings: simple acoustic strums, muted string arrangements, carefully out-of-tune howling, lyrics literate to a fault. But whereas Scheff and Co. have spent a decade building a unique sound and developing the skill to work effectively within those confines, Astronauts are new to this game and it shows. 'Be Patient' sounds like a throwaway cut off of Black Sheep Boy, the cartoonish moralizing of 'Maggie' undercuts the album's most engaging instrumentation and gives an example of the obtuse lyricism that mars Amongst Friends ("The running blood of an economy's enduring slumber/but only the business district's sleeping soundly"). 'Between Theologians and Scientists' is an example of the angsty, unfocused imagery that makes Astronauts sound more like Bright Eyes circa 1999 than Okkervil River circa 2009, and I won't even touch the whistle solo of 'Great Lakes and Greater Lays'.

I'm not denying that Pederson is a competent songwriter and a great chameleon, nor that the album features some nice, safe instrumentation and a few clever lines. It can be thrown on in the background for any variety of activities, but that's just it: Amongst Friends is throwaway music. You've heard a dozen bands do the same thing better. That it hails from a new city and clocks in under 30 minutes is no reason to cheer.

On Astronauts' Facebook page (which they continue to use despite the name change), Josh writes of a 2007 meeting with soon-to-be-bandmate Rachel Kahn, "marking the beginning of a genre transformation: from a dark, experimental sound to a more traditional folk style." Here's to hoping Holyoke digs back into the dark, experimental sound for a minute or two; their debut album under that name might contain a few more genuine moments, and cause a few less trips to the Wiki.

Album Review: Sleigh Bells - Treats

2010-07-19T18:24:00.001-07:00

From the opening notes of their debut album, Treats, it is undeniable: Sleigh Bells is a wrecking ball. The crack production of former Poison The Well guitarist Derek Miller blasts layers of dust from eardrums tired of the same old acts and injects a wholly new sound into your musical landscape: one that is dark, dissonant, confusing, and utterly catchy all at once. Tagged on last.fm as "alternative hip hop", "noise pop", and "dance punk", every one of those labels manages to be 100% correct.

The unlikely pairing of post-hardcore guitarist Miller and former teen-pop artist Alexis Krauss, Brooklyn-based Sleigh Bells is an experiment in the limits of creating pop music from a series of dissonant, often harsh, sounds which on their own jar and befuddle but somehow create a beautiful pastiche that renders all preconceived notions of 'genre' and 'listenability' null and void. Heart-stopping bass thumps, screeching guitars, machine gun snare hits, miscellaneous beeps and bangs, all the while Alexis coos over each track like a new mother over an infant, reducing her voice to a soothing texture amidst the chaos. Only on the ultimate chillout cut, album highlight Rill Rill, does Alexis' voice take center stage and its power is so utterly euphoric that one can forgive the absurdity of the lyrics: "keep thinking about every straight face yes/wonder what your boyfriend thinks about your braces/what about them/I'm all about them/six such straight A's/cut 'em in the bathroom". I don't know what that means, but more importantly: I don't care. I just want more.

Imagine MIA having a three-way with Karin and Olof from The Knife, and Ratatat is there to remix the result: this gives you an idea of the caliber of genius at work behind Sleigh Bells. From end to end, Treats is a taut, trim, eminently listenable album. More than halfway through 2010 and it has obliterated the competition for 'most listened to record of the year'. It's a credit to Miller's talent that "noise pop" is a contradiction in terms, and yet it describes Sleigh Bells perfectly.

Track Review: Big Boi - Feel Me (Intro)

2010-07-19T18:19:00.000-07:00

I never thought that I would feel compelled to review a hip-hop intro track, but 'Feel Me (Intro)', the opening salvo of Big Boi's opus Sir Lucious Left Foot, The Son Of Chico Dusty, is a track that refuses to be ignored, from the plaintive whistling and Law & Orderesque piano line to the porn-funk guitar riff and trunk-rattling bass. Big Boi's baritone climbs over the top with hummable platitudes about his longevity, leading to the goup de grace where Big Boi shoves a fist in the ass of auto-tune and goes straight robot, letting a mechanical voice cry out the most human of sentiments: "Feel Me!" Coming from a machine, it's more of a demand than a plea, and it points a straight line into the bionic future. In that way, 'Feel Me (Intro)' is as prescient in 2010 as 'Bombs Over Baghdad' was in 2000, foreshadowing the next generation of not just hip-hop, but of popular culture-- all in less than a minute and a half. Sir Luscious Left Foot himself sums it up perfectly as the music trails off into what you already know will be a killer album: "Damn, that wasn't nothing but the intro!"

Stories

2010-07-15T15:18:00.000-07:00

All great songs have a story behind them. They may not specifically tell a story but they do capture a moment or an emotion and try to put the listener into it. There are songs I really never liked until I learned the story behind them (a la Rob Thomas and Her Diamonds).

This song is about relationships and the stories that we write as people- the things we say and do, whether we really mean them or not. Any relationship has lots of stories: the physical story of the course of the relationship, the emotional ride, the individual events you remember when all else is forgotten. At the heart of every relationship there is what we call the love story. It's hard to define but we all know what it is, whether from personal experience, books, or movies. I'm guessing most people have also experienced relationships where that story was never written or was written too fast and too soon to really take hold. This song is about those stories.

Love Story

Verses:
Bm F#m Em A

Chorus
D G D/F# A

Said she's gonna join the circus
Said she's gonna be a star
Said she'd walk a mile in my shoes
She didn't get very far
Said she's gonna be a hero
Said she's gonna win the war
After all of these years in the trenches
She can't remember what she's fighting for

Don't you look at me
before you take a look at yourself
If you're gonna make a change
you better make it for the best
It's a sordid state of affairs
that keeps me coming back for more
But I'm not gonna cry
when you're the one that walked out the door

So how 'bout stepping down
and giving back that crown
You never really earned it anyway
You just stole if from the last fairy princess
to walk into the room
And declare for the world to hear that
she's better than you

Now don't you look at me
before you take a look at yourself
If you're gonna make a change, girl,
you gotta make it for the best
It's a sordid state of affairs
that kept me crawling back for more
But I'm not gonna cry
when you're the one that wanted the door

She gave me her heart, she gave me her soul
then she took them both back
She said "I know it's a dirty thing my friend,
but love is like the wind"

Don't you look at me
before you take a look at yourself
If you're gonna make a change
you need to make it for the best
It's a sordid state of affairs
that kept me crawling back for more
But I'm not gonna cry
because you're the one that walked out the door

You told me you were evil
but you don't know half the truth
I guess love's the kind of word
that you threw around in your youth
But when you're old and alone, girl,
don't come bitching to me
In all the shit between us
there never was a love story

The Answer

2010-06-10T12:28:00.000-07:00

It's funny how even when people really hurt you, there's always that part of you that wants to hold on. Whether it's fear of something new and different, fear of losing someone, wanting to hold onto a friend after a relationship falls apart...there are a thousand reasons for holding onto something painful. And there are a thousand ways to justify putting up with the pain even when everyone else says it's not worth it. This is a song about holding on. It's a song about knowing that things are bad but not being willing to let go completely. At its heart, it's really about not giving up when things are bleak, even when what you're holding onto may not be the best thing for you.

The Answer

I am not the answer to your questions or your guilt
You’re blaming me for everything and I wasn't even there
We’re walking by the ocean throwing shells and casting stones
Knowing full damn well that we’re too scared to be alone.

It’s easier to say goodbye than it is to be forgiven.
I’m holding on to apathy to keep myself from feeling.
What little fabric I left has slowly come unraveled
I can feel your nails sink in, ripping this hole wider.

These days are not worth keeping, but we still go on speaking,
Even though the words are stale

My broken heart is bleeding, but still we go on speaking
Even though the words are late

I just want to know, what is this love made of
and are we going to make it through the night?
You don't have to answer now, we've still got a couple hours
before the sunlight washes out the dark.

You’re sleeping so serenely, it really is deceiving
No one would ever know that we just fight
Your silent accusations leave me begging for your touch
Even though you’re bad for me, I never get enough

These promises are broken like the shadows on my wall
The anger in your parting words still echoes down the hall
The part of me that hates you most is pushing you away
The part of me that hurts the most is begging you to stay

These days are not worth keeping, but we still go on speaking,
though the words are just too late

I just want to know, what is this love made of
and are we going to make it through the night?
You don't have to answer now, we've still got a couple hours
before the sunlight washes out the dark.

These days are not worth keeping,
but we still go on screaming,
and trying to pretend that we’re in love

Inspiration comes from strange places

2010-05-18T23:16:00.000-07:00

I used to walk home from the bus everyday in grad school. On the way I passed a church (two if I wasn't paying attention and took the wrong stop). This church always had little sayings and such on a sign out front that they changed once or twice a month. The messages were always along the lines of how Jesus wanted you to do this or that or how God was going to be upset because of things humans were doing. Like most things these messages got me to thinking. And the one thought that was always consistent was "If Jesus came back he'd be laughed at, ridiculed, and booed off stage." Here's a man that taught compassion, love, and social revolution in the name of the poor and we've taken those messages and twisted them around so much that I doubt he'd even recognize them anymore. If Jesus came back and actually declared himself and told everyone they were wrong I don't doubt he'd be chased out of town with torches and pitchforks. I got to thinking "what if Jesus actually did come back to Earth?" So I wrote a song about it.

Jesus Came

Jesus came to Earth today
There was no one to save
So he took his sandals off
and climbed back up on his cross

The teacher said "What's done is done
You can't change the past.
If you spend your days in prayer
you'll waste the time you have left"

The preacher said "Trust me my son
and you will find peace
Just bow your head in prayer
and believe in faith"

Now Chelsea's driving with the headlights off
because she wants to know
what it's like to be a lamb of God
and kept in the dark

Sarah's staring out the window pane
at another life
She's so damn sanctified
she can't go outside

'Cause life is hard
and the world is bad
We'd rather talk
than lend a hand
Effort is hard
and we must commit
Instead it's better
to ride this fence

Jesus came to Earth today
I passed him on the street
He moved with a heavy heart
and a limp from the nails in his feet

Jesus came to Earth today
but there was no one to save
So he took his sandals off
and climbed back up on his cross

Jesus smiled as he slowly died
and with his last breath he said
"If you act like Goddamned fools
you deserve what fools get."

A slight change of pace

2010-05-14T16:04:00.000-07:00

Mostly this place has been somewhere to rant about the inconsistencies of people and to have a good vent. But there's only so much you can do with that before it gets stale and you start seeing the same crap with a new name. So I'm making a change.

I was digging through my old files yesterday to find some lines I vaguely remember writing down that would fit a song I'm working on. After digging around I realized that I've written more songs than most bands will ever put out. Of course, that doesn't make them good. It just surprised me how many I had. I always thought my output was low at best. Most don't have full music. In fact, most just have a melody or a very basic chord structure. I got to thinking that, if I keel over tomorrow, no one would ever know these exist. So I thought I should put them out there. After all, is art really art if there isn't anyone to interpret it or take meaning from it besides the artist? I can make my own meaning and I do it solely for myself, but I think true art is about seeing things in work that even the artist doesn't see. So here is mine.

I'll probably only post lyrics since chords, timing, and other musical stuff is hard to type up. I won't post poems or stories for the simple fact that, if I ever do actually want to attempt to publish anything, I don't want issues with publishers saying "it's already been published", even if on a backwater blog that no one reads. Since no one publishes lyrics I think that's a good compromise.

A short blurb is in order at this point. My inspiration to create comes from a dark place. I write best when I'm sad or angry. So don't expect a lot of happy, dwarf whistling tunes. I'm working on a few but mostly I write sad, tragic, or angry pieces. Not "bitches, hoes, and guns" type angry. More frustration angry. I'm also partial to tragic stories. Like my brother I tend to prefer tragic songs that have a ring of hope (think "I Will Follow You Into the Dark" by Death Cab for Cutie). Although, in my own interpretations, I often find that "sad" songs are really quite moving and hopeful and, underneath, happy, if you really delve into them, even if they don't include an explicit hook.

So enjoy. If you like them, that's great. If not...well, maybe you'll find one you do. But I also didn't write them to please anyone else. I wrote them for me and to help me deal with things. I'm happy to discuss them or tell you the story behind them if you want to know why I chose a particular theme or name. And if you have an idea for music or an addition/subtraction to the piece please chime in. Art can be a very good collaborative process. But I retain final cut of the lyrics, so please don't be offended if I think your contribution doesn't fit the mood I was going for.

Sleeping Beauty
(fast tempo, rock feel)

Devil's in the kitchen
Devil's in the kitchen
Devil's in the kitchen
And she's calling out my name

Early morning sunrise
was peeking through the curtains
when I woke up and caught you sneaking in

Then against my better sense,
I forgave you for your sins
and all you did was break my heart again

It goes against my intuition
all these things I never mention
Like how you kept me down and fed me lies

Your secrets were not misconstrued
and all that I can say for you
is you didn't hurt me bad enough to die

You can break me
but you can't change me
I am what I am and that's all that you will ever see
She's Sleeping Beauty
with no dress on
Yeah being subtle never was her thing

Trying to live down all those lies
still staring at me with those accusing eyes
like I should still owe you a happy life

Every time I tell you that
I love you more than life itself
you just smile at me and say “It’s better this way”

All your passes are rejected
desperate call are disconnected
I don't know how it ever got this bad

Just another sweaty night
in the back of a Cadillac holding tightly
to a dream that just don't seem to die

You can break me
but you can't change me
I am what I am and that's all that I will ever be
She's Sleeping Beauty
with no dress on
and being feminine never was her thing

I’m alone even when you’re here
Your body’s cold and your eyes are steel
You always wanted what you couldn’t have

I can finally recognize
that you don’t love you idolize
and all the shit you have can’t make you smile

Don’t it hurt to realize
there’s nothing there but stupid pride
and it won’t keep you warm when all this dies

You can break me
but you can't change me
I am what I am and that's all that you will ever see
Like sleeping beauty
with no dress on
Being subtle never was her thing

It's sad when people don't even know the definitions of the words they use

2010-04-03T22:09:00.000-07:00

I often wonder who has the harder life- intelligent or stupid people. I think it has to be intelligent. Stupid people have it easier because they're just blissfully ignorant of things, they don't take the time to think about anything, and they reduce everything to the most simple form to avoid complexity. I should clarify- most of the time I don't find most people stupid. Everyone knows how to do something really well or understands something in depth that I've never learned. When I say stupid I mean people that don't bother to learn at all, people that ignore the world around them, or people that think that changing their understanding of the world makes them weak.

I was thinking this because I was informed today that "..that's supply and demand. It's what our economy used to run on." (That is a direct quote). My wheels started turning, the hamster increased its pace, and I pondered that statement. It's a statement in various forms I've heard several times lately, mostly from people or organizations that believe America is "turning Socialist" (even though they also misuse that word, but that's a different story).

Here's the problem though. Supply and demand only truly applies to marketplaces in which a very large number of sellers provide nearly identical products or services to a large number of buyers (also called a perfectly competitive market). That's the definition that's been in use practically since Adam Smith wrote The Wealth of Nations. As far as I'm aware, America still participates in that type of economic activity for those types of products. You know- things like shampoo, potato chips, and hammers. Things that are pretty standard and have easy substitutes from other sellers.

Supply and demand, however, does not work very well or apply nearly as easily in situations where a small number of firms controls the market (e.g. cable TV, health care, insurance, phone service, etc). That is an OLIGOPOLY and oligopolies do not necessarily follow the rules of supply and demand. Why? Because oligopolies have the power to set prices above a true market rate. Why can they do this? The lack of alternative sources for the product or service means that the oligopoly holds all of the pricing power. Everyone must go to the few firms that supply the product or service, so they can charge whatever they want. I mean, when you need cable TV, how many options do you have? In my neck of the woods, there are two options. Since I'm a captive consumer to these two companies, they hold all the pricing power and I must take what is offered. This is not really supply and demand. Industries that run on supply and demand cannot set prices above the going price because there are so many alternative sources of their service or product.

Therefore, the most logical conclusion (and the one that can be directly observed- just go to the nearest grocery store or mall) is that America does, in fact, run on supply and demand but only for those products and services with large numbers of sellers and buyers in a highly competitive marketplace. Things like cell phones, credit cards, and insurance work under oligopolies and monopolies and those things do not always follow supply and demand, no matter how much you think they do or should.

Stupid people apparently have the ability make claims about things like economics but not even use the words correctly. I wish I had that ability sometimes. It frees you of responsibility for what you say and do because even when people point out you're completely wrong you can just keep on going under the premise that believing something automatically makes it true.

Anyway, if you're going to make claims about America's macroeconomic behavior, policy, or direction please make sure you understand the terminology. Otherwise, your input is less than useless and just adds to bad rhetoric instead of fixing the issue at hand.

And the award for "Video Game With The Most Potential That Turned Out To Be A Total Suckfest" goes to...

2009-08-30T16:12:00.000-07:00

DEF JAM: ICON.

The premise is simple enough: start as a hired thug for the President of a hip-hop record label and work your way up to (eventually) VP in charge of artist development.

Along the way you do what Def Jam games are known for: fight. And the fighting is pretty cool-- each character has his own fighting style including taunts, grabs, throws, jump kicks, hay-makers, and some very crazy aerial attacks. The game also incorporates hip-hop songs (decent soundtrack, too) into the game. Each fighting zone has unique hazards-- speakers that blow, lights that fall, helicopters that whack you with their tailblade (no joke!)-- that are triggered by the break beats within the songs. One of your abilities is a 'dj' function which allows you to scratch a record, speeding up or slowing down the beat using the left trigger and both thumbsticks. If you can consistently knock your opponent into a hazard and then use your dj controls to trigger the big bass hit, you are unstoppable. If they do it to you consistently (and they will), you are boned.

So the fighting itself is pretty cool, if not perfectly programmed. What killed the fighting wasn't the fighting itself-- it's the way the fighting was used. Because, in Def Jam: Icon, you don't just fight. You also run a hip-hop label. You choose which artists to sign, set royalty rates, attempt to keep your roster happy so that they produce more albums, choose how much to spend on certain aspects of certain songs (do you focus on air play so it sells longer, or PR appearances so that it sells better off the bat?), and attempt to become a hip-hop mogul.

Hands down, this is the best aspect of the game. It's engaging, innovative, and simple. It's downright addictive, like playing a virtual hip-hop stock market. The most unique video game experience of the last couple of years for me, without a doubt.

And it's a natural synthesis: you fight to pass a week, going on missions ranging from 'somebody is stalking Ludacris, stomp them out' to 'this promoter stiffed E-40-- go collect the money', then check the Billboard charts, your royalty payments, and your emails, responding to offers from various ladies as well as lawyers, tour managers, jealous rivals, and generally whiney rappers.

Then you fight again because, apparently, in hip-hop there is always someone to kick in the face.

The only downside is that once you have your artist roster set and the money rolling in, you stop caring about fighting. In fact, the fighting gets ridiculous in context and I stopped caring completely, just trying to win so that I could see how many albums my artists sold.

Beautiful concept. But this beautiful concept was eventually marred by the most unnecessary of aspects: STORY and PACING.

So you start as a hired thug, fighting paparrazi and stalkers, then you become a businessman with hired thugs of your own. Except your thugs do nothing-- you still go out and fight. The VP of a major label who gets $800,000 weekly paydays is in the street squaring off against an undercover cop in front of a crowd. WHAT?

But that undercover cop is just the beginning. The plot, honestly, still confuses me but it involves a government conspiracy, some obnoxious white senator, a chick you knew as a child, a face-off with the 'villain' president of an opposition record company, and Method Man. Of course, Method Man.

Then you get shot in the face.

I'm not kidding. You beat your rival and rejoice. And then you get shot in the face.

But let me backtrack.

Just before I was shot in the face, I thought I was on top of the world. It took me about 4 hours of game time to get my roster set (roughly half the game) and then my record label fell apart in what I can only describe as Def Jam: Icon's version of every Madden game since 1994's 'Suddenly Unbeatable' mode where you can be winning 49-0 at the two-minute warning and suddenly all your players turn into retarded hot dog buns and the computer scores 7 TD's and an easy 2-point conversion to win.

I was doing quite well for a while, chasing that multi-platinum record. My roster included Ludacris, E-40, Ghostface Killah, and The Game. I was set to take over hip-hop.

But Luda put out exactly one song which sold moderately well, then homie just disappeared.

E-40 put out two decent-selling songs then promptly got arrested and stopped making music.

Ghostface Killah put out one song then quit my label and threatened to kill me because, while I was willing to put up $180,000 on some crazy blaxploitation film he was producing, I was unwilling to replace a diamond bracelet that was damaged during a photo shoot. That pissed Ghostface off, I guess-- enough so to tell me if he ever saw me again, my family would have to identify the remains.

The Game was my star artist: I signed him and pumped well over $4m into two songs which both sold well-- the last one hitting 910,000 copies sold before the game took a complete 180 into Shitsville.

When I got shot in the face.

And this is only maybe 6 hours into the game. Let me repeat: you spend 4 hours building up to the fun stuff, get to do the fun stuff for 2 hours, and then you get shot in the face.

Turns out, that undercover cop and the chick from my childhood (Platinum-- when will men learn not to trust women named after precious metals??) were in cahoots and shot me in the face and buried me in the desert. Method Man shows up and drags me from my grave and takes me to an old Asian dude who offers to give me a full facial transplant, at which point I am forced to redo the arduous fun-to-do-once-and-only-once task of creating a face on the stupid create-a-character screen.

Oh, and Russell Simmons shows up. Why? He's the President of Def Jam-- HE DOES WHAT HE WANTS!

Anyway, as a 'new' man I no longer have artists. Or a house. Platinum now has my artists. I guess in the Wild Wild West of hip-hop, killing another person means their shit now belongs to you, no questions asked.

Ostensibly, the fun part of the game is gone. But I still have a score to settle, which involves fighting. Except between fights now there is nothing-- just standing on the street corner and then fighting again, but at least you can save the game between fights. You fight your way into Platinum's office and try to blackmail the crooked cop. You fight one of his body guards in the office and then are magically on the roof fighting the cop, with no chance to save between.

You beat the cop up. Platinum runs out of nowhere and hangs off of the building for no reason, you yelling down at her to make her realize who you are (or something). Then the cop shoots her. And you fight the cop again.

Without so much as a courtesy save or a 'wtf' from Method Man, You fight the same person two times in a row. You beat him again and a cut scene shows you resuming the running of your record label.

EXCEPT THE GAME FUCKING ENDS!

They promise to give you the fun part back, and then the credits roll. 8 hours of game play with 2 hours of actual fun in the middle.

I don't know why I was surprised that the people who can barely hold my attention for a 4-minute song starring Akon & Young Jeezy couldn't produce a coherently plotted video game script. Instead, they turned a potentially amazing game into a frustrating cluster-fuck which I kind of want to replay because I still never got a damn platinum album.

I must be insane.

As The Waterboard Turns: Plot Update.

2009-06-27T19:10:00.000-07:00

It's true that politics is more twisted than the worst soap opera. I've been following the storyline of this whole Guantanamo Bay fiasco, which I like to call 'As The Waterboard Turns', and I think it's time to do a little recap/commentary on the plot.

A lot has happened in the past 6 months, but here is an abridged timeline:

Jan 2008 to Jan 2009: During his entire campaign for the Presidency, Barack Obama promises to shut down the U.S. facility at Guantanamo Bay. The international community enthusiastically agrees. Sensing blood in the water and a strong anti-Bush sentiment in the nation, the entire Democratic Party backs the idea.

Jan-March 2009: Obama wins the presidency and quickly makes an executive order to close Guantanamo. The natural question of "what do we do with these people?" arises. At the international table, other nations mutter and look away when Obama asks for help. At home, political winds shift as Americans pulls a big 'NOT IN MY BACKYARD'; Gallup polls show strong support for the closure of Gitmo, but poor support for doing anything else with the detainees. Politically, the Democratic party turns coat and stabs Obama in the back by refusing to fund Guantanamo's closure.

Apr-May 2009: Suddenly, France steps up to the table and says "I'll take a few detainees." Australia offers to take 1, Bermuda takes 4, Italy pledges to take some as well. The international community pulls the equivalent of a slow-clap moment as they decide to divide up the daunting task of dealing with detainees and things are looking up. Except, even after international contributions, that still leaves a couple hundred detainees to deal with.

Obama proposes dealing with them the, um, LEGAL way, by putting detainees on trial or offering to let them plead guilty in exchange for lighter sentences (see for precedent: DAVID HICKS) as a way to save face, deal with the problem, and semi-punish possible wrongdoers (some argue that a lost decade and periodic torture might be punishment enough).

But, still, there is no money for a closure and the question of criminal trials raises another issue: it will force the U.S. to either show evidence which may be classified information or it will force the U.S. to admit that it has no evidence. Republicans smell weakness and press the advantage.

(Let's take a quick commercial break to get one thing straight: the intelligence community, at best, is split over "enhanced interrogation techniques" or torture. Some swear by it. Others deny its usefulness. Some say it can be useful but is unreliable. Some say it is useful but not worth doing. The only man in Congress who has actually been tortured is screaming that it doesn't work, though no one listens. This ain't "dischord" like .05% of scientists swearing that climate change is not happening in the face of overwhelming evidence and a 99.5% solidarity rate-- this is honest-to-goodness 'everyone has an opinion but no one REALLY knows' stuff.

Back to our regularly scheduled recap.)

June 2009: President Obama, in a pragmatic if politically dangerous move, offers a 3/5 compromise of sorts (yeah, I went there). He proposes trying most detainees and punishing, freeing, or transferring accordingly but (this is a HUGE but) a small number of detainees which are the 'worst of the worst' or might jeopardize our intelligence-gathering will remain imprisoned indefinitely. No word on exactly what "a small number" is, but probably significantly less than the 250-some in-limbo detainees currently at Guantanamo.

So now we're up to date on the drama. Obama threw out a line, but no bites from Congress or the American people. Civil liberties groups are predictably mad but liberal and conservative politicians alike are strangely silent as to whether or not this is a good compromise.

Two interpretations of this situation are possible. On the one hand, this result is evidence of a centrist President walking the finest of lines to fulfill his promises as much as possible within the confines of his power. On the other hand it's evidence of a President showing weakness, capitulating to political and public pressure, or downright lying and continuing the policies of his predeccesor which he attacked vehemently during the election.

More importantly for me, it's a case study in the spinelessness of mainstream politics. The god damn Democrats ruined a golden opportunity to show unity by caving so quickly to the smallest of public scrutiny. They could have stood as one and said "we are going to do this: we are going to disperse these inmates among our high-security military prisons, try them one by one, and all will be fine" and they could have made that happen. And what would the consequences have been? The inmates weren't going to break out. No one was going to invade Leavenworth and free them. American soil would remain fertile despite a suspected terrorist standing on it. The Democrats could have made a united front, stood up to the public pressure (which was nothing compared to what George W. Bush and Bill Clinton went through), and as soon as inmates were moved and nothing bad happened, the American public would go "huh, guess it wasn't that big of a deal" and move on with their lives.

Instead, Nancy Pelosi led a frantic charge to undercut her President-- the man she backed 9 months ago and will back again in 3 years.

But what's done is done, and we have what we have. The question is, where do we go from here?

Though I'm not exactly qualified to say (I'm no less qualified than most of televisions pundits), given the situation I think an executive order indefinitely detaining a small handful of prisoners while dealing with the rest is the best possible scenario for President Obama. Firstly, Guantanamo could be shut down and a symbol of American hypocrisy would disappear forever-- Promise kept. Secondly, a good 80% of inmates would be dealt with fairly and legally-- promise 80% kept.

Everyone would be a little miffed at the result, but everyone would also be pleased with some aspect: civil liberty proponents would have fewer cases to fight; conservatives would believe they helped ensure America's safety; liberals could say goodbye to Guantanamo forever; President Obama could claim 1.8 out of 2 promises kept.

That's not a perfect score, but 1.8 out of 2 is better than the 0 out of 2 Obama will get if Congress continues to refuse funding Gitmo's closure. He can afford a 1.8. He can't afford a 0.

1.8 out of 2 makes Obama look like a compromiser.

0 out of 2 makes Obama look like a loser.

I realize that this is an argument of degree and it's perfectly fair to claim that as long as one person is held illegally we have no moral ground to stand on, but given the circumstances I'll gladly take 'no moral ground with ten detainees' over 'no moral ground with 250'.

One could argue that every nation needs a revolution every few generations...

2009-06-23T16:10:00.000-07:00

Here's a news headline from last weekend:

MCCAIN RIPS OBAMA ON IRAN

The sub-headline:

McCain Faults Obama for Cautious Response to Disputed Outcome of Iran's Election

The first line of the article:

John McCain says he's disappointed in President for Obama for asserting that it was "not productive, given the history of U.S.-Iranian relations, to be seen as meddling."

That was McCain "ripping" Obama? What a letdown. Is this what online media must resort to: violent wording to lure people in? It's sad, especially when the people in question are politicians whose idea of "ripping" "slamming" or "blasting" someone is to call them a flip-flopper.

But honestly, what in the hell does John McCain want? What would he be doing differently had he won the election? Would he be "talking tougher" or threatening economic/military action? Would McCain have personally gone to Tehran to lead the protests?

This is a serious question, folks, and I'm hoping for an answer: what does the conservative right expect Obama to do right now? Call up Ahmadinejad and scream at him? Send the blue angels on a super-speed fly-by to moon the Ayatollah? Or is this just another partisan bitch-and-moan party which Republicans will parlay into fundraising opportunities and attack ads come election time?

Look, I agree: something shady is going on in Iran. Absolutely. You could write a whole essay just on why this election is bogus. Something is definitely up. And now, shit is going down in Iran. Protests are happening-- big ones. Protesters are being beaten. Riot police are being attacked. Journalists are being arrested.

So what can Barack Obama do about it?

He could ramp up the rhetoric and use stronger language when discussing Iran-- that seems to be what Republicans are pushing for. But that is only going to do so much and could easily backfire. There's a strong argument to be made that what the Iranian people need right now is for world leaders to stand behind them without opening their mouths too widely. There is also historical precedent supporting this move.

Repressive regimes like Iran's survive because the government turns any situation around to reflect badly on outsiders. They do this with everything: Iran's economy tanks and it's the West's fault. Oil prices plummet and it's the West's fault. Ahmadenijad's canary gets sick and somehow it's the West's fault. According to the leaders of Iran the West is behind every bad thing that happens in the country and they need the Iranian people to believe this because if there's one thing that many Middle Easterners fear more than their own corrupt leaders, it's a Western invasion. And given the situation in Iraq and the West's long history of fucking over the Middle East (google: British Mandate or Mohammad Mosaddeq), it's not hard to see why some people might think the U.S. is a threat.

The quickest and easiest way for Ahmadinejad to turn this situation around is to take any potentially threatening statements the West makes and turn them into propaganda which will instill enough fear in the populace to quiet the protests. If Iran's leaders can make Iranians believe that the West is out to get them, they'll return home and it's game over for a potential revolution. Supreme Leader Khameni, in his weekly sermon, accused Britain and the U.S. of being behind the protests and trying to destabilize Iran. Were George W. Bush still in power and making threats and scrambling the fighter jets, this would be much easier for many Iranians to believe. But (partially) because Obama has made a strong effort to not take an aggressive stance, and rather to steadfastly but calmly (not reactionarily) support freedom-loving Iranians, Khameni's claims are falling on deaf ears (at least according to people really qualified to make such calls).

I agree that this is the beginning of the end for Iran's current leaders. They won't disappear now, but the cracks have shown. The infallible Supreme Leader has bowed to public pressure, if only to order a fake recount. Iran's leaders have shown fear when protesters, not by the thousands but by the hundreds of thousands, took to the streets not for hours but for days. For the first time since the 1979 Revolution, leaders within Iran are in open disagreement. The events of the past two weeks will cause the legitimacy of the Iranian government to evaporate for millions of Iranians, many of whom were not of voting age for this election but will be next time.

But perhaps most important to me, and most damning for loud-mouthed conservatives, history is kind of on Obama's side here.

The President is doing nothing more than George H.W. Bush did when the USSR started to crack. To call down the thunder and tell the Russian people to rise up would have meant a (more) violent crackdown by the Soviet military, causing even greater death. It also would have supplied proof to many Russians that the West was trying to destabilize their biggest competitor. Rather, Bush played it close to the vest, showed his support in small but symbolic ways, and let those people pull the wall down themselves.

And just to be clear: there is a world of difference between us pulling the wall down for them and letting them pull it down themselves.

Of course, these situations are different in many ways. But there is a clear connection between the breakup of that idealistic, repressive, anti-Western government and this one. History has vindicated Bush no matter how much shit he took (he took a TON) from members of his own party who wanted him to ramp up the rhetoric. There is a strong precedent for showing clear, passive support rather than making reactionary, thoughtless, and pointlessly aggressive statements which could potentially backfire and make the situation far worse for no other reason other than we're Americans, and if it's one thing we excel at, it's talking shit.

If the IOC made Shit Talking an event in the next Olympics, the U.S. would take home the gold, silver, bronze, and a bucket full of its opponents tears.

Muckrakers 100 Year Later, or, Nu-Yellow Journalism: As Awful As Nu-Metal But More Insidious, or, PICTURE TIME!

2009-06-04T15:30:00.000-07:00

"I hail as a benefactor... every writer or speaker, every man who, on the platform, or in book, magazine, or newspaper, with merciless severity makes such attack, provided always that he in turn remembers that that attack is of use only if it absolutely truthful.”
--Theodore Roosevelt

Absolutely truthful. Keep that phrase in mind.

Teddy was referring to 'muckrakers', the early 20th century writers who exposed corruption in government or brought social issues to light with a sensationalistic style to catch the attention of the masses. They were heroic figures, but 'muckraking' had a heroic ring to it only for as long as those writers remained "absolutely truthful". When the focus drifted from sensationalism in order to expose truth to sensationalism in order to make money, a new term was born: 'yellow journalism', which is characterized by "exaggerations of news events, scandal-mongering, sensationalism, or unprofessional practices by news media organizations or journalists" in order to sell newspapers. William Randolph Hearst is considered the first media mogul to make an art out of this approach, but he was certainly not the last.

So muckrakers bring up real, truthful issues with sensationalistic writing while yellow journalists are essentially tabloids with press credentials, drumming up controversy where there is none in order to make money or alter public opinion.

Which category would these fall in, do you think?
This picture, coincidentally, showed up on Memorial Day, when flag-waving is at its height. The issue: a woman working in a Texas hospital was told to remove an American flag from her office because a coworker took offense. That was all FOXNews bothered to focus on, along with a healthy dose of xenophobic overtones (the woman who took issue happened to have immigrated from Africa 15 years ago).

Turns out the actual issue was not an attack on patriotism, flags, or America; it was an attack on a rude coworker. This woman brought an extremely large flag (15 sq. ft.-- so damn big she can't hold it out herself) into an extremely small office which she shares with 3 other people. The issue was never the American flag, but the size of a personal item which took up shared space in an office environment. No one was attacking America, they were attacking an inconsiderate person. Can anyone honestly blame the other woman in the office for complaining?

I support gay rights 100%, fully, and completely. But if you share an office with me and show up with a gigantic rainbow flag to drape across the room, I'm going to be pissed about it.

This headline was a concerted effort to recast the most uncontroversial of occurrences (breaking news: woman hogs office space!!) and drum up controversy in hopes of not only gaining attention and making money, but pandering to a specific readership and insinuating that certain falsities appear true.

Let's take another look:

North Korea allegedly performed an underground nuclear test. They also tested some short-range missiles and allegedly moved several long-range missiles to silos on the west coast. Everyone else's headline: "UN Condemns N. Korea Actions" or "N. Korea Reportedly Testing Nuclear Weapons". FOXNEWS?

Wow. Firstly, nowhere did anyone claim that N. Korea was threatening or aiming at the U.S. Secondly, for every missile they may have aimed at us, we have 100 aimed at them, which this article (unsurprisingly) doesn't mention. This is even more egregious because "moving long-range missiles to the west coast" puts us no more in danger than having them on the east coast. Ever see the size of North Korea? It looks like one of Maryland's less impressive bowel movements. Those missiles are capable of traveling several thousand miles-- a 50 kilometer move doesn't magically put us in extreme danger (though I'm certain Rupert Murdoch wouldn't be upset if some people believed that.)

Up next:

This is just a blatant mischaracterization and complete misrepresentation. Yes, GM is set for bankruptcy. But bankruptcy does not mean death. In fact, GM is going nowhere. It'll just be restructured in an attempt to create a business model THAT ACTUALLY FUCKING WORKS. It may and it may not, but calling bankruptcy 'death' is a bullshit exaggeration designed to fill Americans with dread and sympathy.

Up next:

This killed me for one important reason: it didn't even pretend to be partial or maintain a healthy perspective. This article went far beyond 'partisan' to 'intentionally blind'.

The issue at hand is a mini-vacation President Obama and his wife took to New York, where they ate dinner and caught a Broadway show.

Yes, American taxpayers picked up the tab for Obama to fly in a jet to New York to have a night off from being the President of the United States. But here comes a shocker: any time that any President goes anywhere, it is paid for with tax money.

When George W. Bush flew back and forth, often more than once in a week, from the White House to his ranch in Crawford, Texas, taxpayers funded that. Same jets. Same Secret Service. Same press corps. Same staffers.

According to CBSNews, between his January 2001 inauguration and May of 2008, George W. Bush spent 879 days in Crawford, Texas. And that doesn't include mini-vacations at Camp David or the number of days he spent in Crawford during the last 8 months of his Presidency. All told, Bush spent somewhere in the ballpark of 1,000 days on vacation. Or, to look at it differently, more than two and a half years of an 8 year Presidency.

This isn't an indictment of Bush's work habits: undoubtedly he did plenty of work from the ranch. But the fact remains that every single god damn time that man stepped on a plane to fly to Texas, taxpayers paid for it.

Did FOXNews bother to mention ANY of this while quoting low-level RNC members furious at the waste of money? If you've ever read a FOXNews story, you know the answer to that question.

Fair dinkum if you have a problem with your money being used to fund Presidential downtime: that is a valid gripe. But to only have a problem with your money funding a certain President's downtime, or to deny that your money funded every other President's downtime is obscenely hypocritical.

It's shameful, sensationalistic, poorly disguised nu-yellow journalism. No major media outlet is completely free of this taint, but only one network has turned rabble-rousing and partisan pandering into a 360 degree business model, and that is FOX.

Yes, I get on my FOX soapbox every once in a while. But it's honestly not the writing itself (most of the time). It's the packaging. It's the selective choice of stories, headlines, and photographs intended not to portray any impartial truth but to incite viewers to predictable reactions of sympathy, fear, outrage, etc. It's emotional and mental manipulation. It's using a high pedestal to swing low and sway an audience.

Does this upset anyone but me?

I have two more quick examples, both of which are recent tragedies: the murder of a doctor, and the murder of a US Soldier.

I don't have a picture for the first because, for once, the picture is not the issue, but I know you heard the story: an abortion doctor was murdered at his church in Kansas, and immediately that became the headline for every news outlet.

But an hour later, the headline shifted on FOXNews to something different: "Pro-Lifers Fear Backlash", an article hinting that Democrats plan to use this tragedy as a means of ramming Sotomayor's nomination through Congress.

This is a case study on the power of suggestion, and of using media not to report facts, but to create sensation. How fucking many people, honestly, read about the murder of an abortion doctor and connected it to Sonia Sotomayor in the hour between the event and FOX's new headline?

How many made that connection in the hour after?

You can almost feel the breeze as a large, clueless segment of middle America furrows its brow and nods in unison.

Finally, my last example comes from yesterday.

A US soldier was shot last weekend outside a recruiting office by a young man who converted to Islam about ten years ago. The article itself is very fair, saying that there is no evidence this young man was part of any sort of terrorist group effort to attack service members, and stating via a terrorism expert that "the vast majority of [Muslim] converts are nonviolent, but a few embrace the teachings of extremist religious mentors."

So it's a complete shame what happened, right? And the shooter is a complete prick, right? And he should go to prison for a long time, right? But we shouldn't blame a faith which 1 billion people worldwide practice peacefully, or somehow suggest that being Muslim entails anti-American sentiment, right?

Right, FOXNews?

Oh... sorry I asked.

It's only information

2009-05-07T09:07:00.000-07:00

Rupert Murdoch made a bold pronouncement today. In case you don't know this is the guy who has worked hard to make sure media (television and print) is focused on 1) generating revenue, 2) being owned by as few people as possible, 3) isn't required to adhere to anything resembling factual statements, and 4) continuing the fine tradition of yellow journalism. He's the mastermind behind the News Corp conglomerate. A modern day William Randolph Hearst. Today he announced that, within 12 months, News Corp websites would require some type of payment to view news and that the current model of internet news is on the way out.

His support for this statement is that "360,000 people downloaded a WSJ app for the iPhone" and that the online Wall Street Journal is thriving with a paid subscription model. Not bad evidence on the surface. But when was the last time the average Joe read an issue of WSJ? WSJ subscribers are mostly (though not completely) wealthier people and investors that have a vested interest in that type of news. It's a publication that caters to an upper class clientele. So Murdoch's biggest support is essentially "wealthy people pay for news, let's make lower class people pay too."

Now I'm not saying people shouldn't pay for the services offered by news outlets. People have always paid for newspapers and magazines. Commercials pay for air time for news programs. But there are major problems with combining concentrated media ownership (and thus viewpoints) and then nickel and diming people for news. Let's just look at a few.

1) You'll inevitably get monopolistic behavior and monopolistic pricing.
2) People will most likely only subscribe to a limited number of news sources, making their already low quality news even more biased in what stories are covered, what information is provided, the quality of sources used, and how the stories are presented.
3) We live in a society where information is valued even slightly more than money and that's because information makes money. So controlling who has access to information (i.e. only those who can pay for it) is devastating to those left out. It's another way to keep information in the hands of those that already have it and away from people that don't.
4) Journalism has become a much lower overhead business. Fewer in depth stories are being made and fewer foreign reporters are working. Communication and transportation costs are lower than ever. "24 hour news" is mostly opinion pieces that are cheap and quick to make. Online distribution has destroyed the need for printing facilities, warehouses of papers, and thousands of jobs. Advertising on tv, in print, and online is higher than ever. So lower overhead + higher advertising revenue = the need to charge online readers? That doesn't make sense.
5) Rumors, wrong information, and bad information are already rampant (fanned in part by the media). By reducing easy access to news, will this problem get any better? Personally, I doubt it.

I'm not opposed to some kind of subscription system if it is structured with reasonable fees and with provisions for those that can't afford it. Personally, I would turn to 3rd party sources and news outlets with better business models. But in principle I already pay for a newspaper and I'm willing to pay for the same thing electronically. The more important idea is this: we, as a society, need to determine what constitutes information that is so important we should disseminate it without regard to the all important Business Model and what information should be bought and sold. If we lock it all up with a price tag, we hurt the entire society and make a few people wealthy and powerful.

We'll see what happens. Murdoch has done wonders taking a news station that presents opinion as fact and has never, to the best of my knowledge, bothered to make a retraction or correction even in the face of overwhelming evidence that what they presented was false, misleading, and wrong, and turned it into a program that people rely on for news. So I wouldn't be surprised if he was successful in his endeavor.

Souteribly bored with the news today...

2009-05-05T17:04:00.000-07:00

So, Supreme Court Justice David Souter is retiring. Weird. He's still relatively young and has no known health problems, so why retire from a prestigious lifetime post which only requires you to work a few months out of the year?

Theories abound, including a really interesting one that he was so crushed by the Court's intervention in the 2000 election (pretty quasi-legal shit for a court that conservatives want to strictly uphold the constitution) that he lost the desire to fulfill his duties and was just waiting for Bush to leave the White House so he could retire.

At any rate, the media is doing its typical feeding frenzy. CNN is asking: Who Do You Think Should Be The Next Justice? as though the fact that I can type a url makes me qualified to even begin answering that question. Most Supreme Court Justices are chosen from federal apellate courts-- how many of those can you name? I can name exactly zero, meaning I don't have a fucking clue who the next justice should be. FOX is trumping up the 'fight' over the next Justice, as though Obama has already chosen a known communist abortion doctor and the Republican minority is valiantly gearing up to do battle against the overwhelming forces of evil liberalism.

Meanwhile, every member of Congress is calling the President to give their two cents about who he should or shouldn't nominate (what a bullshit, time wasting grab for headlines!). Yesterday, Orrin Hatch (you know, the old guy from Utah who would outlaw dancing if he could) gave Obama some crazy old man speech on the phone about not choosing an 'activist' but rather someone who represents 'mainstream America'. The subtext is clear: more than half of Americans don't support gay marriage, and ol' Orrin don't want them queers a-marryin'. Correct me if I am wrong, but are Supreme Court Justices chosen based on their ability to follow public sentiment, or make legal decisions based on, um, law? If justices are nominated based on how much the public agrees with them, then they cease to be removed from politics and cease to be judges-- they become politicians.

What I wonder, though, is what motivates Congressmen and Congresswomen who know that they have no chance of swaying the President, who know that the decision is the President's alone, to clog his blackberry with borderline delirious and presumptious diatribes about what he should do.

That's like winning the lottery and having people you've met through friends calling to tell you how to spend your money. This is Obama's decision, and no silly conversation with Arlen Specter is going to make him choose differently.

On the one hand, I like to see some communication, and Obama really does welcome opposing viewpoints. But on the other hand, how genuine is this contact? Is Orrin an old but respectfully disagreeing friend calling to offer sage advice, or is he making a good show for the cameras just so when Obama chooses someone who doesn't want to white out the first amendment and replace it with the Patriot Act, Orrin can tell his constituents that he did his best to fight the dirty Democrats?

Meanwhile, a man with a whole lot of stuff on his plate, from pork flu to piracy to Pakistan, has to listen to the man who still swears Ozzy Osbourne is going to make teens commit suicide drone in his ear for half an hour.

It's freaking ridiculous. We all just need to kick back and take a Xanax and wait until Obama actually chooses someone to decide whether or not we like him/her. Unfortunately, I feel like too many people on both sides of the aisle already have their minds made up-- party-line conservatives will hate Obama's choice even if he chooses a right-leaning moderate, and party-line liberals will love his choice even if it's, surprise!, a right-leaning moderate, so long as one token issue (abortion, gay marriage, or gun control) looks to swing just slightly left.

The rest of us out here in 'Common Sense Land' are living our lives, kissing pigs, and reserving judgment until there is actually something substantial to judge.

Meanwhile, on the FOX Forum today, the headline in bold letters:

"Judge Judy for Supreme Court"

Sigh.

Dear Mr. Martin,

2009-05-01T16:45:00.000-07:00

Below is a short response I wrote to an editorial (this one) which Roland Martin wrote in favor of higher taxes on cigarettes. I emailed it to Mr. Martin through CNN a couple of weeks ago and have (not surprisingly) received no response.

*****************

Dear Mr. Martin,

Until very recently, I enjoyed your commentaries. I found you a thoughtful intellectual, a powerful writer, and a generally agreeable person. I believed you to be deeply committed to equality and freedom in all forms.

Apparently, I was mistaken.

Apparently, you believe that it is okay to disproportionately tax a minority of Americans based solely upon your personal taste.

Well, Mr. Martin, I find your recent argument in favor of high cigarette taxes to be short-sighted, discriminatory, and based far more on personal feeling than intellectual rationale.

To encapsulate your argument (not too reductively, I hope), you have no problem with the federal government nearly tripling the per-pack tax on cigarettes because "There is nothing -- NOTHING! -- that [you] like about smoking." You have no problem with that revenue being used to fund public health initiatives because ""Cigarettes are unhealthy. Period." and, on a personal note, the only smoke you enjoy "should come from a hot, juicy steak." Above all else, you hate that "those who don't want to see it happen are bringing out the usual prop: the poor, poor people."

Pretty accurate summation?

Respectfully, I must tell you that your arguments are woefully weak. It is fundamentally unfair to disproportionately tax any segment of American society based upon any characteristic, whether it be race, religion, gender, sexual orientation, marital status, taste in music, or personal habits.

You don't like smokers? That is your prerogative. I don't like crocs-- those obnoxiously bright and porous shoes that seem so popular with the overweight Disneyland-going crowd. But would it be fair to slap a per-pair tax on crocs simply because I think they are annoying?

Granted, that's a facetious example. Your argument is that cigarettes are unhealthy and therefore okay to tax into the stratosphere. However you seem to be ignoring the hundreds of studies which show that diets high in red meat increase your chances of heart disease, colon cancer, and many other conditions. Were the federal government to impose a $5 per-steak tax to promote health you would be singing a different tune, am I wrong? That is an obviously hypocritical double-standard; Americans routinely wear and ingest hundreds of things which are in some measure detrimental to their health. Should they all be taxed higher?

This slope is slippery, Mr. Martin, and putting one foot on it simply because you find smoke displeasurable is foolish. You are also a Christian pastor and probably prefer Christianity to Islam or Hinduism-- shall we create Koran and Bhagavad Gita taxes to discourage people from pursuing religions that you dislike?

As you may have guessed, my argument has nothing to do with "the poor, poor people" and has everything to do with demanding an intellectual rationale for singling out one segment of the population. In all reality, there is no rationale for adding yet another tax to smokers whom, I should add, are already taxed more heavily than virtually any other group.

I agree with you that laws are necessary to prohibit, say, forcing a child to sit in a car with a smoker, but study after study after study has shown that raising the price of cigarettes has virtually no impact on the number of smokers. You know this, of course, yet you are content to hide behind the 'it will force people to quit for their own good' argument. This is a weak camouflage for your personal distaste which has no place in an intellectual discussion.

I don't use this phrase often-- indeed, I generally steer well clear of it-- but disproportionately taxing one group for personal reasons is deeply and fundamentally unAmerican. If our government were to impose a 'black tax', 'gay tax', 'Muslim tax', 'canoe tax', or 'twinkie tax', those would be discriminatory, offensive, and uncalled for, correct?

Just because it's politically popular to discriminate against smokers makes it no less discrimination.

Of course, the piece in question was an editorial, which is by definition rooted in opinion. But generally speaking, those with the national platform that you enjoy use their podium to make clear, concise, and logical arguments. I don't always agree with those individuals, but I can't deny that their reasoning is basically sound.

Your emotion-laden rant about cigarette taxes, on the other hand, was not enlightening, logical, or intellectually sound-- it was just plain sad to see an otherwise intelligent, respectable man resorting to weak logic and thinly-disguised personal attacks to champion a discriminatory practice.

No explanation necessary

2009-04-29T13:33:00.000-07:00

I'll address the topic of blog length in a future post. Right now though, here are some fun things that are happening right now. I'm not going to put any explanatory text in simply because common sense should tell you why these things are are really, really ridiculous.

1: Arguing/voting to ban abortion but NOT arguing/voting to increase funding for adoption, counseling, and family services.

2: Voting for spending increases but not voting to increase revenues (i.e. taxes), including for social programs ("liberal") and for military programs ("conservative").

3: Spending a career railing against drug abusers and demanding increased punishments but avoiding punishment and making excuses for your own drug abuse.

4: Claiming we need energy independence and reduced budget deficits due to oil while protecting and adding to the benefits derived by the oil/gas industries.

5: Demanding answers from Vietnam vets about their service (a la John Kerry) while not asking the same questions or requiring the same detailed answers from your own candidate (a la Bush II).

6: Arguing that global warming and climate science require more research to make the claims they are making and then not funding that research.

Super-Double-Reverse Racism

2009-04-19T20:41:00.000-07:00

Brandon wrote a while back about "class warfare" and how, essentially, conservative tax policies heavily favoring the wealthy were in no way less class warfare than new policies taxing the wealthy more heavily. His thesis is that you can't accept an unfair advantage and then cry foul when the advantage shifts slightly-- that just ain't right.

This line of logic brought to mind another term: reverse racism. This term boils my blood because of all the implications it carries. Though the term has been applied to people of every race at some point or another, most often it refers to black people in America, so that will be my focus here.

Essentially, the situation is the same as Brandon's class warfare theory. You have a system which, when left to its own devices, favors white people over black people. Plain and simple; it does. We call this system the "status quo" and assume it be perfectly natural and normal. Then when someone comes along and wants to shift some tiny aspect of this system to favor non-white males, a lot of assholes in the media scream "reverse racism" as though Bill O'Reilly is being packed off to a plantation.

I have done a ton of research and written way too much outlining specific studies and statistics, but they were very lengthy and obscured my basic point. If you want statistics, I can supply them in large amounts. Suffice to say that a black man in (the vast majority of) America is more likely to 1) be pulled over/searched than a white man, 2) receive higher bail amounts for similar crimes than a white man, 3) receive harsher sentences for similar crimes than a white man, including the death penalty (this is the reason Charles Manson is alive today: the Supreme Court commuted all death sentences in the 1970s when it was discovered that blacks were four times more likely to be executed than whites) and 4) be seen as "inherent troublemakers" by Parole Officers rather than people who did bad things because of "factors outside of their control".

The statistics can, and have, filled books, so I'll spare you too much jabbering. Fact is, if you look at virtually any aspect of our society, whites are favored over blacks. Many of these disparities are woven into the fabric of our social system as ideas and concepts and policies (both official and unofficial) which give advantages (implicitly or explicity) to whites and disproportionately affect blacks.

Example: our government freely admits that the psychotropic and physiological effects of all types of cocaine ('crack' and powdered cocaine) are the same. The only difference is that crack is cheap and favored by poor minorities while cocaine is expensive and used almost exclusively by affluent whites. So the two drugs do identical damage and are identically dangerous, yet crack and powdered cocaine are penalized at the federal level in a 1:100 ratio-- for cocaine, a conviction of "possession with intent to distribute" carries a five year sentence for quantities of 500 grams or more. But for crack, just 5 grams gets you the same sentence.

Translation: someone dealing $45,000 worth of cocaine can (and often will) receive a lesser sentence than someone peddling $500 worth of crack.

In addition, crack is the ONLY drug that carries a mandatory prison sentence for first offense possession-- a 5 year MINIMUM. The MAXIMUM sentence for simple possession of any other drug, including powdered cocaine, is 1 year. In what universe does this make sense? How is the minimum for one drug 5 times higher than the maximum for an equally dangerous drug?

Any rational human being can see that something smells funny. For some reason, in the United States, a lot of lawmakers write harsher laws on drugs used primarily by blacks. For some reason, a lot of judges hand out harsher sentences to blacks. For some reason, a lot of prosecutors pursue tougher penalties for blacks. For some reason, parole officers have a more favorable view of their white parolees than their black ones.

In terms of employment, the situation is no better. In 2008, roughly 70% of those entering the workforce were women and racial minorities. Only 30% were white men. Yet white men received roughly half of all available jobs. The only logical argument in favor of this is that white people had better educations and deserved the jobs more. That's fine, until we accept that college admission practices also tend to favor whites over blacks. In fact, the only time in American history when, on a large scale, black enrollment in 4-year colleges got even close to a representative percentage of the population was during the era of 'affirmative action'.

Now, affirmative action is hardly a situation which anyone can defend as "ideal" and quota systems are not perfect, but it seems hard to argue that they aren't more fair than the current situation. There are strong arguments to be made that quota systems are necessary to get the ball rolling on integration, and there are also strong arguments to be made that affirmative action does more harm than good in the long run. I am not qualified to make that call-- that's something for history to judge.

What I do know is that since affirmative action programs officially ended on college campuses, fewer black students have been admitted each year despite the fact that blacks make up a larger percentage of applicants than ever before.

Hardly sounds like a level playing field, does it?

Much like rehab, the first step to solving the problem of racial inequality is to first admit that there is one. I don't know why certain iniquities exist along racial lines, but I can't pretend that they don't. The system in which we live is racially biased (in several important regards) in favor of white people, yet any attempt to correct that system is called "reverse racism" with all the negative connotations that self-righteous pundits can muster.

Even worse is when ridiculous arguments are presented to suggest that black people actually have the upper hand, both legally and socially.

No, I cannot say the N-word in music or otherwise. Dave Chapelle and DMX can. Great. So black people can say the N-word and white people can't-- is that it? Is that the only advantage you can think of?

As Chris Rock says, "last time I checked, that's about the only advantage to being black. Wanna trade places? Fine, you shout n***er and I'll raise interest rates!"

This entire debate drives me crazy because the majority of people who scream "reverse racism" do so without admitting that the status quo which "reverse racism" alters is, essentially, racist.

We, as the few white men (and Janelle) who read this blog, have to be realistic, and we can't be hypocrites. We can't enjoy advantages based on race and then cry foul when that advantage shifts slightly.

If you want to cry "reverse racism" then you are free to do so. But doing so without admitting that the status quo is inherently racist makes you disingenuous and hypocritical. And to freely use any unfair advantage while denying others that same right makes you an asshole.

It's all about the Benjamins

2009-03-24T12:31:00.000-07:00

In the last two days I've seen several (that's approximately more than a few but less than a bunch) news articles promulgating one of the great American myths: everything (should) boil down to money and economics. As only two examples, I perused an article detailing how some cities are on the verge of dismantling their recycling programs because they are losing money and an article discussing how people should stop buying organic foods in order to save money.

That last article is just stupid. Aside from the fact that many "organic" foods are not, in fact, organic, encouraging people to continue using a system of agriculture that is known to be unhealthy and unsustainable is just ridiculous. Why not spend more money on food with a modicum of propriety in its creation and reduce expenses elsewhere such as using less gas or watching fewer bad movies at the theater? Why must we save money by cutting out those things that are often most beneficial? Sometimes doing the right thing costs more. We have to get over this idea that cheapest is best, easiest, and most correct.

We can't let hard economic times push us back into doing ridiculous things like not recycling. The problem is seeing recycling in dollar terms and not accounting for all the stuff that we don't put in dollar terms (i.e. positive externalities). Think of it this way: recycling stretches our resources further, it reduces expenditures of energy and time to dig up new resources, it prevents environmental problems from resource extraction, and when environments aren't mined, logged, or farmed for resources nature is allowed to do the things it does for us for free. That last point is VERY important. Think of all the things nature does FOR us that we currently don't pay for. Wetlands help clean our water. Forests and ocean algae provide oxygen. Forests and grasslands help retain soil fertility while reducing erosion. Aquifers store and clean water. River floods (think Nile or Mississippi) increase land fertility by depositing nutrient-rich silt created from rocks further upstream. The list goes on and on and on. If we keep leveling mountains, draining wetlands, and turning forest into corn and beef we will have to pay for the things that nature does for free (and usually does better). The small amount of money it costs to keep recycling programs running is chump change compared to the cost for us to extract all the resources, fight wars to grab more resources, and then replace nature's work with our machines.

We need to go beyond the monetary sphere. Some things are more important than money. If we reduce everything to monetary terms, we lose a lot of our humanity because we see only our own gain and our own rewards rather than our impact on other people and on our planet. The pursuit of money often means individual needs and wants triumph over what is good for the group. These are not mutually exclusive ideas but we often act as if they are. Everyone is so worried about "losing" something (think taxes) that they forget that money, like all things on this planet, does much more good when shared with the group than when horded by individuals. We need to find a better balance between the two concepts of money and humanity because community and group cohesiveness is necessary for our well being as individuals and as a species.

(As an addendum, I am not against capitalism. I believe that hard work and taking risk should be rewarded. The pursuit of money or success is not bad in and of itself. It's the larger cultural idea of "mine" that is the problem. We have the idea of capitalism so ingrained in us from day one that we forget it's only an economic philosophy. It says nothing about how to create socially, ethically, and environmentally responsible people. We must make these social concepts part of the economic philosophy. As long as they are separate, they will continue to be seen as opposing each other rather than as tools we can integrate to make the system and community stronger.)

I know I sound like a broken record...

2009-03-18T13:36:00.000-07:00

but you can't, and I don't know how to stress this enough, do something but act outraged when someone else does the same thing.

I know...we all do it. I'm as guilty as the next guy. I've done stupid things and then yelled at people for doing exactly the same thing. There's a difference between people though- if you do something stupid and learn a lesson and feel bad and won't repeat yourself, it's an honest mistake. If you're continually a douche bag, then that just makes you a stupid douche bag.

Back to the point- the next conservative person I meet that uses the phrase "class warfare" to describe Barack's proposed tax plan might just end up getting kicked in the throat. Allow me to explain.

For the past 28 years (barring a few years near the end of the Clinton administration) the tax burden has been increasing, in real and nominal terms, for the middle class and the poor. Meanwhile, it has declined for the upper classes (those making $250k or more). So for roughly 28 years conservative financial pundits, politicians, and high income households have been happily getting their way. Systematically favoring one class over another is class warfare. And favoring the rich in tax legislation over other classes fits that bill. So we've had 28 years of class warfare favoring the upper crust. Now, Obama plans to increase the amount payed by the rich and reduce the burden (hopefully in real terms) payed by the middle and lower classes. And now the conservatives are screaming "class warfare" so hard they might just push their little pooty-puckers out.

Wait a minute. Did I miss something? Twenty-eight years of reduced tax burdens (in real dollar terms) for upper class incomes doesn't count as class warfare but reversing that trend does? How asinine can you be?

There are pretty sound macroeconomic arguments for how tax policies and changes affect national incomes and there are lots of good reasons to question tax policy changes. Class warfare is a bullshit straw-man argument put up to hit people's emotional buttons and keep them from behaving rationally. Whether or not it's desirable or right to reverse the current tax trends rather than changing the system to a more fair one is a lively debate. But no matter what happens, you can't wage class warfare and then cry foul when the pendulum swings back. You can't always be on the winning team.

As for a solution, the way out of this mess is elegantly simple. It's way past time to implement a flat percentage tax. Everyone, excepting people already living in poverty that can't afford food let alone taxes, should be required to hand over some percentage of their income as taxes. Corporations should have to hand over a flat percentage of profits. These should be percentage based and not flat numbers since 10% of a rich person's money is the same punch to the wallet as 10% of a middle class income. It's the same reduction in purchasing power. A flat amount can never be fair. $1,000 is a drop in the bucket for someone making $250k a year but is significantly more damaging for a person making $35,000. Those taxes should go for things that individuals won't provide on their own such as highways, defense, research, environmental protection, and education. Things that benefit everyone. This system has no class warfare and everyone participates and owns an equal share of public works. Of course, this won't happen because the rich like their money and don't want a system that evens out the tax burden. Instead they'll keep calling shenanigans and class warfare and the middle and lower classes will continue to shoulder the financing of public goods.

No matter what happens, the bottom line is that waging class warfare but not calling it that (usually it's referred to as "allowing the markets to work" or "letting people keep more of what they earned") is just stupid. It's no different than being outraged by terrorists torturing captives yet engaging in torture or declaring other people must adopt democracy when there are known flaws in our own implementation. Being hypocritical is a poor example to set, especially if you want to be seen as a leader.

I've Got Your Bonus Right Here...

2009-03-16T16:59:00.000-07:00

I kind of feel like a boxer coming out of retirement.

It hasn't been that long, really, but I've been so wrapped up in other kinds of writing (kinds that actually pay!) that I haven't been around much, here or elsewhere, on 'teh internets'. Brandon has been incognito as well, perhaps due to a budding addiction to online gaming. Such is life.

At any rate, I am back because I am sick of hearing public outrage at the revelation that executives at AIG (the bank that has $173 billion of our money, remember them?) are getting a combined $165 million just in bonuses despite the fact that they steered their company about as well as the captain of the Exxon Valdez.

Sure, I am as pissed as the next guy. But I am pissed about something different. I am pissed that America is focusing on the wrong issue-- AIG executive bonuses are only tangentially connected to the real issue: a corporate culture in the world of high finance that rewards stupid, negligent risk at the expense of sound economics and steady growth.

Almost more obnoxious than the situation at AIG, though, is the public outcry for the Obama administration to somehow stop these payments. The fact is, the men and women (mostly men) who sunk these companies were guaranteed giant bonuses when they were hired. It was a valid part of a legally binding contract, and government action after the fact doesn't (and shouldn't) invalidate that.

Simply put, there ain't shit Obama can do.

Now, do I want those jackasses to, as Jon Stewart so aptly put it, "burn the fucking house down and walk away millionaires"? Hell no. But what I want even less is for the government, whether led by my boy Barack or Dick "The Only Thing More Evil Than Al Qaeda" Cheney, deciding after the fact what is okay/not okay and legal/not legal and retroactively altering it. This is my issue with "domestic wiretapping" and "enhanced interrogations" as well, but that is another gripe for another time.

Obama is walking a fine line here because he knows the scoop, and knows Americans are pissed, and knows what the real issue at hand is, and how powerless he is. In fact, he hit the nail on the head in a press conference today when he said that the impropriety of the bonuses goes beyond economics. He said "it's about our fundamental values," and urged Geithner to (pay attention!) "pursue every single legal avenue to block these bonuses". Did you catch that? Every single legal avenue. Translation: nothing. Obama is a lawyer, and he knows he can't just say "those contracts you neogtiated a year ago? No longer valid, so sayeth the President". It's been done, and it's time to move on.

What frustrates me, though, is a combination of two things. The first is the shallowness of public reaction. America is outraged, yes, but not for the reasons that would ensure this kind of thing never happens again. The issue isn't $165 million dollars-- we pissed that away in psuedo-defense spending just this afternoon-- the issue is a system which has things like "guaranteed bonuses" in the first place. The entire concept of a guaranteed bonus is antithetical to good business practices, and the reason they exist is to free up CEOs to take stupid risks without fear of personal financial hurt. What this system does is reward short-term, unsustainable profit which will ultimately implode, bankrupting the 401(k) plans of people who, without any experience in finance, know that you don't offer a $500,000 loan to a part-time mariachi singer based solely on a photograph of his sombrero.

The second thing that frustrates me is the virtual lack of clarity and common sense on the part of AIG. True, they can't just not pay these bonuses (the individuals receiving them could refuse them, though most won't) but AIG could alter the fundamental philosophy of their institution to keep this from ever happening again. They could banish guaranteed bonuses and tie any bonus money to actual profits.

But what did AIG do? Pledge to reduce 2009 bonuses by at least 30 percent.

What the fuck?? So if this happens again (and without either government oversight or a new plan of action, it eventually will) they will only hand out $115 million in bonuses? The hell is that? Saying "we are only going to resume 70% of the activities that got us into this mess" is unacceptable, just like a student who got caught plagiarizing saying "sorry, next time I'll only steal 70% of my research."

What needs to happen is that America, corporate and public, wall street and main street, makes the choice to stop abandoning long-term stability for short-term gain. Stop buying houses and cars that put us in luxury now and bankruptcy court later; stop allowing companies to reward undue risk or simply pass their debt onto others.

There is simply no need for the stock market to grow at 30% a year for a decade if it means a multi-year recession teetering on the precipice of a global depression. That's like building extensions onto your house as fast as you can on the assumption that when the next big storm comes, less will fall off than you added on. It's about the dumbest fucking way to build a house, run a company, or put together a damn lego castle. It just doesn't make sense, and every single time this happens I think 'no wonder the terrorists hate us'.

It's not all bad though. In the midst of AIG-sized assholes, there are companies doing the right things for the right reasons, and succeeding because of it. My girlfriend works for one of the only banks on the West Coast that is actually expanding despite the economy. In fact, this bank is planning to give back the TARP funds it received because it doesn't need them. This bank is built on solid fundamentals and conservative leadership. They grow at steady and sustainable rates using common sense practices and the CEO is a class act-- he's worth untold millions yet walks to work every day. When going out of town to broker billion dollar deals, he takes the bus to the airport. While the heads of WaMu and Merrill Lynch would take a gold-plated subma-copter to the deli for a sammidge, this guy is chillin' with the riff-raff on public transportation because he's not blinded by his bank account and knows common sense must eventually trump idiocy.

With luck, more companies like this will grow and develop to a point where they are the financial leaders of our nation. Then shit can calm down and get back to "normal" (read: huge debt, but no housing crisis) and my newspaper can stop being filled with this particular type of bullshit.

Actually, it's not even my newspaper. I steal it from the dude upstairs. What can I say? Times are tough for everyone.

Thank you Monsanto

2009-03-11T11:01:00.001-07:00

Today I'd like to give a big shout out to all those companies, corporations, executives, and fraudsters that have decided to enrich themselves and their shareholders at the expense of common sense, humanity, social responsibility, dignity, and existence. I'm referring to the marketing of products under the general label "green" although this also applies to things labeled "eco-friendly" and "environmentally sound".

When it was first thought up, the green label was supposed to represent something. It was supposed to represent products that used natural, renewable, non-toxic, and biodegradable ingredients rather than non-renewable petroleum based chemicals with unknown side-effects, high toxicity, and thousands of years of existence in our landfills, water supplies, and soil. What we have now in the market place it a travesty and a tragedy.

Take a good look at most "green" products and you'll find names synonymous with corporate excess, massive environmental damage, refusal to clean up their messes, and a general lack of good social and environmental stewardship. Look at the ingredient list and you'll find things that are most certainly not natural, renewable, or biodegradable. And every day it gets worse as corporate lobbyists and political fools gut legislation intended to clarify what can and can't be sold under green labels. By gut, I mean allow things to be sold as green that aren't green at all.

It's no different than what happened to the organic movement. Look at your organic foods. You'll find a vast majority of "organic" and "natural" foods still contain garbage (high fructose corn syrup, preservatives, artificial flavors, etc). Organic meats are not organic at all. Remember- chicken can be marketed as "free range" as long as it has ACCESS to a pasture. By access, these farmers provide one small door (often smaller than a chicken) and they provide it late in life when the chickens are already accustomed to roost life and will never leave the door (because they are chickens and they are stupid).

So once again greed triumphs over good. The organic movement was about healthy eating and being aware of where you food comes from and making it as healthy and chemical free as possible. The green movement was about making products less resource intensive, less chemically harmful, and less prone to remaining in our water. Instead, these have become marketing buzzwords, advertising fodder, and a sop to people that still want to consume but want to feel less guilty about consumption's harmful side effects.

To be fair, there are a large number of products that ARE green and a large number of companies and people working hard to make sure their products do as little damage as possible while still making a profit. Using lemon juice and baking soda instead of bleaches, ethers, and alcohols is great. Removing pesticides from food and allowing cattle to eat grass (which they evolved to eat) rather than corn (which they did not) is wonderful. And using fewer resources to make the same product is commendable (though not necessarily deserving of a "green" label). The problem is that green is green is green to the average fool shopping for a product. Most people don't have the capability to know which products are actually more environmentally friendly than others. But I think we can all agree that marketing things as green because you removed 2 ingredients while leaving the other 12 is lying. Selling "green" window cleaners that still contain man-made chemicals with long lifetimes and toxic breakdown products is unethical. And using your market position and money to make environmental protection rules laxer and the punishments more lenient is just messed up.

The greenest, most environmentally conscious thing you can do is NOT BUY THINGS IN THE FIRST PLACE. Buy less and we'll use less resources. Buy less and we'll have fewer chemicals ending up in our water and soil. Buy less and our landfills will stop filling up so fast. For those of you that can't have a conversation without worrying about terrorists, then buy less so that less money goes over seas to fund terrorist activities (surprise!- it's not just oil money that funds terrorism even if that's what the news told you).

Long term vision and common sense people. Lets get some.

Song of the Day: "My President Is Black" by Joung Jeezy

2009-01-26T14:22:00.000-08:00

Can we take a second to talk about this ridiculous national debate over the closure of Guantanamo Bay??

But first, I do need to say: oh sweet, sweet God—Barack Obama is my President!!! I am unspeakably, unshakably happy, and since the morning of the inauguration have been constantly pinching myself because it’s too damn to good to be true.

To begin with, I love his decision to close Guantanamo Bay. Personally, I think the US shot itself in the foot there—you can’t claim to be the steadfast purveyors of sweet liberty across the globe while holding a few hundred people in permanent legal limbo on half-assed technicalities. Oh, and constantly torturing them. That hardly makes us look better than the bastards we are fighting, does it?

But whether or not we agree with how/why/what purpose Gitmo has served, it is going to close. And when it does, the 250 or so remaining inmates are to be moved. The big question, apparently, is: where? Foxnews is asking “Do you want terrorists in YOUR backyard?” (spoiler alert: the loyal readers of Foxnews DO NOT) and more than one Republican Senator is suggesting that since Nancy Pelosi wants Gitmo shut down so badly, we should hold the detainees in her district-- on Alcatraz.

Apparently, these geniuses have never been to Alcatraz. It’s not a prison, it’s a tourist trap. You’d have better luck housing detainees in the Haunted Mansion at Disneyland. That jackassery notwithstanding, everyone seems to be panicking and no one seems to know what to do with the Gitmo prisoners.

My question is: what the fuck difference does it make? Do we not have a whole scad of maximum security facilities? Do we not have military prisons with crazy security measures already in place? These detainees are not friggin made of explosives—they will not detonate and take out 50 city blocks if they touch the good ol’ American Heartland. They will simply spend 23 hours a day locked in a different cell (I know, it sounds downright insane when you put it like that). So stick them in Leavenworth. Put them in Rikers, or San Quentin. Put them in the Pleasant Valley Maximum Security State Prison. As long as they’re locked up and well guarded, what difference does it make?

A second, slightly stickier question: why are people so afraid of justice actually being done in these cases? When I say “hell yes bring them onto US soil, put them on trial for their crimes, and let’s get on with our lives” people react as if I’ve just pissed on the American flag—as if they are not pissing on the entire concept of human decency and fairness by denying someone’s freedom and giving them no legal recourse to challenge their detention.

This is unbelievably simple, people: if there is credible evidence that someone has engaged in criminal activities, it should be no problem getting a conviction and punishing them. If there is no evidence against them, you let them go-- you have to. I don’t see why this is such a contentious issue, and no amount of fear-mongering from the Right is going to convince me otherwise.

To that end, I know what someone is going to say: “We can’t let them go because they will revert to terrorism”, which is a stupid, as well as an incorrect, argument. It’s no more a legal means of action than saying “we can’t let people out of the drunk tank because they will maybe one day drink again.” People advocating this reactionary position generally point to Pentagon estimates that 61 of the more than 500 detainees released from Gitmo have resumed the fight against the United States.

Firstly, that figure was immediately contested by a zillion sources because, according to the Pentagon, “returning to terrorism” includes such mundane acts as publicly making negative comments about the US. As if you had been imprisoned, sleep deprived, and psychologically fucked for half a decade without a shred of evidence, you wouldn’t be mad too. (And I won’t even get into how many of these detainees were turned over in the first place by destitute tribesmen for the reward money with no evidence given nor asked for by a CIA that cared more about looking busy after 9/11 than finding actual bad guys.)

The Pentagon then revamped their data and made a new figure of 18 detainees who have for sure (re)joined Al Qaeda, though they won’t release more than a few names. Fair enough, but 18 out of more than 500 is slightly over 3%. Not exactly a frightening or stunning rate of recidivism considering that convicted felons in the US return to crime roughly 60% of the time.

This is a sham, people. Locking random Arabs up indefinitely makes us no safer on a daily basis, and it makes us look like gigantic pricks. Can we please just let actual, legal, decent justice be done? I’m sick of David Hicks-style farces, and I’m ready to punish the fuckers who we can prove have done bad things, and apologize to those we’ve fucked out of paranoia.

Am I the only person who thinks that this is the absolute right thing to do?

When things accuse other things of doing the same thing

2008-12-22T11:44:00.000-08:00

The White House wrote a response to a New York Times article that accuses Bush and his governance for the mortgage meltdown. Now, Bush is NOT responsible for the mortgage and credit problem per se. He didn't make the bad loans. But the NYT article is correct in asserting that the Bush philosophy is part of the reason for the current debacle. He IS responsible for agreeing to remove much of the oversight that was meant to prevent gross abuses like this (along with the Republican controlled Congress from 2000-2006). He IS responsible for ignoring all the warning signs early on and sitting on his thumbs. He IS responsible for increasing national debt loads to the point where even U.S. debt spending will not have its usual anti-recession influence. But no one can or should blame him for actually making the bad loans. He helped make the situation easier to fall into. He didn't actually dig the entire hole.

The best part of the White House response was, and I quote, "The Times' 'reporting' in this story amounted to finding selected quotes to support a story the reporters fully intended to write from the onset, while disregarding anything that didn't fit their point of view." Now, if you can't figure out why this is just the most horrific statement ever released by the current administration, then I can't help you. But I will make it easier- Iraq. The administration had plans in place to invade Iraq before the 9/11 incident. They've never made any bones about it. They ignored the evidence pointing to no WMDs. They ignored the people on the ground who best knew the situation. They ignored the domestic voices that questioned the policy and the data it was based on. They ignored the people that stood up and declared this to be a bad war on policy and humanitarian grounds. So the White House can just kiss the fattest part of my ass and I'm glad they will go down in history as one of the worst examples of American 'leadership'.

They've spent the last 8 years ignoring evidence and reaching conclusions they wanted. They've ignored privacy issues, energy issues, climate issues. They've ignored genocide. They've ignored the 70+ percent of Americans that have stood up and declared our national direction and foreign policy is wrong. So I don't want to hear a peep out of them declaring someone else is doing the same thing. Until you get your own house in order, you have no right, no basis, and no ethical ground to make these kind of accusations against someone else. Absolutely disgusting.

Wow...just wow

2008-12-12T13:40:00.000-08:00

I want to get away from politics, but it keeps dragging me back. I saw this headline and almost had to change my underwear (not in a good way): Confiscating toy guns part of US mission in Iraq.

Let's make this quick or I might suffer death by idiocy.

1) We'll take away toy guns from children in other countries but raise ours to believe guns are the answer to problems - witness laxer rules about guns in national parks, war as a solution to political problems, and unflinching adherence to poor readings of the 2nd amendment, protections for gun manufacturers from lawsuits, and allow concealed weapons (possibly on college campuses soon).

2) We fought an entire revolutionary war because of rules handed down by external authorities abridging personal freedoms- now we are telling Iraqis what their kids can and can't play with. Next comes a sugar tax.

3) We are, ostensibly, aiming to make Iraq a less violent place by reaching out to the kids - at home sell all manner of guns aimed at children: cap guns, air rifles, compressed air guns, BB guns, and paintball guns.

One of the more violent nations (and the nation with the highest per capita rate of privately owned gun deaths) telling another nation not to let their kids play with guns is the epitome of hypocrisy. When people ask why the rest of the world doesn't like us, remember stuff like this. Also remember that the U.S. was one of only two countries that refused to sign the ban on cluster bombs and munitions this past month. Hooray for violence!

Thank You Thank You Thank You

2008-12-08T20:51:00.000-08:00

Thank you, GM. Thank you. Thank you.

Finally, someone from one of the Big Three was willing to step up and take the blame for the financial collapse of their operations.

Meanwhile, the CEO of Ford is still flogging the dead bison, swearing that Americans really do want F-150s more than they want fuel-efficient sedans. Yet if asked why Hyundai’s sales didn’t plummet 41% in November, he has no answer.

Meanwhile, this jackass from Kelly Blue Book is blaming Government itself for the failure of the Big Three because rather than block foreign auto-makers from selling cars in America, they had the audacity to give Americans more choice and the Big Three a little competition. Now, maybe he is correct on some points: perhaps in 1975 the federal government did institute “byzantine regulations that required American manufacturers to build (or at least market) fuel-efficient cars.” And perhaps “American car companies were not geared up to build small, fuel-efficient cars, but foreign manufacturers were.”

So the hell what? That’s like demanding your neighbors buy only from your son’s lemonade stand even though he charges $15 for a lemon wedge in gutter water, while around the corner another kid sells real lemonade for a buck. Even worse: it’s like demanding that even though your child has been told about 30 times that it’s not customary to stir the lemonade with his nose-picking finger.

But even that jackass hit the hammer on the head about Americans being exposed to import vehicles: “Many American consumers liked what they found.” What they found were cheaper, more reliable cars that were cheaper to fill, cheaper to fix, and came with better warranties. How dare our government give us the option of having that?

At any rate, I take any shoulder-patting of the US auto industry with a giant grain of rock-salt: these are the same companies that intentionally bought up technology for, and buried research into, electric cars and alternative fuels for decades because they couldn’t see the writing on the wall until about 3 months ago when it read “only Congress can help you now (again).”

Like many business models in many industries, the Big Three are dinosaurs that deserve to die, or at the very least be replaced by something with a few feathers. They’re the record companies destroying the singles format with the internet on the horizon. They’re the banks giving loans to people who shouldn’t have loans, and offering credit to people who have shown no inclination to use credit responsibly.

On some level, I tie it to the “experience” argument barely cold now from the Presidential election. According to so damn many people, when you have a choice to make, you always go with experience. Yet it was experienced auto industry execs that couldn’t see what any college-age student could: that if you’re not a farmer or construction worker, why in the fuck do you need a giant truck? Experienced record execs are still scratching their heads and trying to figure out why CD sales have dropped, and how to make money from this “internet” fad they’ve heard about. And wasn’t it an experienced cabinet that walked us into an illegal war and the biggest deficit in history?

Experience does not always equate with common sense—in fact, quite the opposite sometimes. My grandma falls asleep watching Law & Order and has long conversations with Ice T. My girlfriend’s grandpa thinks that sharks are, quote, “out to get us.” Nearly 200 years of combined human experience, and that’s the best they’ve got.

The people who put together iTunes were not experienced, but record labels just couldn’t seem to realize that people wanted music digitally. The guy who started Facebook was not experienced (though he’s now the youngest billionaire in the world), nor the guys who started World of Warcraft or Netflix. But what those people did have was foresight and a good idea: use the internet to revolutionize the way we consume, which is something virtually no executive with a mutil-million dollar salary and a fancy desk could see.

Their experience was telling them things would be fine--no need to be alarmed-- just as when the comet hit, T-Rex waved his bony arms in the air and thought “It’s all good, I’ll just walk toward this tar pit and look for something to eat…”

Panned for common sense

2008-12-06T19:16:00.000-08:00

As a follow-up to my last post, during a radio address, Barack announced a major plan to use public works projects as a stimulus boost to get the economy rolling again. He never once used the word spend. Instead, he referred to the works and money as "investments". He was panned by the media for not saying "spend". To be fair, the truth is that money will be spent. Therefore, it is correct to call this spending. BUT, and this is a big but, these are exactly the kinds of spending projects that need to occur. Why?

1) Governments should spend money and lower taxes DURING RECESSIONS while NOT SPENDING and raising taxes during boom times. It's basic economic theory and good practice. Government spending helps jolt the economy during times when consumers are not consuming and pays for those projects via higher taxes when salaries, income, and spending are up.

2) The things bought with that money will provide services for the U.S. for the next 50 years. We are still using the original interstate system (albeit with normal maintenance and repairs) and much of the original electric grid. Now is the time to spend on getting those systems up to date while also supplying a broadband system (since we are in the information age and economy), better educational facilities, and improve alternative energy resources.

3) Invest is the correct word. Spending now in order to reap the economic benefits when the world economy picks up again is, by definition, investing. Investing in improved infrastructure is a good start. We also must invest in our human capital and resources- education and health care being the two biggest areas ripe for improvement.

4) At the end, when the spending is done, WE WILL HAVE SOMETHING TANGIBLE TO SHOW FOR THE EFFORT. We will have roads, bridges, hospitals, solar energy stations, fiber-optic connections, and schools. These are things that make life better for everyone now AND in the future. For comparison- nearly $1 trillion will ultimately (estimated as of today) be given to the financial sector. What will this bailout give? Tangibly...very little. The money being pumped in HAS NOT improved capital flows to the people that need it. If it had, Ford and GM would not be banging their tin cups on the Capitol steps. Maybe, eventually, at some unspecified time, the money will flow. But remember...hundreds of billions of that WILL NEVER BE SEEN BY US because it was used to pay off the people that lost the money. We subsidized their losses so they would have lower losses. We didn't subsidize our losses. That was left up to banks, mortgage holders, and insurance companies.

5) Public works projects provide employment. Giving money to Wall Street does not. At least, not in a direct proportion. These projects keep companies in business and keep people employed.

6) The subsidies already given to energy companies, telecoms, tobacco growers, farmers, and big business (typically in the form of tax breaks, but often via direct cash injections) are worth HUNDREDS OF BILLIONS over the life of the subsidies. Therefore, the government is already handing out this kind of money. Why not let some of that flow to the people at the bottom that are the people that will be employed on these projects? You can't give money to certain people and then tell others that giving them money would be socialism.

So yes, it's spending. Ultimately, it's good spending. Compared to 8 years of bad spending, this seems downright reasonable.

A mark of humanity - planning for the future

2008-11-24T20:36:00.000-08:00

Just one quick news item: Bush, Mr. America, Mr. If-you're-not-with-us-you're-pro-terrorism, handed down a pardon today to Leslie Owen Collier for VIOLATING THE BALD AND GOLDEN EAGLE PROTECTION ACT. To be fair, I'm sure it was warranted, but how do you stand for all that is symbolically American while allowing people to use pesticides banned for their effect on bald eagles? Seems stupid to me. He's done worse. I just thought this was funny.

I hate Kornheiser from MNF. He got slapped down by Jaworski near the end of the game for saying stupid shit like "what do people think of the decision to let Favre go now?". Jaws made a great point after listening to this dribble, one I'm sure most of America missed. Jaws said that the decision to let Favre go was made in the LONG TERM INTEREST of the packers.

This is one of the beauties of being human- the ability to plan for the future. Humans have the unique ability to plan long term projects, set goals that will not be completed for months, and invest in ideas that may not pay off for a decade. But, historically speaking, particularly under capitalist doctrine, it's all about the short term. It's the 'what have you done for me lately' syndrome. Not turning a profit this quarter? Fire the exec and bring in someone else. Fire the lowest ranks and dump more work on fewer people. (Note: this is called "enhancing productivity"). Rather than improving the business or attracting new customers that will provide long-term profit and stability, we focus on the next financial report. We don't care about the health of the company so long as they pay their dividends on time.

Now, to be fair, there have been extraordinary periods (think FDR public works or Eisenhower's interstate freeway system) when we HAVE invested in things for the future at the expense of some current consumption. The building of the hydroelectric dams provided the energy needed to power the industrialism of the twentieth century (and was responsible for us winning WWII). The freeway system allowed awesome transportation of goods and services. The national power grid (when it was first put together) was over-built in order for later expansion. All of these things helped make America the great place that it is.

But now we're not doing that. We're not investing in the future. We're haggling over a few billion dollars that could be used to build state-of-the-art water treatment facilities, schools, universities, parks, museums, and roadways. We're spending trillions (TRILLIONS!!!) on wars, missiles, and nukes. We've reset our priorities and they seem to be narrowly focused and have no provisions for what will happen, planned or unplanned, in the next two, three, five, or ten years.

This mentality can be shown no clearer than by GM, Ford, and Chrysler showing up in D.C. begging for money. For 20 years they've been outsold and out managed. They've continued building trucks and SUVs when the market was CLEARLY shifting to smaller cars, higher quality cars, and better warranties. Rather than making the necessary business changes they chose to keep following the path of short term profits (a la high-priced SUVs) at the expense of long-term liquidity, long term market position, and long term survival. Now they expect the taxpayer to cover their complete ineptitude and allow them a few more years of life to play catch-up using our dollars instead of their own.

I hear people cry that now is not the time to invest in new mass transportation infrastructure, not the time to pay down the national debt, not the time to invest in human capital (education, job training, etc). When, exactly, IS the right time? Obviously the last 20 years weren't right since we are still lacking those things. But the situation is worse because we have no plans and the system that WAS put in place (with great foresight I might add) is aging and dying or becoming irrelevant in our changing social and economic landscape. The few things we've managed to invest in are great, but are still totally inadequate for what's coming even 10 years down the line. Adding three buses a year does almost nothing to alleviate our transportation problem or our addiction to oil. Also, has the price of this stuff EVER gone down? Are we waiting for liquidation sales for this stuff or what?

Bottom line: we are NOT preparing our children for the high-tech jobs of the information age, we are NOT prepared for the strain of additional people on our power grids or transportation networks, and we are NOT prepared for the changes that are needed in our energy usage and fossil fuel dependency. We are not using our ability to plan for the future to actually do that. This lack of action and investment will only hurt us in both the short term and the long term. Thank you, Jaws, for making the point. It's just as important in football as it is in the real world. And we are failing miserably.

John McCain Is As Untouchable As... The Lowest Caste In India???

2008-11-19T09:54:00.000-08:00

This time around, I made the effort.

During the last 6 weeks of the Presidential campaign (and the weeks since—I am a creature of habit, after all) I read CNN and FOX News back to back 3-4 times a day. I wanted to see the “liberal media” at work, or find out how “fair and balanced” FOX is. And while my findings are the subject of another day and another essay, suffice to say it wasn’t pretty. And to cap it off, the weekend after the election, Fox posted a trio of articles so egregiously bad that, as Brandon says, “I couldn’t pass this one up.”

Not that any 24-hour news organization is blemish-free or bias-free, but from a news station, you expect certain things. News, for one, but just saying what’s going on is not enough. The job of a journalist (let me grab my dictionary) is to gather and disseminate accurate information while striving for a non-biased viewpoint in a professional manner. Yet three times in about 18 hours (three times), FOX ran a story which was so exceptionally biased, false, or unprofessional that I had to mention them, which ties to my larger point about why, despite really trying, I just can’t respect what FOXnews does.

Strike one, the headline:

Obama: Presidential Dog Can't Be 'Mutt Like Me'

President-elect Barack Obama uses throwaway remark "mutt like me" in reference to what his family is not looking for in the First Dog.

My question: did anyone even read the transcript before making this headline?

The President-elect said:

“With respect to the dog, this is a major issue… we have two criteria that have to be reconciled. One is that Malia is allergic, so it has to be hypo-allergenic. There are a number of breeds that are hypo-allergenic. On the other hand, our preference would be to get a shelter dog. But obviously, a lot of shelter dogs are mutts, like me… so, whether we're going to be able to balance those two things, I think, is a pressing issue on the Obama household.”

How in the hell does that translate into “presidential dog can’t be” or “what his family is not looking for”?

President-elect Obama and his family would prefer a shelter mutt, but they must choose carefully and possibly abandon that idea because of his daughter’s allergies. Read the quote, newsman— it’s right there! Whoever wrote this headline needs a swift kick in the ass, especially since every other news outlet that I could find got the story right.

Strike two, from about 4 hours later. The headline:

Iraq to US: Please Don’t Go

One would think from that headline (and a hefty percentage of people read only the headline) that the Iraqi government, or perhaps the people, are begging the US to stay.

Yet nowhere in the long ensuing article do any of those three words show up, together or separately. The quotes from Iraqi officials are butchered to hell, but still nowhere in them is there an even slightly pleading tone for the US to not leave. They do warn of a "period of a legal vacuum" if the US withdraws too early, but that’s it.

An excerpt:

[Iraq’s Deputy Prime Minister] said the government was studying the latest amendments, and expressed hope the deal will be resolved "as soon as possible because time is running out." He added the pact is key to preserving "the security improvement which has been achieved" in recent months.

So how did this ‘journalist’ get from ‘hey guys let’s sit down and hammer out a deal that works for both of us’ to ‘OMG don’t leave, America!’? This headline was so offensive to me because it is antithetical to the entire purpose of a headline: it was not an attempt to encapsulate the idea of the article, or represent an accurate portrayal of those it semi-quotes— this headline was a deliberate attempt to make readers feel and believe something which is not really true. This is called manipulation and bias. Sorry, FOX, neither the Iraqi people nor the Iraqi government is begging us to stay, no matter how much you want that to be true and write headlines to make it seem true.

Strike three, about 12 hours later. The headline:

First Bush-Obama Meeting: Hard Feelings and Hand Sanitizer

As President and President-elect prepare for their post-election meeting at the White House on Monday, memories of their first encounter linger.

‘Linger’ for who? I am pretty positive the American people neither remember nor care. I am also pretty sure the President and President-elect have had enough going on in the past 4 years to not dwell on a 3 minute chat. What this looks like, to me, is a throwaway news item couched in salacious terminology to make it seem dramatic. Normally, I wouldn’t even bring it up, except… well, you read it. Cut and pasted from FOXnews.com:

The two men shook hands and then, according to Obama, Bush turned to an aide, "who squirted a big dollop of hand sanitizer in the presidentÃ¢â‚¬â„¢s hand."

Bush then offered some to Obama, who recalled: "Not wanting to seem unhygienic, I took a squirt."

When I quoted from this passage to Bush during an Oval Office interview, the president seemed irritated to learn he had been taken to task by the senator he once counseled.

“I thought I was actually showing some kindness,” Bush said indignantly. “And out of that he came with this belief?”

The president added with a bit of a scowl: “He doesn’t know me very well.”

Yeah, I don’t know what happened with the formatting either. Fucked up apostrophes, randomly spaced lines, shrinking font—don’t these things get proofread before they get posted and then again after? Brandon and I combined have run at least 6 third-rate blogs, and we still have the self-respect to make sure things that we post look okay—it reflects poorly on us if we do not, and let’s just say I won’t be checking with Fox in the near future if I have a question about proper AP style.

Now, of course, FOXnews isn’t the only news source capable of bad reporting, bias, and typos-- it’s kind of a standard fact of modern, web-based media, and I have taken CNN to task several times for similar things. In fact, I slammed CNN hard during the primaries for some awful, offensive, race-baiting stories. However, CBS, ABC, and CNN at least keep their snafus to a minimum, and keep a modicum of impartiality when it comes to political reporting. Yes, CNN backed Obama, and you could tell. But they spent a decent amount of time covering the positives of John McCain. FOX backed McCain, and, with only one notable exception, didn’t even pretend to treat Barack Obama with any measure of respect.

Example: find me one reputable news site that would ever feature the headline: “Obama Is As Untouchable As A Really Hot Chick”, which FOX did about 2 weeks before the election, wherein the author compared Obama to a good buddy’s new stripper girlfriend with fake tits (no, I am not making this up—I have the link if you want to read it) who is so hot that he ignores her dubious, two-timing ways and won’t figure it out until he is left in ruin. I still do a mental double-take every time I think about that. Not only is that offensive on several levels, but it’s a mockery of the entire purpose of reporting the news.

One last point, and for me it’s the biggest point: I cannot respect FOX News because they put words on top of pictures. Simple as that. No reputable news source does that. None. Not CNN, not ABC, not CBS, not the AP. You know who puts words on top of pictures? Tabloids put words on top of pictures. Shitty, partisan, rag magazines designed to manipulate emotion and spark controversy put words on top of pictures. No one else does this, but apparently the editors at FOX think this is a “fair and balanced” graphic.

Pictures and how they are used in online media is something I am thinking and writing a lot about, and I have a nifty folder full of pictures pulled from various websites, but the only people who would post a picture like this and call it ‘news’ is Fox.

How stupid can you possibly be?

2008-11-07T22:02:00.000-08:00

I couldn't pass this up. The headline: Fears of Democrat crackdown lead to gun sales boom. The gist of gun owners and sellers: Obama will make it difficult or impossible to buy assault weapons and/or will take away your right to own guns.

Fact: Obama has supported curbs on gun purchases, including for automatic weapons and assault rifles. This in no way takes away your right to own a gun.

Fact: Obama would like to implement increased responsibility for gun owners and sellers and has voted to allow gun manufacturers to remain open to lawsuits. (Which is only fair- cigarette companies are responsible for deaths caused by their products, car makers are responsible for their safety systems and crash tests, food companies are responsible for illnesses cause by their food, so why should gun manufacturers get some kind of special free pass?)

Where, exactly, did Obama ever say, act, or think to take away people's "2nd amendment rights"? I put that in quotes because, like much of the Constitution, it's debatable how it has been applied in practice. If you think Obama is going to roll into the White House and start smacking down gun ownership laws, I think you're too stupid to own a gun. If you think Obama is going to "take away your rights" you're also stupid. Let me explain.

Over the past 6 years, Americans have lost or had reduced more rights than you can shake a stick at. Just to name a few- you can now be spied on via wiretaps on your phones with no probable cause, your right of habeus corpus can be suspended because the government says so in any case they claim is "terror related", the right to a free press has been infringed by the subpoena of confidential sources and subsequent jailing of reporters for not divulging them, your rights to privacy with companies you do business with have been trampled because of data retention policies that increase data storage and force businesses to turn over that data to the government with no questions asked and no recourse to discuss the matter (via National Security Letters- look it up), your rights of privacy and travel have been severely restricted via random checkpoints set up in border zones that can check documentation and personal items such as laptops without reasonable cause (not just border crossing points- actual checkpoints within the country that are slowly moving further inland and require you to show citizenship status), and your right to information about government actions and policies has been trampled via denials of reasonable Freedom of Information requests.

Someone explain to me why fools are screaming about gun rights that HAVE NOT been infringed upon in any way yet, but are absolutely silent about these other horrific abuses and proscriptions on basic rights. If you think Obama will take away your rights but Bush somehow preserved them, you're living in fantasy land. All we've done over the past 6 years is quietly lose rights or have those rights severely reduced. There are a few groups fighting (the EFF, the ACLU, etc), but so few people paid any attention and willingly went along with these horrific policies in the name of "security". Just so we're clear- trading your rights for ANYTHING only delivers that much more control to the people that provide what you traded for. Personally, I'll live in a world with an incomprehensibly small chance of being the victim of a terror attack and keep my rights to privacy and a free press. People died to give us those rights in the first place. Now we're tossing them aside to feel safe and turning them over to a group of people that, while duly elected, do not necessarily have the best interests of the general populace at heart.

So gun people, shut the hell up and stop saying stupid shit. No one is taking your precious guns away. Obama is not going to somehow repeal the second amendment. If you want rights, march your asses to D.C. and demand back the rights that have already been taken, not the ones you imagine might be in the future. Let's get back to where we started and then worry about what may or may not happen.

A good point

2008-10-16T21:05:00.000-07:00

My good friend Geoff made a great point. Let me set the scene.

Today Bush signed the PRO-IP Act into law. You can look it up. And in case you were wondering, IP is short for intellectual property (anything from works of art to the design of computer chips or the formula for boner drugs). Suffice it to say the bill gives sweeping additional powers to U.S. IP holders, provides disproportionate punishments for IP infringement (even unintentional), creates a tax-payer funded "piracy czar" that will 'implement strategic plans to reduce IP infringement' (whatever that means), and allows IP holders to continue decimating consumers by bypassing rights of resell, 'leasing' software or music even though you bought the medium, preventing you from making backups of purchased products, and continuing to use shotgun lawsuits and non-disclosure agreements as enforcement mechanisms.

I quite disparagingly mentioned that Bush signed this act into law and Geoff rightly smacked my face and pointed out that it takes two to tango. Congress passed the legislation in the first place (unanimously in the Senate I might add), so they are equally to blame. So I will amend my statement and say that it was Bush AND all the fools in the House and Senate that have once again busted the balls of consumers everywhere.

Folks, Congress is not, nor should it be, a rubber stamp for the wishes of the executive. And the executive should never be a rubber stamp for Congress. If one of them won't stand up to bad legislation or ideas, the other should. If they don't, then both branches have failed the public. Here we see an EPIC FAIL. But here they are, for the last 8 years, loving cupping each others balls and just passing bill after bill that does this kind of stuff. Need I remind anyone of the Patriot Act or No Child Left Behind? Obviously, these were not consumer oriented, but one legalized privacy invasion, domestic spying, and suspension of habeas corpus while the other punished struggling schools and students by taking away their funding. Bush has, to the best of my knowledge and research abilities, only vetoed TWO bills (only one spending bill) in his years in office. Congress has tabled lots of little stuff, but has continuously passed legislation deemed important by Bush (except his Swiss cheese energy bill, which they rightly smacked down hard and publicly). So here we have a big circle-jerk of people that are supposed to be checking and balancing each other. Now, because they like the stroking better than fighting the deep pockets and election-oiling money of the IP lobby, it's up to the over-burdened courts to be the last line of defense. This is a TWO BRANCH EPIC FAIL.

For the record, I'm all for IP protection, but within reason. No one should have 99 year monopolies on things like business organization ideas or video game joysticks (both of which exist, by the way). The IP lobby has successfully given themselves vast monopoly powers in a country that pretends to abhor the principle of monopoly. IP has become a way to stifle competition and bar entrance to lucrative markets. People that develop IP (including artists, software engineers, hardware designers, etc) should be and, I think, are justified in making a profit on their inventions and ideas. But creating a situation in which the consumers of those creations are punished for selling used items, are required to buy all new media every time a new technology wanders into the world, and are subject to monopoly prices because of IP laws is inexcusable. We should make all the little Congressmen and Congresswomen go back to the table and demand legislation that 1) protects the rights of consumers to reasonably use and protect their purchases (with backups and resell rights as a minimum), 2) makes the IP industry fund its own police work and policies (just like independent, non-corporate IP holders are forced to), and 3) creates a consistent system of copyright and patents for IP that gives reasonable time to people to make use and profit from their IP before that knowledge becomes public and available for others to use (rather than offering lifetime monopolies). The consumers got jacked, the IP lobby got a major windfall, and two of three branches of government set consumer rights back almost 50 years (back to the day of "copiers should be illegal because no one will buy books if they can copy them).

Congress and Bushy should stop wearing their ass as a hat.

For those of you that missed it

2008-10-15T23:04:00.000-07:00

I encourage everyone to read the previous post if you haven't, but this is too much to pass up.

A lot of you watched the debates. The news media will most likely cover the inconsequential or overly simplistic side of things: how the candidates looked, how they carried themselves, how the "debate" (I use that term very very loosely) was more vitriolic than the previous ones, abortion, supreme court appointments, and the like.

What you won't hear is this: Obama said what may be the smartest thing any politician has ever said in public. I paraphrase: "Neither side wants abortions. We need to address the things that increase abortion rates- education, access to health care, economic equality, and sex education." I thought McCain had the "Straight Talk Express" but Barack just straight-talked McCain back into the Cold War where he came from.

To be fair, the candidates were supposed to be addressing the issue of how they would choose supreme court justices and whether Roe v. Wade would influence that decision. But you can't mention Roe v. Wade without someone haring off into esoteric arguments about "morality" and "a woman's right to choose". (Also- did anyone else notice that both candidates said they wouldn't use litmus tests and then proceeded to outline what could easily be construed as litmus tests?)

McCain spent his time on the abortion issue arguing about morality, whether Roe v. Wade was judged correctly, and how Obama voted against fetuses (even though Obama just spent the previous minute explaining the situation). But he NEVER NEVER NEVER came to central issue: neither side wants abortions.

The Republican solution (McCain's position and the party position) is to legislate them into non-existence (and by non-existence I mean into back alleys and foreign countries). The Democratic solution (officially implemented into the platform this year and pasted on Obama's website) is to reduce abortions by increasing and improving those things that directly lead to lower abortion rates and lower teen pregnancy- sex education (NOT JUST ABSTINENCE!!!!), higher levels of education (pregnancy rates and abortions are proportional to educational attainment), access to quality health care (for mother and baby), better adoption services, and better employment opportunities (higher incomes are proportional to lower abortion rates).
Obama was also right when he said these are areas that both sides can agree on. Whether you define life at conception or birth or somewhere in-between, addressing these issues will lower the overall rate and make everyone happier. You'll NEVER have zero abortions. The goal is to reduce the total number in a meaningful, lasting way. Which do you think will be more affective IN THE LONG RUN (not just by closing down legal facilities in the short term)?

Obama hit it square on the head. He faced the problem head on. He proposed a solution that addresses the ROOT causes of abortion, not just one that slaps a patch on the RESULTS. Everyone can agree that fewer abortions are a win for everyone. Legislation only drives it underground. Addressing the root causes will decrease the rate AND improve the education of the populace. That's a win-win. Now we just need to implement it. We've tried abstinence. We've tried it for the last 50 years. It's time to go beyond that and start putting the rest of the structure in place.

That's all I have to say about the debate. It was disgusting with the personal attacks, the lies and truth bending by both sides, the palpable anger, and, worst of all, the claim by McCain that Obama's policies are in any way associated with a "race war" and that schools are somehow equitable. I've been in school for twenty years. Racial equality is FAR from true in public schools or universities. Racism is alive and well. We have made huge strides, but we have much more distance to go. A potential leader of this country ignoring that and claiming that education is equitable is inexcusable.

Finally, someone explain this to me: The Republican platform mandates no abortions, even in cases of incest, rape, or other nefarious deeds. The platform also says no assisted suicide. However, this is the platform and party that advocates the death penalty, is typically hawkish and pro-war (which results in HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF DEATHS), and arbitrarily demands more rights to the infant's life than the mother. The platform says abortions should be illegal EVEN IF THE MOTHER'S LIFE IS AT STAKE. Someone, in a logical manner, needs to explain these vast discrepancies in "sacredness of life" and "ethic of life". Why do we protect live babies so they can be dead soldiers? Why do we kill prisoners but not allow those in chronic pain to choose to end that pain? Where is the consistency? Why is an infant's life more valuable than a mother's? Obviously, there is no true answer to these questions and they all depend on how you want to define life and its sacredness. But if you're going to be the party with an "ethic of life" you HAVE to be consistent. You can't kill convicts out of revenge or justice or anger and then turn around and say old people have to live even if every moment is in agony. Both are issues of life and death. To be the party of life, then EVERY life must count. And that means working to reduce poverty. The surest indicator of life expectancy isn't genes or lifestyle or vices- it's income. So the party of life also needs to be the party of poverty reduction. For a very well thought out, informative, well documented exploration of this idea, read Jim Wallis's book God's Politics.

Cheerio!

Things you find in the news for $2000, Alex.

2008-10-13T14:11:00.000-07:00

Politics on the brain. It's all anyone can seem to focus on. It'll all be forgotten six minutes after the votes are in, but it's impossible to escape now- the name calling, belligerent attitudes, the lies and half-truths, the purposeful misunderstanding and the stupidity. So here's a little common sense from Adam to put some of the crap in context.

Rant #1) I have watched each debate and have surprisingly little to say about them. Both candidates are just using the questions as springboards for prepared talking points, which is shameful. The format of the debates, which disallows any meaningful discussion, is ridiculous. Senator Obama may be "winning" them by public estimations, but he's not hammering Senator McCain into the ground—he's not explaining why he would be the best next president, or why McCain would be the worst. And McCain isn't saying much beyond "my opponent just doesn't get it" while evading answers and distancing himself from the president he voted with 90% of the time.

But one thing did leap out at me, at both Presidential debates, on the issue of Pakistani borders. It's a big question right now because Al Qaeda is crafty and knows that most of the time (Iraq not being a notable exception) we respect the borders of international nations which have not attacked us first. Barack said in both debates that if he knew proof-positive where Bin Laden was hiding in Pakistan, and the Pakistani government was unwilling or unable to take Bin Laden out, that he would authorize a strike to go across and get Bin Laden.

Senator McCain responded that Senator Obama is foolish because the President should "speak softly and carry a big stick" and not "telegraph his punches". Yet John never said he wouldn't do the exact same thing. So, I am left with two possibilities: either McCain would respect Pakistani sovereignty and not fire the shot if Bin Laden was moonwalking just across that line (doubtful), or he and Obama believe the exact same thing—the only difference is that McCain refuses to say it out loud.

What's that shit painted on the side of his bus again?? "Straight Talk Express"?

Now, I don't know what the answer is. Personally, it makes me nervous to just Tweety Bird it and use "I tawt I taw a terrorist" as justification for pretty much anything. But I do know is that if McCain is going to cling to the political equivalent of "I KEEP IT REAL" then he damn sure better, otherwise he risks alienating people who are actually hoping for straight talk.

Rant #2) This is why I cannot read commentaries by Glenn Beck; the man is a sensationalist asshole—the modern day equivalent of an op-ed Hearst— who makes a living coming up with the wildest arguments he can, no matter how illogical or foolish they may be. The commentary has been linked for your enjoyment, but I will sum it up to save you time:

Mr. Beck is upset about claims of racial undertones from liberal groups/individuals. He points to certain moments on the campaign trail—the quickly infamous "that one", of course, and the "Joe six-pack" images being thrown around by Governor Palin. He claims that the subtext people read into such comments—that they are racially charged attempts to "otherize" Senator Obama and make him seem distant and foreign—are ridiculous, unfounded, and irresponsible. Fine, that is a fair argument. Yet mere sentences later, Mr. Beck basically says 'the subtext of all of this is clear— if you vote against Obama, you are a racist.' Now how in the hell can you decry the use of subtext as irresponsible in one case, then draw imaginary parallels between "please don't call our candidate 'uppity'" (as did Rep. Lynn Westmoreland of Georgia) and "Vote for change, or join the KKK."?

Rant #3) Speaking of that particular organization, this Bill Ayers business is K-K-KILLING me.

Let me get this straight, and stop me if I hit a snag: Bill Ayers helped found the Weather Underground. Check.

Weather Underground did some bad shit, some of which Ayers was a part of. Check.

Ayers never faced charges due to prosecutorial misconduct, yet voluntarily turned himself in to authorities in 1980. Check.

30 years later, Bill Ayers is a university professor and former 'Chicago Citizen Of The Year' for his championing of Elementary Education and the writing of a massive grant to benefit under-funded schools. Check.

Barack Obama sat on a Board of Directors with Ayers and, at one point, lived a few streets away. Check.

Obama is "palling around with terrorists". Wait, what the fuck?

Not only is this connection retardedly tenuous and stupidly inflammatory, something else is bothering me. Let's get some other things straight:

John McCain has served nearly 30 years in the US Senate alongside Robert Byrd. Check.

Robert Byrd is an admitted former member of the Ku Klux Klan. Check.

The KKK is considered a domestic terror organization. Check.

So how in the crap is John McCain not "palling around" with a "terrorist who targeted his own country"? EPIC FAIL, McCain campaign— your accusations are saturated with liquid FAIL and country-fried hypocrisy. If Obama is unfit to serve as President because of this, then so is John McCain; let's all write in Ron Paul and get this country back on track.

Sadly, however, most people aren't concerned about this apparent hypocritical stance—I spent an hour and a half in the Foxnews Forums yesterday, trying to get an answer to my question, and in 16,000 replies to "Does Obama-Ayers Connection Matter?" not a single person even attempted to explain to me why dispersing grant money with a former anarchist is magically different from writing legislation with a former Klan member. Instead, I was told that I must be a "comunist" (sic) and love "the Curan" (sadly, sadly sic).

Rant #4) It pisses me off that age has become an issue in this campaign, for either side. Health, certainly. Computer literacy, absolutely. Age, who gives a shit? My grandmother is roughly the same age as John McCain and she has been slamming death's door with her walker for quite a while now. Chuck Norris is almost as old McCain, but he would roundhouse-kick his way through every cabinet meeting for 8 years and still never need to sleep. Age does not matter. Period. McCain is in good health, and has released (to his credit) over 1,000 pages of medical documents for the press to look over, which is way more than Obama has done. He's healthy—who cares if he is 40 or 80? 'Is he the best thing for America?' is the only question I care about.

Another thing I care about is not running shady campaigns. One thing you will never hear in this election cycle is the Obama campaign using McCain's middle name (Sydney) with a strange emphasis, yet members of McCain's campaign constantly refer to Senator Obama as "Barack Hussein". Come on—are you seriously trying to claim that you have no idea what you are doing? That you have no idea what the name 'Hussein' means to some Americans, and that you are not using an accident of birth to diminish Senator Obama's character, reputation, and qualifications by making that association? Give me a fucking break! Hey, Glenn Beck, where was that example in your ramblings? Even you know that is some bullshit.

I will also stab the next asshat who says Sarah Palin should not be President because she needs to be spending time with her kids. You would never hear someone say that Bill Clinton should not have run because he needed to spend time with Chelsea. Quit elevating motherhood over fatherhood in a lame attempt to keep America male-dominated— it shows a tremendous lack of class and a very poor understanding of Western history (I or Brandon can explain this in detail if anyone would like).

The funny thing about any discriminatory 'ism' is that it works both ways: Republicans, you can't say being old is not a handicap then say being young is. Democrats, you can't suggest that women shouldn't run for office because of their children then say men should. Barack Obama, you can't deride President Bush for making specious Al Qaeda-Iraq connections and then connect John McCain to Rush Limbaugh in Spanish-language ads. And John McCain, you can't claim to keep a clean campaign while your supporters chant "TERRORIST, TERRORIST" at your rallies and you do absolutely nothing to stop them; that is deeply and unspeakably shameful. It reflects horribly on your character, Senator McCain, and though I wish you had won the Republican nomination in 2000, I can't in good conscience support a man who would allow such an unbelievably callow thing to occur— you are a war-hero, a dignified politician and a so-called 'maverick': have some fucking self-respect.

Rant # 5) You know what, I don't even need to rant on this one… it pretty much speaks for itself.

A quote from Wayne LaPierre, Executive VP of the NRA. "We will encourage gun owners, hunters and anyone who values freedom to vote McCain-Palin on November 4."

Sigh.

For fuck's sake, someone get this election over with—I can't clear enough head space to write about anything but politics, and it's killing my fiction output.

--Adam

ed. note: in recent days, Senator McCain has actually gotten vocal about his supporters not disrespecting Senator Obama at rallies, for which the author is quite pleased. However, the author maintains his view that John McCain bears a striking resemblance to one Franklin The Turtle.

Voting with your wallet

2008-09-30T13:16:00.000-07:00

Quick rant: So let me get this straight- I'm supposed to shell out $2,333 (that's $700 BILLION divided by ~300 million people) to prop up a bunch of businesses that played fast and loose with my debt? Fuck that. They can put up their own billions and buy their own asses out of the problem they created. If I made bad bets in the market no government money would be floating my way. If it's such a big deal, why isn't Warren Buffet or Bill Gates or any of the big bank CEOs putting their money on the line? Fuck these guys. They deserve to be paupers and their companies deserve to die to make way for smaller companies that will (at least for a few years) act responsibly.

Since everyone seems to have money on the brain, I've decided to use mine for good. I spend a lot of time trying to understand why people do what they do and trying to explain why it's often a bad idea. I rarely do anything to get involved though. You can call it cynicism, laziness, or a love of complaining. It goes by many names. But I've decided to do something. I'm going to start using the power of money and voting with my wallet.

I'm not talking about electing representatives based on economics. Under no circumstances should you EVER vote for a leader based on one issue, particularly when that issue is money. Far too many people do and it leads to very bad things (e.g. tax cuts for industry and the wealthy and lax oversight). But using your day to day purchasing power to make a point is a very good idea. It works like this: I'm going to minimize the amount of money I spend on products from companies that do stupid things. That way, my dollars do not end up in the hands of people that will only exploit them. I say minimize because sometimes you don't get a choice.

For starters, I'm buying my produce from a CSA (community supported agriculture) farm. This is a farm that sells locally, practices sustainable farming (no agribusiness, no chemicals, minimal shipping and handling, and good land-use practices like crop rotation), and places itself within the community instead of above it. For ~$20 a week, I will have in-season vegetables and fruits fresh off the vine or tree. And none of my money will go to support ground water contamination, soil erosion, government subsidized over-intensive water use (you think growing wheat in the desert is a good idea?), aquifer depletion, or food that tastes like diesel fuel and feels like rubber.

Further, I'll no longer be buying meat or eggs from grocery stores. Instead, I'll buy from ranchers that allow their animals true free range (not just 'access' which is all that's required now), feed their animals grass (not corn mixed with paper, antibiotics, and ground up leftovers of other animals), and process their animals on-site (instead of at a facility where profit takes precedence over sanitation and ethics). The fact that cows are shipped in large trucks where they shit all over each other before being turned into dinner is fucking ridiculous and repulsive. Feeding cows to cows is fucking stupid. Feeding chicken feathers to chickens, leftover manure to pigs, and jacking animals full of growth hormones are all repugnant practices that should offend far more people. I'm not a stereotypical tree-hugger or some left-wing animal rights activist. But Jesus Christ. These practices are damaging our environment, our health, and are treating these animals as something less than dirt. If you don't have respect for the things you eat, then you don't really have respect for yourself. Brillat-Savarin said it best- "Tell me what you eat and I will tell you what you are". Apparently I'm feces, chicken feathers, high fructose corn syrup, bovine growth hormones, and pesticide. No wonder I had such a tough time with the ladies. Who wants to date that?

I'm also trying to keep the things I buy with high fructose corn syrup, corn syrup, glucose syrup, and the other bajillion corn-derived products to a minimum. Corn does not belong in everything. Corn belongs in corn. And as ethanol for imbibing, not for driving.

Every dollar that goes toward well-tended crops and food animals is a dollar that doesn't support greedy, unethical, and inhumane practices. Will it cost more? Yes. But the food will taste better, be better for you, and will be better for managing the limited resources we have. It'll also keep my fat ass from eating so much. Remember- Price isn't everything and cheap food is cheap for a reason. Don't visit businesses that treat customers as second-class citizens (Best-Buy and Albertson's to name two) and be sure you know where your money is going. Minimize how much of it is ending up in the hands of lawyers, advertising firms, and people who have more wealth than sense. Of course, if you don't, I won't care. I'm not a proselytizer for any cause. I'm just tired of seeing my money used to support a system that is obviously deranged. My dollar is one less the agribusiness complex will have access to until they change their behavior.

Hyperbole and ideologues

2008-09-25T14:01:00.000-07:00

Adam pointed out a bit of hyperbole in my post not long ago saying that xenophobia is at an all time high. He made a good point- Alien & Sedition Acts, internment camps, etc. I wrote a comment back listing some of the ridiculousness happening now and somewhat defending my statement. Part of the problem is that we have laws and rules that are not well known and have come under the auspices of "national security", that great catch-all term that says "we can do what we want because we want". In June and July, the Asian Law Caucus and the Electronic Frontier Foundation received 6,000 pages of documents from the Department of Homeland Security from a freedom of information request (after a lawsuit to get them at all I might add). These documents showed that, over the past 8 years (2000-2007), restrictions and oversight of border searches, seizures, and examinations of traveler's personal property were significantly scaled back or dropped altogether. Essentially, behind the scenes, laws were being rewritten to allow increased searches and seizures of anything deemed questionable. While not exactly an Alien and Sedition Act, these types of laws effectively do many of the same things- they keep people afraid, they make it more difficult to speak out against the perceived majority rule, they make anti-American sentiment questionable at best and illegal at worst even if those ideas do NOT involve terrorism (with little recourse to 1st amendment rights), and they push personal privacy into an even smaller corner. The reason the Asian Law Caucus got involved in this mess was because Asian and Middle Eastern travelers are the ones being racially and ethnically targeted by these types of travel laws. My original statement is probably still a bit of hyperbole, but the xenophobic strain runs deep and, at the least, is alive and well and living in.

A study of Republican voters by scientists at Georgia State showed that ideology does, in fact, trump reality. Let me say here: the study was only done using conservative voters and may not be applicable to liberal or independent voters and it was only done with a small number of examples. But the conclusions they reached are also backed up by experience- at least to anyone that has tried to have a political discussion with someone that had basic facts wrong. And those conclusions are troubling to anyone interested in honest public debate and rational decision making.

The study went like this. Participants were shown a fake news story but were told that it came from known news sources (CNN, FOX NEWS, CNN, etc). These stories had incorrect information (such as a broadcast saying that WMDs were found in Iraq or that Saddam Hussein was actively working with al-Qaeda before the war). They were then shown a news story retracting the original story and clarifying the inaccuracies (that no WMDs were ever found and that al-Qaeda was never in Iraq before the war started). Those facts that contradicted the observer's ideology and preconceived notions (i.e. that the reasons given for going to war were wrong) were very significantly ignored and, in many cases, actually increased the observer's incorrect beliefs. The retractions and the correction of the inaccurate reporting did little to no good in changing how the participants viewed the issue. Other issues, including stem cell research and taxation were also tested with the same results. All of this suggests that fighting ideology with facts may only lead to entrenchment of incorrect ideas rather than any increase in understanding the situation. I, for one, am unsurprised at the results. Simple observations will tell you people are less willing to accept new information if it does not conform to their preconceived ideas. I'm guilty of this just like everyone else. I've seen it happen during debates on the Iraq war, immigration policy, and the current economic meltdown. You can also debate the interpretation of evidence if there are conflicting stories. But denying evidence altogether or arguing about interpretation when all of the credible evidence says that you're wrong appears to be the preferred solution, which may explain some of the ridiculousness in the world today. If you're not willing to look at the evidence, see all the possible interpretations, and be willing to admit your interpretation may not be the best one, then you may end up killing people over something that was never real.

An interesting side note- FOX NEWS was the primary news source for 33% of the people that believed WMDs were found in Iraq and a whopping 66% of the people that believed Saddam was working with al-Qaeda. Close behind were CBS, NBC, CNN, and ABC. Bringing up the rear were print media and PBS, with PBS typically showing the smallest number of misinformed viewers/listeners. [These numbers are from a 2003 study by PIPA/Knowledge Networks Poll with a 1.7% margin of error]. Fair and balanced my ass.

The key here is that people be aware of this tendency, that they fight those knee-jerk reactions and, when presented with new information, take the time to incorporate that information into their outlook. The refusal to accept any information unless it conforms to some magical ideal you have is zealotry. And we've all seen where that goes.

A quick update

2008-09-24T10:32:00.000-07:00

The bailout proposed by the treasury secretary is falling on rough times and deaf ears. It's about damn time Congress took a serious look at something rather than rubber stamping it. In case you didn't read the comments to the last post, the proposal to spend said money to float bad business decisions was a whole THREE PAGES LONG. I've written longer documents on the john. At least mine got an A. It doesn't take an economist to give this proposal an F. Three pages to "save" a multi-trillion dollar economy? Everyone's bullshit meter should be ringing loud and at least a good number on the congressional finance committee are.

Only a few weeks ago Paulson was saying that the economy was fine and would not require any bailouts. The fact that this proposal showed up poorly written, poorly thought out, and poorly presented to the people makes it smell awful fishy. The proposal, as is, includes zero oversight, zero methods for recouping this money, zero methods for the taxpayers to claim any of the profits generated from this money, and would drastically expand the treasuries powers to lend money in the future with only the swipe of a pen. It's also suspicious that the banks, lenders, and mortgage companies are going to get a say in how the plan (if there ever is one) is structured. What that usually means is freebies to the industry, bad terms for the taxpayers, and ultimately no responsibility taken and no lessons learned from the excessive risk.

If anyone is interested, I could churn out an actual analysis (which means facts and numbers, making connections among different lines of reasoning, and using these connections to reach reasonable conclusions about the situation- NOT opinion, grand-standing, or flawed logic common to 'analysis' on FOX NEWS and CNN) explaining how and why this all happened. I've been following it since it all started in the late 90's and it's a whale of a tale. It's complicated and interesting, but I'm not going to take the time unless there is interest. This one would require more thought than rant and a good explanation for concepts that you may be unfamiliar with (like credit default swaps, mortgage backed securities, leverage, or risk exposure). Even if you aren't economically inclined this is a rare opportunity for the public to see what is going on behind the scenes of their financial system and I encourage everyone to really try to understand the big picture, the details, and start thinking about how these types of issues will be addressed by the next administration. It's Enron on a massive scaled. And it was totally, completely preventable with common sense.

The bottom line

2008-09-21T20:36:00.000-07:00

Once again I got stiffed. Because the Seahawks were sold out, I got stuck watching a garbage game when there were other perfectly good games to watch. I hope all the teams that this happens to lose, because the fans are losing out and the game is built on the fans. No fans, no NFL. Remember the XFL? Of course you don't. No fans, no game.

Alright. On to more important things. You might be reading a lot of financial news lately, what with the implosion of the mortgage market, the takeover of Fannie and Freddie, the $700 billion bailout, the sell-off of banks, and the folding of Lehman Brothers. There are a lot of articles and "analysis" purporting to explain the root causes of the situation. They call it "infinite optimism" or "misguided enthusiasm" or "poisonous debt positions". It all means GREED. They don't call it that but the reality is that this whole situation was caused by greed- greedy banks, greedy lenders, and greedy mortgage companies.

There are two truths that seem to have gone unnoticed so far in the debate. One- this is what you get for taking mortgages, re-packaging them as debt securities, and then reselling them to the people that have the mortgages in the first place. Essentially, you're selling people their own mortgages to invest in. It's the same principle as the meat industry uses- take the leftovers, grind them up, and feed them back to the animals (animals that are NOT carnivorous I might add). In that case, we ended up with E. coli and mad cow disease (which caused CJD in humans). In this case, we ended up with a debilitating crash of the housing and financial markets and a $700 billion dollar taxpayer-funded bailout of greedy businesses. Playing stupid games with money in order to make a quick buck ended up a massive failure. Who would have thought?

The second truth- policies, rules, and regulations (many not even official laws) WERE in place to prevent these types of situations from happening. They were implemented by the Roosevelt administration to address some of the key reasons for the Great Depression and the massive stock market collapse of 1929. These laws were implemented to curb speculation, to keep lenders from giving money to people unable to repay, and to keep businesses from getting into a position where their failure imperiled an entire industry (think anti-monopoly laws). They were implemented to constrain and watchdog government programs such as the FHA to make sure these types of institutions were looking out for the public good and not acting as profit seeking entities. These rules and regulations were eroded over time under pressure from big business and zealots that believed markets are always self-correcting and self-sustaining. They were decimated by Reagan and Bush Sr. amid economic policy that proved, in the long run, to be a massive failure for much of America. I mean, for crying out loud, Reagan believed in the "magic of markets" (a direct quote) like they were somehow separate from the social, political, and cultural climate of the people that used them. (As a side note, the policies enacted by Reagan have since come under the more appropriate moniker "voodoo economics".)

Without the regulatory and oversight structures in place, it was simply a matter of waiting for people to do what they do- put short term profits and money ahead of responsible business growth and sustainable practices. And here we are. My surprise is that it took almost two decades, although the S&L fallout in the 1980's and the dot com collapse at the turn of the century were good harbingers of the things to come. To be fair, there are economic policies, cultural norms, and types of money and loans that were unheard of and unthinkable when FDR and the Congress implemented the regulatory strictures after the stock market crash. So it's reasonable to think that this type of meltdown could still happen. But under a sophisticated regulatory structure that was meant to point out that lending people money with no income verification was stupid (and the rules used to be there), the chances it would happen at all were greatly reduced.

I guess a big thank you is in order to the market zealots, the anti-regulation crowd, the CEOs of the corporations that put profit over common sense, and to the members of Congress and the White House that listened to what any reasonable person would point out as bad logic. If we're going to worship money and profits, we may as well go whole hog. After all, what's faith without blind faith?

I close with our own President elect. He stood on the White House lawn and acknowledged for the first time, more than a year after it was obvious that the housing market was bust, more than 9 months after it was obvious we were in a recession, and more than a two months after it was obvious that the problems ran deeper than just Fannie and Freddie, that the economy is fucked. Of course, he phrased it as a rough patch, turbulence, and other non-committal garbage, but at least the beginnings of a hint of realization were there. He then spent copious amounts of time arguing that markets are the answer to all life's problems (an exaggeration, admittedly, but not by much) while shoving money into the pockets of companies that deserve nothing more than complete removal from the planet, once again proving that government is willing to prop up big business on Wall Street (the S&Ls, airlines, banks, brokers, government entities like Fannie and Freddie) but not on Main Street. All this underscores the bottom line: greed will get you places in this society. Even if you sell people back debt they already have, make bad business choices, and destroy the home ownership dreams of millions, you too can have a fat severance package, no responsibility, and a loan from Uncle Sam's wallet at artificially low interest rates to rebuild your empire and do it all again.

Anybody that doesn't lay the blame for the current situation on greed is trying to hide something. The root cause is simple. It's the ramifications, the ripples throughout the entire economy, that are complicated. The effects of the event are up for debate. The cause is not. It was pure, unadulterated greed.

The wide world of sports

2008-09-17T10:23:00.000-07:00

It was a distressing sports week. Ed Hochuli blew a major call in the San Diego-Denver matchup, the Eagles failed to hold their two score lead against Dallas, T.O. was an asshole, and Maverick Josh Howard is in the news for making "un-patriotic" comments.

Let's start with the most ridiculous item. Howard, at a charity flag football game, was caught on camera saying "'The Star-Spangled Banner' is going on. I don't celebrate this shit. I'm black." To be fair, this is not the proper place to express your opinion about America. It was a poor choice of words and poor timing. But the sentiment rings very true and white America needs to understand that rather than condemning it off-hand. There are millions (and I mean MILLIONS) of people that live here but do not have any reason to have respect for American symbolism be they white or black, native or foreign. Racism is rampant, sexism is virulent, xenophobia is at an all time high, and the leadership is the most unpopular since these types of things were recorded and studied. Those aren't really reasons to get weepy about nationalism. I'll also defend to the death Josh's right to say what he wants when he wants. That's written right into the Constitution and it you don't defend that, then you're not being very 'American'. For some reason, everyone in this country is always expected to kowtow to the flag, the anthem, and the almighty lapel pin. Personally, during the national anthem I don't put my hand over my heart, sometimes I leave my hat on, and sometimes I just sit right through it. Sort of depends on my mood. It's not meant as a disrespectful act and should not be construed as such. Like many people I just don't respect symbols because they are too easily manipulated. Barack not wearing a lapel pin does not make him un-American and Howard's lack of anthem enthusiasm does not make him un-American. I respect honest actions and people that have earned respect. Howard should have picked a better forum for his grievance, but dismissing his opinion could be considered just as unpatriotic.

Speaking of respect, some kudos are in order for Ed Hochuli. He blew the call big time. Unfortunately, because of bullshit anti-competitive NFL and broadcast rules I didn't get to see the game. But he had the testicular fortitude to stand up, apologize for the call, admit that he made a mistake, and do the best he can to rectify the situation. Of course, no one will pay attention and he'll get booed at the next game he refs. That's an action that deserves respect.

And T.O. I don't even like to mention him because he already gets enough attention. He's an amazing athlete, a great competitor, and a great football player. But none of those make him a good person and once again he's been an asshole and lauded for it. During the Philly-Dallas game he scored a touchdown and afterwards ran around the field doing the Philly Eagle arm-flap. Should have been a 15 yard penalty for tauting and a hefty fine. This action, combined with his previous asinine antics and stunts, show a supreme lack of respect for his team, his opponents, his sport, and the fans. These are not actions deserving of hours of television time. The message is clear though: if you're good at something you can be an asshole and people will love you anyway. That's not a good message to send to young athletes. Of course, you can always argue that it's just "entertainment" and not disrespectful. But this argument doesn't hold water when you further examine his verbal attacks on his current and previous teammates and his emphasis on himself rather than his team. Of course, he can say whatever he wants. As long as this type of behavior is acceptable and makes the news reels, it will continue and will be viewed as acceptable by young athletes. Personally, I think it detracts from the game. Individual effort and achievement should be lauded, but bad sportsmanship should never be rewarded.

You might argue that there's a bit of a double standard here- I'm ragging on T.O. for being disrespectful but not Josh Howard for being disrespectful. To me, there are some important differences. T.O.'s actions are continually unsportsmanlike and disrespectful. Howard's comments were a one-time thing. T.O.'s actions set a poor example for young athletes and are directly targeted at specific people (fans, opponents). Howard's comments did not deliberately target any person. They don't even target a group. Rather, his comments targeted an idea, a symbol, an intangible that only has meaning because we give it meaning. Further more, freedom of speech protects Howard's opinion (though I agree that he should have chosen a more appropriate forum) while T.O.'s taunting and spectacles are not protected by any "freedom of actions" clause. In fact, many sports seek to stop this kind of show-boating behavior in order to make the sport's image more professional. The Mavericks have already taken unspecified actions to curb future incidents like these. The Cowboys have done no such thing for T.O.'s disrespect. T.O.'s actions are antithetical to the notion of sportsmanship. Howard's comment, while not exactly pro-sportsman, is exactly what America was founded on- unhappiness with the status quo (i.e. British oversight) and a rejection of its symbols (East India tea, the British flag, etc). Finally, T.O,'s actions could never be construed as respectful or appropriate even if he changed the forum. Howard's comment would be perfectly appropriate off the field during a discussion of current social issues, current racial issues, politics in America, or any of a number of other topics. The message was good, the forum was not. T.O. does not have a productive message under any circumstances.

For those that didn't believe me

2008-09-12T07:58:00.000-07:00

This is my last political post for awhile. It's becoming too disgusting to watch and too painful and frustrating to see people falling for it.

For those of you that didn't believe me and wanted to argue that the current Iraq war is nothing like Vietnam, put this in your pipe and smoke it. It was finally revealed (although nearly 2 months late) that Bush approved both raids into and bombing of Pakistan. Does anyone else remember Nixon and the secret bombings of Cambodia or am I the only one paying attention? Now we have secret military actions being taken against a sovereign nation with no public oversight. On top of that, Pakistan has repeatedly refused access to our military (probably because they see what happens when you allow it- at least they're smart enough to make the connection). While we're trying to make Russia feel bad for its behavior in Georgia, we're busy doing the same thing in Iraq AND continuing to make unilateral military decisions in Pakistan. Fuck this government and everyone attached to it. Whatever small accolades they get in the history books with be too good for them. And I hope they suffer, in this life or the next, for all of the pain they've caused others and all the deceit they've produced to justify it. It's enough to make me not have kids because I don't want them to have to see or deal with this type of ignorant, unethical, straight up retarded behavior.

I was going to put up the positions of the different candidates on various issues. But I'm done and here's why. Based on Palin's behavior I've concluded that it's become totally unnecessary. She's a liar (by claiming that she is against earmarks and pork barrel legislation because she vetoed the $233 million "bridge to nowhere"- meanwhile she still accepted that entire amount for other projects), is hastily backtracking and trying to 'clarify' her claim that the soldiers in Iraq are on "a mission from God" even though that's exactly what she meant and had plenty of time to correct the statement since she read her speech beforehand, and is now claiming that she is on-board with climate science and has challenged the media to prove that she ever said humans were not responsible even though that's exactly what she's spent the last decade claiming. So I'm done. I wouldn't vote for McCain simply because of Palin. And now I'm not voting for him because he 1) doesn't comprehend basic English and 2) is ok with double-standards. McCain claims Barack is sexist because he referred to McCAIN'S POLICIES as a "pig in lipstick" and claiming he was referring to Palin. I listened to the speech and nowhere, FUCKING NOWHERE, did Barack refer to Palin as a pig in lipstick. So McCain can suck it. That only shows he wasn't listening to the speech, is looking for a distraction from discussions of actual issues, and is about character assassination over substantial debate (although to be fair Obama has run a few attack ads, though as far as I am aware not with this type of personal attack or with such a blatant manipulation of words). On top of that, McCain said EXACTLY THE SAME THING about Hillary Clinton's policies. Therefore, if Barack is sexist, McCain is both sexist and a swindler for not mentioning his own sexism. Fuck this type of politics. It's the same shit we've been handed the last eight years, although in retrospect it's pretty much been part of the game since day one. That doesn't make it right or good. But unless the voting masses start to see through it, that's all we'll get.

Fuck politics. You can have them.

Update: Today the McCain camp publicly acknowledged and defended Palin's inquiries into banning books from the public library of Wasilla while she was mayor. While she never explicitly banned books, her explanation of the events are not consistent with the public record nor are they consistent with accounts reported by the librarians. Apparently the McCain campaign is also ok with her attempts to fire the head librarian because Palin didn't have her "full support". Do I really need to point out that this is the same type of partisan, unethical firings that Alberto Gonzalez resigned over? Are people's memories really that short? While Gonzalez was never brought to trial and Palin never actually fired the librarian (mostly due to local political pressure in Wasilla) it all adds up to something very fishy and highly questionable. I guess sometimes the word "change" doesn't really mean change. Sometimes it means doing the same thing. I should also point out that that's a clinical sign of insanity...doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. To be clear, none of these people are clinically or medically insane. But continuing to do questionable things when the American public has made it manifestly clear that's not what they want (e.g. the public pressure on Gonzalez to resign) is highly suspect as a form of change.

When the Bullet Hits the Bone and other memorable subtitled tracks from the great Golden Earring

2008-09-10T22:05:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow we'll discuss why Vietnam II (i.e. Iraq: Part Deux) is even more like Vietnam after today's intolerable revelations. History is lovingly circular and life is hilariously cruel. Right now I've got a piece by my dawg, my homie, and my resident bullshit expert Adam. Enjoy.

Don't ask me why, but I happened to read one of the most entertaining magazines of my life recently—American Rifleman. Actually, ask me why; I try to read as widely as possible. Time and Newsweek, Rolling Stone and Pitchfork, Mere Christianity and The Power Of Myth. I watch CNN and Fox News; I drink Coke and Pepsi. I like opposing viewpoints.

In case you were curious, American Rifleman is a darling little NRA-sponsored publication dedicated to such varied topics as: cleaning guns, owning guns, and, um, shooting guns. But the particular "article" which I had the extreme "pleasure" of reading, during a particularly grueling bowel movement, was about the evils of gun control, and three things immediately jumped out at me which set my Internal Bullshit Meter (IBM) from its standard grey-green color to piping hot red.

To begin, the article told the story of three women in a house. The door was kicked in and one woman was attacked. The others hid upstairs and when they heard only silence, crept back downstairs. Unfortunately, the bad guys were waiting and attacked them as well. The very next sentence—the author's witty attempt at a transition, I suppose—was "Now, I don't know if any of those three women wanted to own a gun, but…" and my meter clicked immediately to Bullshit Alert Yellow.

Since when are sympathy stories a valid way to argue constitutional law? Why not write about a toddler who finds a gun in his home and shoots himself? Or a father who blows his back out while cleaning his gun and bleeds to death on the table during Thanksgiving dinner in front of his wife, kids, Auntie Rose, and those adorable twins from next door? Sympathy stories mean nothing, and are designed not to prove points, but to make people sad/scared enough to believe whatever specious arguments follow (and they were specious).

The second jump on the IBM, to Bullshit Alert Orange, came in the form of the phrase "in clear violation of the intent of the founding fathers" in referring to gun-control legislation. This is stupid for several reasons: 1) every founding father had a different intent—those dudes could barely agree on anything, and some of them openly hated each other, so don't pretend we've nailed down their intentions. 2) even if we could magically average intent and get Ben Franklin's thoughts on home invasion in high-density urban areas, or assault weapons, or a 100-year-old man in a wheelchair's God-given right to shoot a lion in the face, since when are bound to follow that? Last time I checked, the constitution didn't say 'rule your lives based on what you think we might have wanted' but 'rule your lives based on this document and your common sense'. 3) 'intent' is a fundamentally unsound argument— would you refuse to school your children just because great-great-grandpa probably didn't intend for his ancestors to go to college? Hell no you wouldn't—you'd scoff at an old fuck who couldn't see they way society was headed, and know that you know better.

But fine, let's play the 'intent' game for a minute. Want to claim 'intent' to keep your guns? Fine, but women can no longer vote. Oh, snap! That was intent too! Do you own a house? If not, you can't vote either— intent got us again! I won't even go into who should be counted as three-fifths of a person; the point is, 'intent' is a garbage argument intended to draw on patriotic sentiment and goad people into doing/believing things, as if Jefferson and Hamilton having believed something makes it automatically worth believing. Fuck those old bastards— they were wrong about a lot of stuff.

So, with my IBM firmly in Orange and red spots floating in front of my eyes (grueling, grueling dump, I tell you), I read the last few paragraphs of the "article", wherein the author attacked 'revisionist' courts that had the audacity to claim grandpa shouldn't own an ak-47 because he's not part of a well-regulated militia. Suddenly, I had this blinding flash of insight that went:

BULLSHIT ALERT RED! BULLSHIT ALERT RED!

Someone should get this "author" a dictionary, because he/she has forgotten what 'revisionist' means in this country, which is to take the established legal stand on an issue (usually based on the constitution) and revise it. By disallowing gun ownership for those not in well-regulated militias, these courts are actually being constructionist courts. Another thing: courts can only be revisionist in this sense when revising previously established constitutional issues. Pay attention— on topics like stem-cell research and gay marriage, conservative pundits love to spew the phrase 'revisionist', although neither of those topics was addressed in the constitution, and therefore never had an established legal status to be revised. Only in retrospect have people tried to insert an asinine phrase like 'two dicks and no chicks = bad' into the constitution and pretend it was there all along.

It's funny to me that what American Rifleman actually wants is one of those crazy, activist, revisionist, non-constructionist courts to say "anyone can own any gun no matter what" even though that is clearly not what the Second Amendment states. What's funnier is that American Rifleman won't admit this, instead skewing reality to make it appear as if those dirty liberals are singeing the constitution yet again. Of course this "author" knows what 'revisionist' means, and knows the word is being used incorrectly, and so does the "editor" of this "magazine". But revisionist has become such a liberal-associated smear that they used it anyway, rendering their own argument about as strong as a wall made of Styrofoam and mortared with Cheez Whiz.

What I don't understand, and maybe someone can help me with this, is: why is revisionism is such a feared doctrine? Because it was originally associated with Marxian socialism? Because it puts the focus on evolutionary policy making (they're trying to say Jefferson was a monkey!)? Because change is scary?

Was it not a crazy revisionist court that said black people should be allowed to drink out of any water fountain? Or that women should be allowed to vote? Most of the social changes which have made this country more open and more equal were facilitated, if not initiated, by 'revisionist' courts. Sodomy should not be illegal, nor should miscegenation, yet without a court to strike down various old and outdated laws, revising our understanding of right and wrong, I could face jail time for marrying a Mexican, or making love to her poop chute.

It seems to me that revisionism is one of the biggest strengths of our legal system. It means that we are not strictly bound to the desires and minutiae of a handful of old, wealthy, white men with roughly 9th grade educations who could never have foreseen what America would look like in 200 years. It means that we have a strong frame and we hang the particular clothing of our society on it, just as previous generations did, and just as future generations will.

This has kept America progressing socially at a reasonable clip without the need for revolutions every 50 or 60 years to get things done. Remember: we are one of the few countries on Earth to not have witnessed a major internal threat to our political system in almost 150 years, precisely because of the fluidity of our system— because the founding fathers were geniuses in that they gave us something to build on, not something to live under.

All I know is that when my bullshit alert hits red, it's time put the "publication" down, wipe, and go play some World of Warcraft—at least that make-believe is more silly and fun than aggravating and hypocritical.

Three reasons to consider Canada

2008-09-04T07:59:00.000-07:00

Reason #1:
Vice presidential hopeful Sarah Palin said, and I quote, "Our national leaders are sending them [our soldiers] out on a task that is from God...That's what we have to make sure that we're praying for, that there is a plan and that plan is God's plan." Apparently, the crazy Muslims that claimed America is starting a religious war with them are not so crazy. Welcome back to the use of God's name to justify killing people. Oh wait. We never stopped. Sorry. I thought maybe we had learned that we shouldn't do that. My bad. The terrorists used it to justify terror and now we're using it to justify our actions. Anyone else see the stupidity in that? Apparently, God is somehow pro-American and pro-war. Last time I read it, the Bible said neither of those things. In fact, I'm pretty sure it said (paraphrased) "turn the other cheek", "what you do to the meekest you do to me", and "love your neighbor even if he wrongs you". If I needed one reason to not vote for McCain, this would be a good one. Religious superiority and borderline fanatacism and zealotry have no place in a country that ostensibly practices "freedom of religion". In no way did God ever come down and say to America "you're special, now show the rest of the world, by force of necessary". Lincoln said it best: "The question is not is God on our side, but rather are we on God's side?" I think even a cursory glance at our actions compared to our Biblical conception of God will answer that question. If not then you're not paying close enough attention.

Reason #2:
Cheney decided to kick in with his opinion and declared the Russian war against Georgia as "illegitimate". Meanwhile, he's defending our own illegitimate actions in Iraq. By illegitimate, both myself and Cheney are referring to unilateral, non-international military occupations of foreign powers. Once again, I shake my head and wonder why it's acceptable in politics and in elected officials to take completely opposite stances on the same issue and be praised for it. When your approval ratings actually reach single digits, you shouldn't be allowed within 100 miles of Washington D.C.

Reason #3:
Karl Rove. Enough said, but I've got more. Karl spent weeks hammering Barack's list of vice presidential candidates as too inexperienced and used the argument that one of them was "only the governor of the 101st largest city in the U.S." as a reason to disqualify him from the vice presidency. Tuesday, Rove had the audacity to claim that Palin's leadership of the 2nd largest city in Alaska qualified her to run the U.S., both on the domestic and international front, in event of the president's inability to do so. Just a fun fact: the second largest city in Alaska has a population of ~9,780 people. So leading a city of 10,000 provides more experience than a city of roughly 202,000? Give me a fucking break. It doesn't matter anyway because she was mayor of the 9th largest city in Alaska, not the 2nd largest. I'm not saying she's not qualified because it was only 10,000 people. I'm just saying that if city size is going to be your barometer, then maybe the former mayor of the 1st largest city in Alaska would have been a better choice. Population, city growth, economy and economic growth, level of public services...all these things are more important that "2nd largest" or "101st largest". By Rove's logic, we should elect the leader of Sitka, Alaska because it has more land area than New York City (even though New York has a major financial sector and an international presence). These types of half-truths and logical fallacies should be considered unethical, particularly amongst people that know better but are more interested in maintaining control than in being honest. You can make plenty of good arguments about why Palin is a good candidate without setting up straw-man arguments- she was elected governor of Alaska (population 670,000) after all. This type of behavior suggests that your candidate is too weak to stand up to scrutiny of her voting record and political stances. But hell, Karl Rove has made a career out of public bull-shitting. Maybe this is what the country deserves for not calling our public figures on their behavior.

That's all for now. The next post will examine Sarah Palin in more depth, particularly her stances on issues beyond abortion and gun control (which you won't get from the media). I'm going to do this will all four candidates. Mostly for my own education. But also in the hopes of adding something to the debate amongst the five people that bother to read this. You can't have a good election or political discussion without at least a basic knowledge of where the candidates stand on many issues, not just the hot button topics on Fox News and MSNBC.

Maybe a little clarification is in order

2008-08-18T22:20:00.000-07:00

The number of points of view possible on any issue is quite incredible. My last post really stirred up a hornets nest. I've appended my two cents to the comments section of the last post, so I won't repeat myself here. This is what American debate is all about- getting the best input from the most people. And that's why I love it. Some of the best input comes from the people living under the system. You need the political experts, the scientists, the economists. You need the dry data and the people to help interpret it. But most of all, you need to know what people are thinking, how they got to that point, and where they want to go. You can't make everyone happy, but you can at least try to understand why they feel the way they do. I hope this post will clear up any misconceptions that may be floating around about my opinion of the U.S.

I don't typically say a lot of good stuff about the U.S. It's not that I'm anti-U.S. or that I hate our country. It's not that the U.S. doesn't do great things or have great people. I just don't need a flag or a lapel pin or a sporting event to make me feel American. I've never needed to belong to something bigger than myself. Being alive is enough for me. I've never felt the need to be in a group. I'm fairly private and prefer spending my time alone with my thoughts and musings. I'm not religious, I don't go to many parties or spend time with large groups of people. I guess I just don't have a group mentality. I prefer a few hard and fast friends around a desert campfire. On top of that, I feel like we already have enough U.S. cheerleaders.

But all that doesn't mean that I don't care about the U.S. I think the ultimate problem is that I see all the great things we could be. And I feel that our genius and talent and leadership are being wasted on more frivolous concerns. Don't misunderstand me- those concerns are important and need to be addressed. But they have come to overshadow the greater picture of what America can be. I guess what I really want is for people to examine issues from the point of view of those outside the nation, not just from pro-American points. I want people to think about how our decisions and our way of life influence the rest of the world. America should be worldly and remember that we are part of a global community. Sometimes, we have to take a little less in order to give a little more to the rest. To me, that's not un-American. Rather, that's what a leader does. A leader stands up and takes responsibility for their actions, treats fairly and in good faith, recognizes and acknowledges when they have made a mistake, and always pushes those around them to be their best. Once you have shown the ability to lead, others will come to you and rely on your leadership.

I want this nation to chart a course that maintains the best of humankind. I want us to be the leaders in ethics. I want to maintain the moral high ground. Above all, I want us to lead by example. I want us to maintain the dignity of people. These are goals that may well be unachievable. But if we don't try to always better ourselves, how can we ask others to do so? I was personally offended by a billboard here in Washington. It says "This is a great nation. Why change?" The truth is, this is a great nation. But it can be better. It can be more just, more caring, and wiser without sacrificing the good things it already has. If you're not willing to change, then you relegate yourself the dustbin of history, a landscape littered with great nations and people that could not change and became obsolete. If you're not willing to change, you've really missed one of the more important lessons of life. Nations must evolve just like humans and animals. If we always accept the status quo we will never be any better than this.

Let me be very clear- I would never want to live anywhere else. We enjoy a high degree of freedom, privacy, and opportunity that very few others could ever hope for. I also realize, if I had been born into a different system, I would defend that system. But I like ours and so I'll keep it.

My contribution to the U.S., my patriotism, is to point out and, hopefully, to remedy it's flaws. I want us to be a world leader. I want our own actions to match our rhetoric. I want our leadership to be honestly earned, not taken with weapons. I want us to begin attacking the roots of social, political, and economic problems, not just treating the weeds. We must remain true to ourselves and to humanity. But we must always remember that we are but one nation in a global community. While we may be called upon to lead, we must always be willing to listen, to adapt, and, perhaps most importantly, to acknowledge when we are not in the best position to lead and step aside for the greater good.

Object Lessons

2008-08-12T15:53:00.001-07:00

Ok...I shouldn’t even need to respond to this. I just wanted to bring it to everyone’s attention. Bush had the unmitigated gall to talk about Russia’s handling of Georgia (and I quote): "This violence is unacceptable...[the U.S. expresses] grave concern about the disproportionate response of Russia and...[the] bombing outside of South Ossetia...My administration has been engaged with both sides in this, trying to get a cease-fire...There needs to be an international mediation." Really? Really? You want to talk about disproportionate? How about dropping daisy-cutters and cluster munitions on Iraq which had AK47’s and RPGs? How about killing more than 100,000 civilians to avenge almost 4,000 at the WTC (which Iraq had exactly zero to do with anyway)? Seven years of unilateral decisions, thumbing your nose at the international community, and you think they should get involved now it doesn’t involved the U.S? All I can say is if I believed in hell you’d be somewhere in the top five for people that can go there first. No one can possibly be this stupid, naive, and hypocritical. But there you have it. Anybody that wants to defend these kinds of condemnations while not acknowledging our own complicity can suck it.

Item #2: why is it that every time the Olympics come on we have to have a big patriotic smoke-blowing contest? The Olympics are about athleticism, personal and team competition, and mild hetero- and homo- eroticism. But every time an international competition starts, it turns into a big monstrosity that people use to justify how great we are because we beat another country at synchronized swimming or power walking (neither of which, by the way, I would ever consider a sport- just a hobby that is difficult. But that’s a different story). It doesn’t make any sense. Maybe people need this kind of "glory" for their self-esteem. It’s a powerful symbol I guess and can carry a deeper meaning. I never understood why people needed symbols, but I can’t deny the power they have. But have you ever wondered why the winners are almost always countries you’ve heard of? It’s because they have enough disposable income to pump into the training. They can pay their athletes. You rarely see Uganda or Slovenia win anything.

I just think it’s a travesty that we hold our athletes and celebrities in such high regard that what should be a personal triumph for them becomes something they are compelled to share with America just because they happen to be citizens there. Should you have pride in your country? Yes- when it does things worth being proud of. These athletes make me feel respect for the discipline it takes to be that good. They make me cringe with the thought of working that hard. But fielding a team of guys who’ve spent years throwing a clay disc down a field doesn’t really make me feel like singing The Star Spangled Banner (which you get bonus points for if you can name who wrote it without looking it up). You can be proud of the athletes, you can even be proud that they are from America and that they represent the best athletics that we have to offer. But don’t use it as a reason to spout xenophobic nonsense or to explain why one entire country or citizenry is better or worse than another. That’s just plain stupid.

Also, take that French swimming team anchorman (notice I’ve targeted the fool responsible, not the entire French nation). I watched the men’s 4x100m relay, which was possibly the best race I’ve ever watched at a sporting event. You should all go find a video and watch it. The anchorman said they came specifically to "smash" the American’s. Instead, they were handed a priceless defeat and the look on their faces was worth staying up until two in the morning to see. Hopefully anyone watching learned a valuable lesson about opening their mouth before the race was won. I doubt it. Instead, they probably learned that America is "better" at swimming fast than France. But it was a good object lesson nevertheless.

Continuing the rest of the story

2008-07-25T21:56:00.001-07:00

This question was too good to put in the comments. Jack wrote in with a comment regarding the previous post: "Your blog definitely makes one think. Playing Devil's advocate, ever since OJ's trial I do not have a lot of confidence in our civilian criminal justice system either. With that in mind, what would you consider a fair trial?"

Let me start by saying that's about the best compliment I've had. I like to hope that people will read this and think about things and not just give knee-jerk reactions. While it may not change their opinion, maybe it will at least give them something to expand their understanding of the situation.

So what would constitute a fair trial for the prisoners at Gitmo and other military prisons? Obviously the horrendous and public nature of the charges and crime means no one could possibly give these people an impartial trial. Both the military and civilian juries would be biased and, in either case, are not really a jury of peers. My solution is this: leave the decision to the professionals. There are people who, in theory, must practice being as unbiased as possible all day, who understand the law better than nearly anyone else, and who are well versed in logic, rhetoric, and the rules of evidence. They are called judges. In this case, I suggest we dispense with a jury altogether and turn over the decision to a panel of judges.

These judges would be pulled from both civilian and military courts. Because of the nature of the crime and the nature of the evidence ("top secret" and what-not) there should be a good number of judges (say 8-10). An even number of judges guarantees equal representation of civil and military courts. Judges would be chosen from a pool with experience in cases involving sensitive information. The actual selection would be at random from this pool to ensure that the panel is not packed with government cronies or friends of the defense or prosecution.

A majority vote would be required for conviction. In the event of a tied vote, an acquittal would be declared and a new panel of judges would be selected. Two acquittals would be equivalent to a not-guilty vote, since that would mean there is not enough evidence to reach a full conviction in a reasonable amount of time.

The defendant's lawyers should have access to all of the evidence against the defendant. The defense should also be allowed to question the evidence as to its sources, methods of obtainment, accuracy, and verifiability. Without these provision for the defense, the trial is a joke and a mockery with no real interest in justice, only conviction and punishment. Finally, to ensure fairness, the maximum amount of evidence possible should be made public. This way, the public can have an informed view of the proceedings and can reach reasonable conclusions rather than reading rampant speculation and fueling the gossip mill. With these protections in place, I think that's about the most equitable situation we can offer. We must remember that these people are innocent until we can prove they are guilty and we must not let the emotional need for punishment and revenge over-rule our ethical responsibility to provide a fair day in court even if the verdict is not-guilty.

Regarding the OJ trial, my opinion is that the whole thing was injustice of the highest order. Based on the evidence I saw, the jury reached a verdict that was incomprehensible to those of us paying attention. That being said, the point of the jury system is to allow the public to participate in the justice system, to weigh the evidence presented, and to decide whether the government (the judiciary in this case) has made a good case for punishment. In this instance they decided that reasonable doubt over-ruled the physical evidence. And as far as I am aware, there was no jury tampering or inappropriate behavior. So even though I hate the decision, the system worked exactly like it was supposed to. We can't be upset when the system does its job even if we don't agree with the outcome. There are horrific examples in the U.S. of guilty parties getting off and of innocent people getting punished. No system is perfect, but we do our best to avoid these types of outcomes. Be that as it may, that dude was guilty as fuck and until someone can bring better evidence to light than some racial slander, that's my side of the story.

A few closing remarks- the judicial system in this country has its problems, but I would have to say that overall it could be much, much worse. I think we have a pretty good system in place and I wouldn't want to be anywhere else for a trial. My biggest problems are the obvious inequalities regarding race. Black men are convicted more often, punished more harshly, and put on death row more frequently than white men. These are obvious biases in the system and need to be rectified immediately. But I also firmly believe that if we want other nations to adopt what we consider to be a fair, impartial, democratic system, we have to use that system on everyone. We can't treat our citizens with one system and have another for foreigners or "war criminals" that we believe have wronged us. If we do, we immediately lose our moral standing and become big fat hypocrites. Don't think the rest of world doesn't see that.

We are in a tough position. We use corporal punishment in cases like this. Much of the rest of the world doesn't. So if we convict these people and execute them, we may do ourselves even more harm in the international community. The call for blood may need to be tempered by the fact that we need the global community to believe we have provided a fair trial to those accused of these heinous acts. Otherwise, they will just cite this as another case of American unilateral action and hegemony.

Finally, I think that treating these people as "war criminals" only adds to their mystique, their martyrdom, and their symbolism to other terrorists. If we treated them as common criminals in civilian courts, much of their power could be thwarted. As of now, they are raised up as symbols of evil and given a prestige they most certainly don't deserve. We could make a strong statement by treating them as the thugs they are rather than reinforcing the idea that they are somehow more dangerous than other murderers. And, if it turns out that we have arrested and tried people that were not, in fact, connected with the attacks (which we most probably have given the rather indiscriminate nature in which they were sometimes rounded up) then we need to own up to that and show the world that we will not incarcerate innocent people. We've already done irreparable damage by locking these people away for years with no formal charges, torturing them, and then denying we were doing it. We need to take back the moral high ground, return the innocent to their families, punish the perpetrators, and show the world that our justice system works. Lead by example, not by fiat.

And now...the rest of the story

2008-07-25T12:48:00.001-07:00

The first alleged criminal to go on trial for "war crimes" is bin Laden's chauffeur. There has been a lot of talk about how a war crimes trial in a military court is different than a trial in a normal civilian court. The popular answer among government mouthpieces is "there would really be no noticeable difference." Now let's examine the reality of the situation.

For starters, in the real world a defendant is tried by a jury of his or her peers. In this case, that jury will consist exclusively of military personnel. How, exactly, is that a jury of his peers? A more disturbing idea is that these military people have a terribly biased view of the situation. To be fair, no one in the U.S. (or probably the world) could possibly give any of these people a fair trial because of their own biases and the nature of the allegations. But this seems patently ridiculous that the service men and women who are involved in the war, who have been hammered day in and day out with messages of anti-terrorism, and who have friends that have been killed in "terrorist" acts are going to be the ones to judge him.

Next, in the real world, a defendant is considered innocent unless the evidence can prove he is not. Thus, the onus is on the prosecution to prove culpability. In this case it's exactly reversed. The onus has been put on the defendant to prove his innocence and the evidence is considered absolute, a priori truth. There is very little that the defending lawyers can do to question such evidence because it is already accepted as absolute and infallible. So we have implemented a guilty until proven innocent policy.

In a normal trial, the defendant has complete access to the evidence being used against him and the methods used to gather it. In this case, because of the "sensitive", "secret", or "national security" nature of the evidence, equal access to information is not necessarily guaranteed. This crap wouldn't fly in a civilian court and it shouldn't be allowed to fly here.

So don't let anyone fool you. These trials are very different than civilian trials. Right now the cards appear stacked in the government's favor. The one good thing so far is that the presiding judge has ruled that evidence gained by torture or coercion will not be allowed. This farce of a trial should be far more concerning to the general U.S. populace than it is. If we can do it to foreigners, how long is it before similar measures are used in the name of security on American citizens? I'm not saying it will become the method du jure for civilian courts, but abuse of government and judicial power inevitably turns on the citizens it was initially supposed to protect. History is full of examples and there is nothing that suggests this situation is any different. Bringing the perpetrators of murderous acts to justice is a laudable goal but not at the expense of our ethics. If our ethical behavior and sense of fair-play is consumed in the pursuit of actual or supposed justice, we only become the thing we seek to destroy. We become the terrorists. I wouldn't say we're quite there yet, but we're really pushing the boundaries and walking headlong into that blurry gray fog where the ends always justify the means.

"The only thing we have to fear...".....you know the rest

2008-07-18T12:15:00.000-07:00

I don’t wake up every day and worry about immigrants speaking their native language or getting jobs in my country. I certainly don’t worry about terrorists blowing me up. And I definitely don’t worry about blacks or Muslims or Jews trying to take over the world. But judging by the reactions of American’s over the past few years and the rhetoric flying around now during the presidential race, you’d think I should be.

It must be awful to live in fear every day. To wake up and live every moment with the thought that someone different from you might be trying to live their life in a way that is different from yours. It must be a miserable existence. Something equivalent to an alcoholic that lives in a state of misery so long that it becomes normal. I’ll never understand it.

Ask them if they’re afraid and they’ll say no. But their actions, their reactions, speak differently. They support and vote for leaders that want to build an American Berlin wall. They promote war against entire faiths or nations for the actions of a fraction of a fraction of a minority of the people. They promote racism, protectionism, and neo-imperialism as solutions to assuage themselves of the responsibility of being open-minded, fair, and sympathetic. And all because, deep down, they are afraid. What they’re afraid of, exactly, they don’t know. Yet they cringe in corners- Democrat and Republican, male and female. Hate and fear are non-denominational and apolitical.

What they’re really afraid of is change and difference. They’re afraid of gays, immigrants, religions, politics, and ideas, not because these things are bad, but because they are different and don’t conform to the very narrow slit they view themselves through. And because they feel insecure and threatened they assume everyone else should feel that way.

If you have to live every day afraid that someone, merely by their presence or their values and beliefs, will take away the things you define yourself by, you must have very little faith in yourself or your symbols. If the only way for your philosophy to survive is to cut yourself off from what the rest of the world has to offer, you have implicitly said that your motives and symbols are too weak to stand up to outside influences.

I wake up afraid of needles, large insects, and heights, but never of other people and never of the thought that their culture or values somehow make my own less significant. If I did, I’d consider myself a coward.

We never learn

2008-07-16T11:23:00.001-07:00

Two of the more egregious examples:

Richard Nixon broke innumerable laws hiding under the umbrella of “national security.” The populace was understandably upset and went through a period of holding leadership more accountable and being more open. Ronald Reagan ran up a national deficit that should be a source of shame to America under the name of “national security.” Now we have another administration following the same patterns. Apparently neither us nor the politicians learned anything.

The victims of the Holocaust, before the “final solution”, were forced to carry travel papers, wear special symbols to make them stand out, and were restricted in their movement. Now, these people are carrying out the same acts against Palestinians. These people were victims of some of the worst genocide in history and here they are enacting the same policies and doing the same acts that led up that horror. Now, Italy is racially and ethnically targeting gypsies. I guess we didn’t learn anything from World War II or the events leading up to it.

Like greedy old women we just keep repeating stupidity until something stupid happens. And then we wonder why something stupid happened. Which only provides evidence for my theory that people don’t really learn, they repeat. For all of our idea of being “civilized” or “advanced” we’re really just taller, balder versions of Australopithecus with bombs instead of sticks.

Nobody likes an edcuated buyer

2008-07-09T16:29:00.000-07:00

Unless you live under a rock, in a tree, or in some crazy guy’s love dungeon, you’ve probably heard of newly proposed regulations aimed at curbing some of the more abusive practices in the mortgage lending, credit card, cell phone, and internet service industries. And you’ve undoubtedly heard the same industries reply that burdensome regulations will stifle competition, increase prices, and harm consumers.

For those of you that believe in unfettered “competition”, let me provide a reality check. I’ll use the credit card industry as an example, but the principal applies to most industries. There are four credit card companies (you get bonus points if you can name them) so the average Joe has four options. Theoretically, the companies will compete amongst themselves to offer the lowest interest rates, the best incentive programs, and the lowest prices to woo consumers. The reality is that they all charge the same usurious interest rates (anywhere between 15-30% for most consumer cards), they all use the same questionable practices (dual-cycle billing, universal default, etc), and they all charge the same fees for late payments, overcharges, and the like. How, exactly, is this competition?

It’s not. When the four companies that control more than 90% of the market have the same pricing structure, fees, and practices, you have an oligopoly. And history, as well as present day business practices, shows that oligopolies abuse their customers unless prevented by law or regulation (and oftentimes even then).

“Just stop using them and go to a different company” the anti-regulation crowd will say. But like I just said, there are no other options. You get to pick from four companies with the same practices wrapped in different names. “Deregulation increases competition” they say while completely ignoring the fact that study after study after study has shown deregulation nearly always leads to HIGHER prices and LESS competition (just look at the cable industry, the phone industry, the major ISPs, and the electric industry in California) which is always BAD for consumers.

Remember- capitalism is not a panacea. It’s an idea. And like all ideas it is ripe for abuse. Regulations are boundaries for capitalism. They are not the end of capitalism. Boundaries ensure a well defined, level playing field. And that’s good for both producers and consumers.

If you own a hardware store and there are 10 other hardware stores to go to, consumers can make a choice and shop those stores that treat them fairly. When you have only two choices for your cable provider and both offer exactly the same prices and the exact same shoddy service, capitalism has failed. It’s time to stop whining about regulation and instead look at it as a tool to maintain fairness between consumers and businesses and between businesses in the same industry. If we could trust profit-seekers to act ethically and in the interest of both themselves and their customer, regulation would be unnecessary. But again, history and current practice both show this is not the case. History and current practice also show that self regulation is a farce. Until people can act ethically when money is involved or until we develop a system that is abuse-proof, regulation should continue to be an important part of capitalism.

Suck on that Comcast, AT&T, and Countrywide.

Lying will get you places

2008-07-01T11:35:00.001-07:00

I was going to write a diatribe about why people like to complain about the U.S. being a welfare state when they don’t even have a basic understanding of what that means, but this is much better.

As my father is fond of saying, “if you don’t start no shit, there won’t be no shit.”

A Texas man (you know it’s gonna be good) was cleared of all charges after killing two men who were allegedly burglarizing his next door neighbor. You can read the story here. I’ll give you a minute.

Notice anything funny about that story? For starters, he shot them in the back. IN THE BACK! Only in Texas would shooting someone in the back be considered self defense. What kind of coward shoots two people in the back and then claims they were trying to harm him? Next, the shooter claimed he “didn’t want to do it” immediately after telling the 911 dispatcher that he was going to shoot them. Did the judge or jury not notice the bald faced lie? The story doesn’t mention whether the burglars were armed. Based on the bullshit that already happened, I’d guess no. But if they were, was it equal force? If they had billy clubs and he shot them in the back, that meets the definition of excessive force. If we’re going to hold police accountable for excessive force, shouldn’t the public be held to the same standards? Finally, the attorney claimed the shooter was in fear for his life. Really? Because you started by being safely in your house, calling the proper authorities, and had a gun for protection in case they came into your home. There was no reasonable fear for your life until you stepped outside and started some shit. I hope you end up on the death row Texas seems so proud of for being a murderer, a douche-bag, and a big fat liar.

Let me say here I am totally fine with protecting yourself, your property, or other people. If someone broke into my house I would have no problem doing whatever is necessary to protect my family. But there is a huge difference between shooting two (possibly armed?) burglars in the back and facing someone in your own home. Once someone is running away, they are no longer a threat. I would also help my neighbors if they were in trouble, but once the culprits have left the house and are headed away, there is no immediate need to kill them.

The justice system in this country is truly fucked. It’s racist and elitist. It punishes blue collar crimes far harsher than white collar crimes. Lord knows I wouldn’t want to be anything but a white heterosexual male if I was in a courtroom. Don’t get me wrong…I think we have a great system in place and I would trust our system before many others. But there are far too many inequalities and all-out failures for us to begin trumpeting it as a “justice” system. Law, the judiciary, and justice are three separate things that are very difficult to bring together. Based on this horrific screw-up, it’s at least time to review our idea of justice and its practice in law. This was justice for gun-toting, trouble-starting white people. There was no justice for the victims or their families.

Life's little constants

2008-06-25T16:30:00.002-07:00

Somebody needs to explain to me why there is such a stigma attached to taxes in this country. Tax policy has become a scare tactic and I’m tired of it.

Taxes are not stealing for Christ’s sake. Let’s just drop the hyperbole. The purpose of tax money is to buy the things individuals cannot afford or would not buy on their own- things like, oh I don’t know, roads? Water treatment facilities? Schools? Bridges? Public health programs? Any of these sound familiar? Without taxes, none of those would exist and public facilities would be even more dismal than they are. In fact, there would be no public facilities because if they were built privately you’d get charged to use them.

I'm tired of the argument "America has the highest business tax rates in the world". On paper, sure, we're at 35%. But that's not the important number. It's what people ACTUALLY PAY that's important. In that respect, we're among the lowest in the world.
Several recent reports highlight that most of the largest companies in the U.S. pay LESS THAN 5%. So in reality, we have one of the lowest rates. That makes this a completely bullshit argument and anyone proffering it as a reason for America's non-competitiveness doesn't have a grounding in reality.

The use of taxes as a political tool is beyond retarded. We’ve created a situation where Americans are so anti-tax that the things that made this country great (the highway system, modern electric grids, access to clean water) are falling apart. We like to think we can jump to the front without paying for it. And we’re about to face some hard realities for the last few decades of free-wheeling spending, massive corporate and upper-income tax cuts, and utter failure to invest in our declining infrastructure.

Think of it like this- every day, every single person benefits from public things. Whether it’s education, crime prevention, fire fighting services, or military protection, we all benefit. So we should all pay. Period. And we should pay in proportion to how we have benefited. The rich have profited from the labor of Americans, the infrastructure of America, the education provided to Americans, and the regulatory structures of America. Therefore they should put some of their profits back into America for the next generation and to just show some fucking appreciation. Without those services and labor, they would have nothing.

I’m not opposed to letting people keep what they earn. I think individuals make better choices than government. But they will never make choices that are in the interest of the common good. They will make the best decision for them. Therefore, we need a system that everyone who can afford to pays into that WILL (theoretically) do things that are in the common interest. Am I tired of my tax money going to things I don’t believe in? Sure I am. We all are. We’re the ones paying for these wars, not the people at the top of the ladder. But without a military, we wouldn’t have the country we do have. We have to realize the importance of things we may not like or we’re just as bad as the people that don’t want to believe we really have a low corporate tax rate. Some people like art, some like weapons, and some like free travel on highways. Sometimes you have to put up with things you don’t like to get benefits that you do. (I’m not justifying spending money on pointless wars, just that we have to live with trade-offs in how public money is spent, as we must in a pluralistic government).

I hate this anti-tax sentiment that closely follows the over-consumption sentiment we have. You can’t run trillion dollar military exercises, $600 billion deficits, and address the roots of social problems without tax money. It just doesn’t work in the long term.

So let’s stop complaining about taxes and instead hold the leadership accountable for how that money is spent. We need more funds for education, health care, infrastructure, environmental protection and remediation, and social programs that really benefit those stuck in poverty (which is at least 10% of the population though you wouldn’t know it from news reports). Taxes should be an investment in our communities, our culture, and our future. They should not be a political argument. They should be a source of pride that we are willing to invest in ourselves and help those that do not have the means to help themselves.

And now for something completey different

2008-06-16T16:09:00.001-07:00

A man with a fish playing a cello.

HAHA...Monty Python!

I've been on the rag a lot on this blog about ridiculous political happenings. And it could go on forever. So it's time to turn to another of my favorite hobbies- economics. Unless you live in China or possibly in a shanty-town, you'll have heard that CEO pay has increased yet again even while the economy tanks and the average American struggles to pay house notes, grocery bills, and energy bills. And yet, we accept this as right. I'm not saying these people don't deserve a hefty pay check. They are under immense stress and are expected to be omniscient and omnipotent. If that doesn't halt the old ticker I don't know what will. But let's think a little more about these compensation packages.

Point 1: Where is the money coming from? Even as people are laid off, unions are forced to accept pay cuts, and businesses are moving to hiring full time work without full time benefits, the CEOs of these same companies are raking in more wealth. So the money is coming to the CEOs by way of laying off the people at the bottom. Of course, if companies make more money, the CEO should get a cut. But when airlines, banks, retailers, and lenders are losing billions of dollars, CEOs should not be getting increases of millions.

Point 2: Who are businesses really looking out for? The answer is shareholders. Not the employees, not the employee families, not the ethics of capitalism, and certainly not the greater good. This is reaffirmed in every newspaper article, economic magazine, and tv news report. It's always about SHAREHOLDERS. No one gives two farts about the employees that make sure the company stays profitable. The secretaries are told "we can't give raises this year because business is down" even while the CEO gets a fat bonus. Companies will do anything to stay profitable and retain shareholders but will do little to help employees or see that employee wages reflect the companies finances. I have yet to meet anyone working for a corporation that said "we increased profits by 10% this year, so everyone got a 2% salary increase". And I've asked a lot of them. Who are the shareholders they're looking out for? People with enough wealth to invest. So we see the wealthy helping the wealthy and leaving the average worker with minimum wage, bad benefits, and an ass sore from the pounding.

Point 3: It's all about short term gain. High employee turnover, cutting important and necessary positions (secretarial, janitorial, etc.), and ousting older and experienced employees to avoid paying retirement benefits. These are signs of business emphasizing short-term profits at the expense of long-term market position, preparedness, and common sense. This is why calling a company is usually pointless- the employee turnover is so high that no one has time to learn the business and intelligently answer questions. It's about "returning to profitability" rather than taking calculated losses to be in a better position later.

Point 4: CEOs that say "I don't get a paycheck" are liars. They may not get a direct payment, but receiving millions of dollars in stock, complete health packages, a fat pension plan, massive death benefits, and payouts for early ousting (such as not doing a good job and getting paid to leave before your contract is up) are the same as a paycheck. The average worker does not have access to these benefits even though they are working hard, sometimes putting in more hours than the leadership. So stop the baloney. It's the just a cover and I'm not buying it.

Point 5: CEO pay should be tied to performance, just like everyone else. But even during years when markets are terrible or the company makes bad decisions, CEO pay keeps climbing. Let's be fair- if you give someone $10 million in stock as payment, even if they trash the company and cut its share price in half, they still walk away with $5 million and have done nothing but hurt the company, its employees, and the shareholders. And the company is out $5 million that could be used to increase business.

In Brandonland it works like this. CEOs will be paid a salary. They will get no special benefits. They will work hard like the rest of the employees. They will have to invest out of their own pocket instead of being handed stock in addition to their paychecks. They will not have entitlement to special privileges like personal use of company transport. They will get bonuses only if the company does well and only if the employees receive a cut of the profits. The CEO will live with the same benefits package as everyone else. This will accomplish several things. The CEO will become an employee subject to the same rules as the lower ranking employees, the millions of dollars saved in perquisites can be used to grow the business or to provide better salaries and benefits to all employees, those at the top will make more money than those below but will have to build their own wealth and act like all others in the marketplace (rather than being given a head start with options, portfolios, and grants), and the growing disparity between employee and CEO salary will be dramatically reduced since all employees will share in the company growth rather than only those at the top.

We can have a capitalist market, economic expansion, and a high standard of living without the stark disparities and inequalities that continue to get worse. Will there always be a difference? Yes. It's inherent in the current philosophy of capitalism. Based on education, training, experience, innate abilities, and work ethics, different people will be at different levels of an organization. And as you move up through the organization you will have more responsibilities and should be compensated accordingly. But you will also be held accountable for your performance, just like those at the bottom. There is no reason that the foundation workers of the business (those making minimum wage or a few bucks more an hour) should have salaries orders of magnitude below those at the top. There is no exact answer to how much more the top brass should make, but I think the average person would say that a $10,000,000 to $30,000 ratio is ludicrous. If my raises, bonuses, benefits, and salary are tied to the performance of the business, shouldn't the leadership be under the same constraints? All employees should share in the fortunes and failures of the business. That way, they all have an incentive to do the best work they can and they can have a career instead of just a job.

Sciencing in the blogopshere

2008-06-14T15:11:00.000-07:00

If it was up to me, the word "blogosphere" would not be a word. But sciencing would be. How's that for trashing the language?

I've started a new blog: Ask a Scientician. Along with select colleagues, acquaintances, and cronies, I'll be answering general questions relating to science and how the world works. The site it an attempt to get people to ask the questions they have to a person who is actually in a position to answer them well and not their Uncle Joe who doesn't know astronomy from astrology. Questions like "why should I not cook re-frozen chicken?" or "what the hell is dark matter anyway?" are good targets, but feel free to ask anything. You can ask here or send them to the email addresses posted on Ask a Scientician. We'll also be posting tidbits that discuss and hopefully dispel some of the common myths surrounding climate change, evolution, stem cells, and other controversial topics.

It's kind of like Mythbusters, but without the supreme hotness of Kari. And instead of doing the experiments, we'll just be stealing answers other scientists have already found

You can't be wrong all of the time

2008-06-13T11:32:00.001-07:00

As a rule, I tend to put Arlen Specter in the "don't touch" pile with Orrin Hatch and Mike Huckabee. But we're finally on the same page. At the ACLU convention this week, Specter had the testicular fortitude to denounce the executive practice of demanding confidential news sources and the judicial beginnings of upholding these demands. In case you don't know, confidential sources are one of the hallmarks of a free press, since it means people inside organizations can get information out without being retaliated against. (Don't tell me whistle-blower acts are effective either- they're too new and those people can still be targeted, just with more discretion). Without them, we may never have known about Watergate, the Iran-Contra boondoggle, the Abu-Ghraib catastrophe, or any number of secret happenings that affect the public.

Arlen actually said that rather than the telecoms standing trial for illegal wire-tapping, the federal government should. I couldn't agree more. To be fair, they should both be held accountable. The "following orders" argument doesn't fly with me. The telcos were aware what they were doing was wrong. They should have had the chutzpah to stand up and make it public instead of caving in to unreasonable demands. It's too little too late for a group of people that should have come clean sooner (say when it happened rather than professing to clean up during an election year) but at least some of the players are willing to stand up for keeping a relatively free press and to say that what happened was wrong. Now we just have to wait and see if all we get are the usual condemnations with no substantial action or protections for those wronged.

Let's not ignore the fact that Arlen voted FOR the "surveillance reform" that allowed this to happen in the first place. He conveniently forgot to mention this at the convention. He also didn't mention that he voted to grant retroactive immunity to the telecoms. Hopefully he's realized that what he did was stupid, irresponsible, damaging to civil liberties, and blatantly unconstitutional. More likely, he's realized the wind is changing and he needs to sail with it. But (some) kudos to Arlen. And boo on warrant-less domestic spying. Now we just need a politician who's willing to shut down the improper use of NSLs (national security letters) and we'll be making some progress.

Until morale improves, the beatings will continue...

2008-06-11T11:37:00.000-07:00

Alright class. Today we have a guest speaker who will be filling in for me. So please give your attention to Sir Adam.

Why this article is bullshit:

1) The President makes $400,000 a year. He lives for free, get driven/flown for free everywhere he goes. We pay his energy bills. Meanwhile, he receives the best medical benefits available to modern medicine, for free, for the rest of his life. He does not feel our pain— he feels an approval rating so dismal that he makes Richard Nixon look like John Glenn. What I wouldn’t give for an Andrew Jackson right about now to step into office and start hitting people with his walking stick…

2) The chances of Washington finding a quick solution aren’t low because Republicans and Democrats are deadlocked—it’s low because there is no quick solution. Sorry, dear America, who always believes in quick fixes to complicated problems, but the facts are thus:
• they have most of the oil
• oil is a finite resource and will run out
• we need their oil
• they choose the price.

You can bitch and moan about greedy oil barons and sheikhs, but at the heart of it is simple economics. And considering that our nation prides itself on strong capitalist instincts, all the bitching we do is lip service because you can be sure of one thing: if we had all the oil, we would be doing the exact same thing that they are.

3) this quote: “And with the federal government now more than $9 trillion in debt, where would Congress find the money to pour into public transit and research into alternative fuels?”

Rather than bring up the estimated (roughly) two trillion dollar price-tag of the war in Iraq (that’s $2,000,000,000,000) and how much public transportation that could have purchased or debt that could have paid off, I’ll just throw up a quote in reference to the war:

"It is unimaginable that the United States would have to contribute hundreds of billions of dollars and highly unlikely that we would have to contribute even tens of billions of dollars."
- Kenneth M. Pollack, former Director for Persian Gulf Affairs, 9/02

‘Nuff said.

The major problem here is that people, from the bottom to the top of our social pyramid, are looking for the quickest, most painless answer to the problem of rising oil costs. But the answer is not to cut federal taxes on gas for a while—that will lower prices about $.18 a gallon (roughly 4.5%), and in my neighborhood they’ve risen more than that over the past week. I would still be getting bent over at the pump, meanwhile our nation would be losing billions in revenue to build/maintain roads.

The answer is also not drilling in ANWAR— and I don’t take that stance for environmental reasons, I take it out of common sense. Yes, that might lower gas prices for a while, but we would suck every drop out of the ground in a few years and be right back in this boat. None of our fundamental beliefs or behaviors would change in the slightest if gas suddenly dropped to $2.90 a gallon. That’s like a junkie saying ‘I know I need to get clean—I’ll just rent a room in that crack house down the block and get right on it’.

These are band-aid solutions to a bullet wound. The wake-up call is here: the only way out of this mess is to not be dependent on oil and, like changing any dependency, it is going to hurt. It’s going to involve a complete reshifting of American perceptions. It’s going to involve replanning our urban/suburban centers from the ground up. It’s going to involve massive expenditures for reliable and affordable public transportation. It’s going to take huge investments in alternative fuels and huge leaps of faith in consumers to not keep purchasing Hummers.

And meanwhile, we are just going to have to bite the friggin’ bullet and pay our $4 for gas and be damn well pleased to do it—while we’re complaining about the new projected cost of our summer vacations, the price of grain (which has risen even faster than oil) is killing people across the globe by the tens of thousands.

Remeber kids: AA is for quitters. And nobody likes a quitter.

2008-06-06T14:05:00.001-07:00

Every once in a while a really stupid question is posed as a major news headline. Usually it’s a question with significant social implications that gets boiled down to a few eight second sound bites that condense the concerned parties into one-dimensional caricatures. Today’s winner is “Should the drinking age be lowered?” What the hell kind of retarded question is this? Let’s just use some common sense and a few available statistics to reach a first order answer.

Exhibit A: You can buy cigarettes at 18, vote at 18, kill people in the armed forces at 17 (with parental consent), fuck at 16 (in most states), drive a multi-ton vehicle at 16, and get hitched at 15 (with consent). So explain to me the rationale for not making alcohol available until you’re 21.

Exhibit B: Over a decade of research shows that a large proportion of kids have their first alcohol experiences during high school and that a small but significant number have them during middle school. This absolutely does NOT mean to imply that it’s a “crisis” or a “problem”, just that it exists and is currently on the rise. So obviously the “wait until you’re 21” line is not working as planned.

Exhibit C: Much like absolute abstinence, the “all alcohol is bad until you’re 21” argument makes no logical sense. Teaching responsible alcohol use (like responsible condom use) empowers people to make better choices. The fact is, the majority of Americans (and I would say much of the world) consume alcohol. The majority of these people are NOT alcoholics. They are, within reason, responsible people that enjoy a drink now and then. Why do we not hold younger people to these more reasonable standards? Should there be consequences for abuse of alcohol and bad choices (e.g. driving while intoxicated)? Yes. But should we tell younger people that alcohol is evil when our society is saturated by it? Hell no. That’s just stupid. It only heightens their perception that we’re being hypocritical.

Exhibit D: Research is conflicting, but so far shows no conclusive evidence that alcoholism is significantly lower in the U.S. than in Europe even though the legal drinking age is higher. So this argument is void until there is some convincing proof.

Exhibit E: The costs of enforcement are incredible. Resources that could be used in other pursuits are tied up in man-power, equipment, time, and energy spent in the frantic effort to keep alcohol away from those deemed unworthy of its use. Much like the war on drugs, much goes in and only minor results trickle out.

Exhibit F: The rate of high-consumption binge-drinking among young people has not improved since the drinking age was raised to 21. The total number of young drinkers has increased, but the percentages are nearly the same as in 1984 (when the limit was raised). Just based on these simple examples, the increased age did nothing but increase arrests and legal costs. It makes sense that younger people will be affected by alcohol differently (e.g. higher impairment rates at similar levels of consumption than older people). But there is no conclusive proof available that increasing the minimum age decreased any of these markers. (Note: it’s true that ~50% fewer teens were killed in alcohol related car crashes in 2006 than in 1984. But that number does NOT include corrections for increases in car safety and design.). Also regarding accidents- alcohol use is not divorced from inexperience with driving. Older drivers that drive drunk are less likely to be killed because they have more experience handling a vehicle and can mitigate the impact to a larger extent than young people. This factor is also not considered when comparing young drinkers to older drinkers in traffic accidents.

Suffice it to say that my answer is yes. I’m all for lowering the drinking age. In fact, I think parents and kids are the ones best suited to know when each individual is mature enough to use alcohol responsibly. Much like other “solutions” in our political climate, this one has a one-size-fits-all mentality that does not reflect reality. We have to educate kids about alcohol. They need to know the physical and psychological implications, good and bad. Low amounts of alcohol have been shown to be beneficial to health. High, prolonged consumption takes a devastating toll on the body and mind, as well as the people around you. Believe me…I know. Alcohol impairs your judgment and means you shouldn’t operate either heavy machinery or your reproductive organs. But in the end, whether the drinking age is 12 or 50, people will still make the choice to drink or not. If they choose to, they should be aware of the ramifications and have the information to make an informed decision.

Labeling alcohol as evil is not the answer. Forbidding it is not the answer. Let’s take a lesson from our constitutional history and remember how well prohibition worked. Is the answer education and personal responsibility? Maybe. Maybe not. But it doesn’t seem to be something we’ve tried. Whatever the answer is, the current drinking age remains an anachronism and my headlines remain cluttered with stupid questions.

The big question is:

2008-05-30T23:22:00.000-07:00

Why don't we call things what they are? The Planned Parenthood clinics have commercials that say "practice safe love". What they mean is: practice safe SEX. The aisles at the front of the store are for conveniences. What they mean is: impulse section. The government calls it a preemptive strike to implement a regime change. Translation: we shoot first and install a government more to our liking. Apparently all American men need to take drugs for natural male enhancement. Meaning: your dick is too small and you need a penis enlargement. Gay couples can't get married. Translation: gay love is less meaningful and sacred, so we'll give you a different word that (theoretically) means exactly the same thing. I could go on.

The point is that this country has an incredible phobia with language. It's social censoring. After it becomes acceptable to obscure basic human actions like sex behind euphemisms, the situation can only escalate. In the worst cases, we're telling immigrants that they are not entitled to keep their own language if they want to live here. The land of the free and the country that said "bring us your tired, your poor, your huddled masses..." is actually offended at the idea of making road signs in multiple languages. Tribes and ethnicities around the world often define themselves based on their language. But fear of change or "dilution of language" only breeds more fear. And fear leads to violence.

Language can be used to preach hate or tolerance, to obscure or enlighten, to help or hinder. But words only have the power you give them. If you don't give them power, then all words are neutral and abstract constructions. People give far too much emotional power to words. They become attached to the emotional connotations and that nearly always leads to fear when someone else attaches a different connotation to the same word. Fear of certain "profane words" (which, if you study the history of the word profane and the idea of profanity does NOT refer to curse words). Fear of using certain words to refer to things (it's not sex, it's love). The fear that teaching kids the correct terminology for body parts will lead them into sexual revolt. Certain words were given a negative stigma through disgraceful actions: nigger, Nazi, kike. Should we ban these words altogether? Hell no. If you do, you bury the atrocities that created them. But you can't be afraid of them.

Language is not static. It's a fluid entity. It can be beautiful or terrifying. But it's always moving. That's why it's difficult to rely on words written lifetimes ago: the Constitution (written 200 hundred years ago when the ideas and concepts and even words meant different things) and the bible (written 2000 years years ago and then heavily translated) being two good examples. The meaning we give these words and ideas is not necessarily what they meant to the people that wrote them. That doesn't mean our interpretation is bad or even wrong. It just means that people should be open to differences in interpretation. Anyone who thinks they know the exact meaning of words written centuries before by someone else is full of back-side excrement. That's shit for those of you that want the simple version. I'm not saying there's nothing to learn from long dead authors. There are thousands of works that speak to the human condition today just as they did when they were penned. I'm just saying that we need to be careful in how we interpret "their" meaning versus OUR meaning.

Call things what they are. If we ever want to consider ourselves "enlightened" relative to anything, we have to get rid of our fear of words. We have to stop hiding behind language and semantics. We have to face reality. "Practicing safe love" isn't facing the issue of STDs and unprepared pregnancies. Practicing safe sex is.

I can't keep up...I've got li'l legs

2008-05-24T22:20:00.000-07:00

I'm not sure what "amateur historian" means. It's often appended to authors that write books that include good historical under-pinnings but may not be about history itself. Whatever it means, it should stop. It's condescending to people that work hard to understand and appreciate history without being a "historian".

On a side-note, I'm thinking of starting a science blog. Nothing technical. Just something that will address common misconceptions about some topics (climate, evolution, nano-technology, etc.) and point out interesting tidbits. Everything from astronomy to zoology that is interesting but may not make headlines. I think the first topic might be "why it's probably ok to re-freeze thawed out chicken". If there is anything you'd like to see or have questions about, let me know. It would be even better if it was a question-and-answer type of deal. But that would imply that enough people are reading this to keep the questions coming. Plus, you probably have better things to do than spend more time in my corner of the internets.

I've been reading a grip of books on foreign aid, foreign poverty, and the flow of money from rich to poor countries. The excellent comments on my last post got me thinking about a recurring theme in these books: change and progress in republican governments are made incrementally and piecemeal, with debate amongst people with vastly different ideas on how to approach and solve problems. As Jack and Adam astutely pointed out, even the founding fathers were at odds on the best way to govern this country. Changes to our way of governing, our economy, and our social setting have usually happened slowly. It's a trial and error situation. If you look at most Western democracies you'll see a similar story. These two ideas (incremental change and legitimate dissent/debate) are cornerstones of why our political system works well. But we don't apply these same ideas to other governments or situations.

Here's an example: whether you agree with it or not, the fact is that we invaded Iraq, ripped up its governing structures and institutions, and insinuated ourselves into an area that has sharp ethnic conflicts. Rather than making incremental changes and finding solutions to these problems within the local economic, political, and social setting, we have pushed for one massive, over-night, over-arching shift from autocracy and dictatorship to free markets and democratic elections. This is simply not a reasonable expectation. The American people expect to see movement in Iraq away from conflict and toward things promised before the war (democracy, elections, capitalism, etc.) But David Petraeus and Ryan Crocker can't deliver news that Americans see as progress. (They also don't answer straight forward questions, but that's a different problem). And the reason they can't deliver that news is because we're expecting Shakespeare and getting Grisham. We have high expectations, but those expectations are not based on any real-world model or any previous success using this method of creating overnight sensations (Zappa rules!).

The way forward is never certain and everyone wants to see different outcomes. Some people even want to go backward. I'd like to think the U.S. can learn from its successes as well as its failures. We're resourceful people. This is a great opportunity to be relatively successful in a zero-sum situation. Just because it's not success the way we wanted to measure it (with generic metrics like democracy, free markets, end of major combat, etc.) doesn't mean it's not worth trying. Incremental changes add up over time. If we ever want to consider what happened in Iraq a "success", we have to give them the tools to be successful during the difficult transition to a new way of governing and interacting both inside the country and internationally. One of those tools is the freedom and ability to adapt things to their unique situation and another is the freedom to try things that fail. We can't implement an over-arching U.S. blueprint for Iraq. It didn't work in Vietnam, it didn't work in Haiti, it didn't work in Iran, and there's no reason to think it will work in Iraq.

Apparently it's only free speech when you agree with what they're saying

2008-05-20T13:01:00.000-07:00

I’ve spent a lot of time ragging on the conservative cause in this country. It’s one of those instances when I lump too many people into one group for simplicity, even though you and I are well aware that not all conservatives have the same view points on all issues. And no one is conservative on all things. Some of my best friends are conservative, and I couldn’t care less. So today, just for you, I’m going to rag on the liberals for a bit, particularly old Joe Lieberman.

Lieberman has demanded that Google and YouTube remove videos posted by “Islamic radicals”. That’s a very general label. Who gets to define which Islamic people are “normal” and which are “radical”? Who gets to pick which groups are not acceptable and which Islamic groups are? Needless to say, it’s not you or I.

Google already attempts to remove videos that advocate violence or are considered “hate speech”. These go against their published policies. So violent videos made by these groups are already being banned and hate-speech is also banned. What’s left? That would be videos that advocate anti-Western sentiment without advocating violence. Last time I checked, these fell under the umbrella of free speech. What we have here is a senator who is actively asking for censorship and a violation of the first amendment. Meanwhile, the liberal and independent members of government are lambasting Bush and his administration for doing EXACTLY THE SAME THING. Liberals are upset that Bush is censoring military blogging and communications and blocking access to legal representation for “suspected terrorists”. Yet here they want the same thing. Until the day I die, I will never understand how you can take the “moral high ground” (disgusting word, moral, but appropriate here) by asking others to stop doing something that you are actively doing. Do you not see the stupidity and hypocrisy in that?

Just because you don’t like what other people have to say doesn’t mean they shouldn’t be allowed to say it. And who knows. Maybe you can learn something by listening to what other people think and understanding how they got to that thought. Witch hunts have never worked. The Inquisition? The Red Scare? The Gestapo? They were all about the same thing: control. None of them worked. All they did was make people miserable.

One of the major themes of the upcoming presidential election is change. The Democrats think they have the change the public wants, the Republicans think they do. But based on examples like this, neither side is offering any change. It’s more status quo. This is only one example, of course, but you can easily find others. Read some headlines. Just don’t do it on CNN or Fox News.

Kudos to Google for telling Lieberman and his staff where they can stick their request.

I hate to burst your bubble,

2008-05-15T21:39:00.000-07:00

but I'm glad gas prices are going up. I'm probably the only one. Don't get me wrong, it hits my wallet too and I always dread the sight of dollars ticking off on the pump that could be used to buy a house. But I'm glad. It's the only way to convince people that the current situation is untenable. If it costs you $100 or more to fill up your car, you'd better have a good reason. Unless you're a contractor or a construction worker or otherwise regularly haul large loads of heavy objects, you don't need an F350. Hell, most people don't need an F150. And unless you have 16 tricycle motors (which is 16 too many anyway), you don't need a Suburban or a decked out van with DVD players. I cringe when I think of all the resources wasted on muscle cars and raised trucks. And that's just today. How many years of gas have been pumped into the air over the years that was totally and completely unnecessary?

The next person that complains to me about $4 gas while holding a Starbucks cup in one hand, bottled water in the other, and wearing $200 Timberland boots is going to get a royal fucking beat down and a vociferous tongue lashing. You're willing to shill out $4 or more for a cup of joe, buy water (fucking water!) for $2 when it comes out of the tap practically free, and throw down a day or two worth of income for a pair of shoes and you want to complain about gas? Get real. Better yet, get bent. This is the same kind of logic that tells Washington they can run a $4 trillion dollar debt, a $1 trillion dollar war, and $600 billion in trade deficits and STILL cut taxes.

Let's be blunt: it's our own fault gas prices are high. In the 70's and 80's, we could blame it on the Saudi's and get away with it. Now we have no one left to point to. Here are just a few reasons: unrealistic oil and gas subsidies for the energy companies, completely wasteful behavior on the part of consumers, designing cities and places of business around personal transport instead of public transport, refusing to increase fuel economy standards for decades at a time, and creating political situations that cut into supplies (i.e. fucking with suppliers in the Middle East, Africa, and Central America). So it's time to stop playing the victim and decide how to deal with the situation. Lawsuits, windfall taxes, increasing production, and asking nicely are not acceptable answers. Corn-based ethanol, corn-based methanol, and hydrogen are also unacceptable. I suggest starting by taking on some of the problems above- in this case, addressing the roots of the problem instead of slapping bandages on it.

Let's be clear about one other thing: we're not even paying the true cost of our gas. The price of gas doesn't include the costs of environmental decimation, environmental remediation, long term effects of pollution from both mining and consumption, or the millions of human and animal lives lost to searching, mining, and warring for it.

So don't come bitching to me about high gas prices. Especially if you can still afford gas. The wealthy and middle class are still filling up their Suburbans, RVs, or "personal water craft" (the popular but retarded euphemism for jet skis). The people at the bottom of the ladder are the ones that at least some claim to a right to complain. The rest of you enjoy your Starbucks. I'm off to read the court decision today legalizing gay marriage in CA. It's about time at least one court pulled its head out of its ass. I just have to figure out why the vote was 4-3. What the hell is wrong with the three people that voted no? I'll have more to say after I've boned up (pun definitely intended) on the case. Cheers!

If only history class taught history

2008-05-09T13:19:00.000-07:00

I read an article today about a poll showing people with conservative philosophies are 'happier' than people with liberal philosophies. That’s not surprising since several independent polls have found the same thing. What struck me were people’s responses. Among the usual flame wars between conservatives yelling “get a job” and liberals yelling “look beyond your wallet” was buried this gem from Terry in N.C.: “Liberals are always looking for something for nothing, to support these liberals you have to have a lot of money for them and many government programs to assist them. On the other hand conservatives work hard and are not always looking for hand outs. Conservatives make more out of less to get by.”

This is easily the most ignorant thing I read today. It’s wrong on so many levels, I don’t know where to start. But here’s the old college try:

Research dating back to the late 1800’s and the beginning of industrialization in this country consistently shows that people want to work and have productive jobs. It’s part of the human need to be productive and it’s part of the philosophy of our country- “work hard and you can move up the social and economic scale.” Few people want handouts or the stigma that comes with them. And few people want to feel like they are unproductive and useless.

In regards to government programs that assist liberals, here’s someone that doesn’t know her own country’s history or current economics. The federal government has been subsidizing this nation practically since its inception. The entire American west was built on federally subsidized water. The mid-west was founded by farmers on federally subsidized land. The entire energy, communications, and banking industries are founded on principles of heavy government payouts and tax breaks. Look at the airlines, the saving and loans that survived the shake-up in the 1980’s, and the current lending and credit debacle and tell me with a straight face the government is not giving out handouts. What Miss Terry is saying is that it’s ok for government to subsidize COMMERCIAL interests, but NOT human or social interests.

Finally, she claims that conservatives always work hard and make more out of less. But history has shown that the conservative interests are the ones receiving the majority of those massive government subsidies and tax breaks. The companies and industries receiving these handouts are owned by (predominantly) rich, white, conservative businessmen. It’s their pockets that are being lined with government cheese. Based on just these few examples, it seems to me that conservatives have no basis for claiming that it’s only liberals looking for hand-outs. Right now, as I type this (at noon during lunch), conservative interest groups are pushing legislation through Congress that will, in essence, give them massive subsidies and payouts to protect “intellectual property” and crack down on piracy of movies and music. They are trying (quite successfully) to force the government and taxpayers to pay for these anti-piracy measures rather than putting up their own capital. How’s that for a handout Terry?

This isn’t meant to be an indictment of conservatives. I happen to agree that people should work hard should not expect handouts. But I also believe that people should be compensated fairly for their work and that they should have the same access to government help as anyone else. No one should have to work two or three jobs and still not have any savings because their money is being soaked up by health insurance companies (subsidized), groceries (from subsidized farms), transportation (oil and gas subsidies), cell phones (subsidized), etc. Why should the government not help out its people by providing them a helping hand? If interest groups, businesses, and Wall Street can get help, why not the people that clean up after them?

Terry’s response is nothing more than rhetoric spouted by people that watch too much Hannity and Colmes. It shows a clear lack of understanding of people in general (who want to work), “conservatives” in particular (who are busy getting many of the handouts they so desperately deplore- particularly when they go to someone else), and the federal government (which in some way gives hand-outs to nearly every industry in this country). The major problem is that people (liberals and conservatives) won’t take the time to look at what is happening or to understand the way their own country works. They would rather throw insults at each other and blame the other side. In the end, both sides are to blame and both sides are needed to craft a solution.

An Open Letter

2008-05-08T08:03:00.000-07:00

to the guy that ran my ass over in the carpool lane today. Let me say here that I hope you die in a fire, preferably slowly so you have time to think about all the stupid things you did to deserve it. I also hope that if you breed you'll do the world a favor and not raise the kid. You're the reason people commit suicide and shoot up malls- they can't stand dealing with you every day they have to go outside.

The carpool lane is a lane for people that actually carpool. That means two or more people. Not yourself and your hand. I know you're lonely and dysfunctional and your hand is the only thing that will ever love you, but your hand does not count as a friend. I know you think you're sneaky getting out of the carpool lane when there's a cop. You are not. You're just a dick. Not a ninja.

The carpool lane is still bound to the other rules of the road. It's not a make-your-own-speed lane and it's not a tailgating-is-appropriate lane. Since you can't drive with any decency in a regular lane, let's not complicate things by driving in a carpool lane where you have to be extra alert for douche-bags (like yourself) jumping in at inappropriate times and slowing down in order to get back into traffic to make an exit.

Apparently, you can only think about one thing at a time. And since that one thing is yourself and not the rest of the people on the road, maybe you should sit this one out. You must be vital to the human species. It must be nice to be you.

And tonight when you head home don't forget to cut off a school bus full of kids and run a bunch of red lights because you need to be home two minutes earlier. Do the world a favor and choke on your microwave dinner.

Sincerely,
The Management

This is what I'm talking about

2008-05-06T21:27:00.001-07:00

Long time no write. Along with not being a fat pig, being productive at work, and not getting beat down at Facebook chess, my goal is to actually update this thing more regularly. I need to write more and watch tv less. Speaking of which, one of my poems was selected for the literary journal at UWB. Not the greatest accolade, but odds are I'm the only scientist and one of the few freelancers that isn't an English major. So I'm pretty happy about it. Since putting poems on a blog technically counts as published, I can't really put them up here if I want to get them in magazines or journals. So I'll start putting up song lyrics instead. Stay tuned if you care.

As you know, I love to find things that are inconsistent with other things. It's part of being a scientist and a nitpicker. So here's a good one. Congress is busily passing a bill, blessed by your good friend and mine George W., that would make it illegal for American companies (namely Google, Yahoo, and the like) to aid internet censorship in foreign countries (namely China, Korea, and the like). Are you fucking kidding me? Bush is busy refusing every FOIA (that's Freedom of Information Act) request this side of Pyrenees, is actively appointing FCC and FTC cronies that want to kill net neutrality, is asking for protection for American phone companies that illegally spied on Americans, and has not taken a stance against the fact that American internet companies are actively censoring our own internet (ahem...Comcast..I'm looking at you). And now, once again, our "leaders" have climbed up on their high horses and decided to tell the rest of the world (via our search engines) what they should and should not be allowed to do. In this case, what they should or shouldn't see on their internet.

I'm no fan of the kind of internet censorship practiced in China or North Korea or any other country. But I'm more incensed by the fact that our own internet is being censored and spied on yet we still want to tell other governments not to do the same thing. The last time I checked, China's government was the one that got to decide what Chinese citizens can and can't do, not ours. When the Chinese get fed up with their government and its decrees, they'll do something about it. Until then, it's perfectly legitimate for the Chinese authorities to ask American companies operating in their territorial boundaries to abide by their laws and their rules.

If China had an internet portal that sold drugs, hookers, and gambling services, do you really think the U.S. government would allow that to be used here? Hell no. So what makes it ok for us to block content but not other governments? This is why the rest of the world hates us.

And when 5 or 6 billion out of 7 billion don't like you, you should start to wonder if maybe it's you and not them.

As the song goes- "The ignorance is killing me; the violence and the greed. Hypocrisy don't mean a thing when you believe both sides of the story."

When history isn't history

2008-04-17T22:50:00.001-07:00

I'm fed up with the History Channel (now just called History, like they are the sole repository of such knowledge) putting on shows that have exactly as much to do with history as incontinence has to do with hamburgers. What the fuck is Monster Quest? A show about made up critters like Bigfoot and Yeti. Why not just make a show about the Boogey Man and the Tooth Fairy? Then there's the 50 shows about future animals. What the hell kind of rampant speculation is this? Let's make a show that has no basis in reality and allows us to show off our super expensive digital art studio. How is a show about the future even related to history? If you want to try to extrapolate the current political or economic climate out a few years, then sure, I'll bite. But making pretend animals that could possibly maybe conceivably exist in millions of years? Give me a fucking break. I don't have time for this. There's too much internet porn and YouTube videos of people getting hit in the nuts for me to spend time watching shows about people that spend their lives chasing mythical creatures. Next thing you know I'm going to have to watch a show about people taking infra-red cameras and searching for Hogwarts.

Speaking of thermal cameras, stop putting on shows about fucking ghosts. We get it...weird shit happens in your house. But every time something happens in some old sanitorium, I don't want to be subjected to some jack-ass setting up a thermal recorder and a tape recorder and trying to capture proof of a haunting. Every time there's a blip on the camera, we have to have a lengthy discussion about whether it's a cat, a rat, or a ghost. Every hot spot that shows up is possible fodder. The last time I checked, the presence of a ghost made people feel cold. So we should be looking for cold spots. And every skip on the tape recorder has to be analyzed in super slow playback. Since we've been doing this for decades and never caught so much as an OOOHHH or a clinking chain, let's stop putting this crap on the air.

The History Channel should stick to things with a connection to history. If they keep this crap up, I may have to start reading more and staring numbly at the tv less.

When did blogging become a career?

2008-04-13T22:33:00.000-07:00

I'm back from Oregon and am busily trying to clean the dog pee smell out of the carpet pad. At least the cat had the good graces to piss all over a blanket so we can just drop it in the washer. I also submitted some of my writing to the literary journal at UW Bothell. Sure, it's only a college publication, but at least I got off my duff and submitted something. Plus, if anything is accepted, I'll have some small sense of vindication. This campus prides itself on churning out good English and literature students and having faculty members with long publishing records. So it'd be nice to get my own work in there alongside theirs. We'll see. Like OSU, they'll probably pick the worst thing I sent for consideration.

I would like to say this though- just because I wrote some poems and have had some of them published doesn't make me a writer. I enjoy writing and have a fascination with words. I do it for myself. I don't get paid for my work. I haven't spent any time trying to get better at the craft of writing. And the odds of anything being posthumously recognized is about nil. So I'm not going to go around and call myself a writer. I think this goes for everyone else as well. Just because you took some pictures doesn't mean you're a photographer (except Marco, but that's because he's awesome). Just because you painted a picture doesn't make you an artist. And just because you have a sex tape doesn't make you a celebrity (at least it shouldn't...but it does make you a lot more popular). People get to be writers, photographers, artists, and porn stars for a reason...they believe in what they do, they are good at what they do, and they spend their lives dedicating themselves to their form of expression. It's not just a hobby. They work tirelessly at it. And they make it look easy, even though it isn't. Art is hard. So artists have to be harder. And my lazy poems and half-assed editing don't make the cut. But I like doing it anyway, so I'll keep it on my hobby list. It's a great way to beat the stress of real life.

Oh...and everyone should watch Human Footprint on the Science Channel. It's fairly impressive. It leaves some things to be desired, but is a pretty good picture of how the average American affects the planet.

The consequences of too much free time

2008-04-08T20:02:00.000-07:00

Hello from Bend. I'm in Oregon for four days to do "science" while hanging out at the ski resort. Life is rough. I had a question that came to me on the car ride down that I'd like to share with cyberspace: was it the advent of 24-hour news coverage that necessitated the word "analysis" being appended to every news item?

I have a major problem with most news "analysis". For starters, analysis implies that you had data, whether qualitative or quantitative, and that you spent time and effort looking at for trends, patterns, and possible links between different things. But "analysis" implies something more. Once you find a pattern or a possible cause-effect relationship, you then have to find some type of corroborating evidence to back up your interpretation and conclusions. Just saying "A causes B" doesn't mean anything. For example: unprotected dicks cause unwanted pregnancies. Sure, it makes sense and feels intuitive. But there's more to it. You have to have two people, both of them are involved in the act, there have to be no other contraceptives, etc. The point is, analysis implies that you went beyond your initial finding and can provide evidence to back up your claim.

Too much of the shit that shows up on tv as "analysis" is nothing more than unsubstantiated opinion. It may be presented with an analytic veneer and may even be spoken by someone with a fancy title. But that doesn't make it true. To be fair, much of the internet, including this site, is mostly opinion mixed with small amounts of qualitative analysis. But opinion should not be confused with analysis. Too often it is. Everyone has an opinion. They're cheap, plentiful, and often based on misconceptions, stereotypes, willful ignorance, and blatant disregard of competing evidence. Schools aren't teaching people HOW to think or critically analyze information. So even as the amount of information available expands exponentially, people are not equipped to separate the diamonds from the chaff.

Maybe just reporting the facts wasn't enough for news organizations. After all, that would mean people would have information and would be able to form their own opinions and characterizations of a situation. So now every story has to have some "analysis" to make it more "understandable" to the public. And in-depth story is one thing. A two minute news-bite is not enough time for both facts and analysis. One must suffer. Guess which one it is.

All of these 24 hour news channels need to shut the fuck up and knock it off. There aren't 24 hours worth of things to cover during the day. That's why CNN is on a 30 minute loop and Fox News spends more time having people yell at each other about topics nominally related to U.S. politics than telling us what is going on in the world. Stop degrading the word analysis. You're ruining it for people that actually analyze data.

Subsidizing is not the same as subsidence, even though people may use the words interchangeably

2008-03-25T20:10:00.000-07:00

This is a long one…you might want to get some popcorn and take a leak. This is my bumbling response to The Ambassador who brought up a very valid point about people who complain about “substandard housing” but offer no solutions. Here’s my analysis, mixed with some opinion and common sense:

The idea of "substandard housing" is broad. I would define a “substandard housing” situation as one that does not meet at least two of the following criteria: economically affordable (meaning, by the government definition, ~30-40% of yearly income), made from materials that are not toxic (asbestos, lead, etc.), not ostracized to the corners of cities and removed from the low-wage jobs the tenants would have, not located in areas adjacent to airports, rail yards, or other areas that these things are usually built in, are not socially stigmatized by people that don’t know any better claiming they are havens of drug abuse or domestic violence, and built according to basic safety codes.

I'm in full agreement with The Ambassador on removing slum lords and their ilk. But we can go further without the government running the housing market. We can leave housing a market commodity but still have substantial improvement. I don't think the government should be running the housing or even building the housing. But...they are already providing housing for middle class and rich Americans (via Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, VA loans, etc...). Why can't they provide money for low-income housing and home-ownership as well?

Just so you know: I'm not an advocate of government solutions. Government is a poor manager of money, efficiency, and time. And I will give no slack to people that are lazy, job the system, or do stupid things and then expect to be bailed out by government so they can then keep doing the same thing. People like that don’t deserve to get benefits because they never put into the pot. But, the majority of people, even the desperately poor, are hard-working and would rather work and be productive than be given hand outs.

Part of the government’s job is to provide funds for things that are 1) not affordable by a single entity (such as the military, space programs, etc.) and 2) are unlikely to be built by private parties because other people will get free use of them (roads, bridges, etc.). This is done by levying taxes on everyone. That way, everyone pays for them and everyone has a stake in them. (I admit this is an idealized situation, but these behaviors are included in many definitions of government).

In no particular order, the more obvious things to improve the situation are:

1) Direct federal funds earmarked ONLY for building affordable housing. By affordable, I mean small apartments for people making poverty level or lower wages that are consistent with my definition of what constitutes “standard housing” above. My definition of the poverty level is, admittedly, not the same as the government’s since the formula is fundamentally flawed. But that's a different story. These buildings would be run as businesses but with the possibility of subsidies during lean periods. If farmers, big oil, airlines, and banks can get subsidies, why not entrepreneurs interested in running apartment complexes for low-income people?

2) Enforce the laws we have now. This includes fair housing laws and basic building codes and safety standards. New laws are pointless unless the ones we have now are given a chance to work.

3) Be more equitable in services coverage. Poor areas tend to have fewer police stations, fire fighters, and emergency health services. This would make many areas that are now considered “substandard” into areas that are not. It’s not always the physical housing. Sometimes it’s just the condition of the neighborhood.

4) Stop spending money on political capital and start working on domestic human capital. Education is key. Good schools and good teachers would go a long way. Educated people are less likely to live in these areas or end up there as a result of low-wage jobs or poor “life choices” in the parlance of our times.

A large part of the problem is related to the more insidious and pervasive things. These also have to change:

1) Racism, ageism, sexism, and all other –isms related to discrimination. These things keep poor people huddled together, racially segregated, and reinforce the social settings that create substandard areas in the first place.

2) Social ostracism of people that live in poverty as well as the jobs they have (house workers, sales clerks, waitresses, etc.). These are not stupid people. They’re not lazy, selfish, or criminals. They are people that didn’t have opportunities we take for granted and often get caught in vicious economic, political, and social battles that are out of their control. These jobs also take a strong physical and mental toll on workers that is not recognized by the public at large.

3) We have to remove greed. CEO’s make millions, secretaries minimum wage. By taking a few less millions and raising the pay of secretaries to more than $7.75 an hour, companies would increase their public image, decrease turnover and absenteeism, and improve the lives of millions. In turn, the workers could afford to move out of decrepit housing and leave them empty to be bulldozed and turned into something more useful.

There’s a pattern above. Most of the solutions to “substandard housing” are not directly related to the physical abode. Most of them are social problems that reinforce bad conditions. We could build (monetarily) “affordable” houses until we’re blue in the face, but if people can’t afford houses because they’re buying food or medical care, or are constantly moving to different jobs, the issue is moot. I see the key factor being our mentality. This has to become a priority. Otherwise, we will spend time, money, and effort on other things. We have to be willing, as citizens, to help fellow citizens. We have to sacrifice a very small amount (relative to our total possessions) to provide much larger benefits to others. This idea of “win-loss” is part of the reason I don’t think we’ll ever solve this problem. People don’t want to help others if they think they will lose something (e.g. money by paying taxes). In the end, if you cut your standard of living by even 1%, you have the potential to increase someone else’s by many multiples of that. Personally, the fact that we are the richest nation in the world and still have tens of millions of citizens who live 4-5 people in a single room and STILL struggle to pay the rent is an outrage.

These are not easy problems to solve. Throwing money at cities and forcing them to build housing has been tried. The preferred solution has mostly been to ignore the problem. Neither has worked. My suggestions are meant to focus on the roots of WHY people are in situations that lead to substandard housing. We need to apply our money strategically. But mostly, we need to make this a community effort. We’re so far behind Europe when it comes to these types of things it makes my skin crawl. This country has done amazing things under pressure and has come together to accomplish them (WWII anyone?). Instead of being an issue of sacrifice, why don’t we make it a noble cause and a reason for American’s to actually be proud of America.

Little voting foo foo hopping through the voting booths

2008-03-21T22:46:00.000-07:00

How lame is your party and its platform if you have to go across the aisle and vote for the person you think is easiest to beat from the opposition? To me, all that makes you is 1) a douchebag, 2) insecure in your own beliefs, 3) more interested in winning than in issues and their solutions, 4) not interested in the American ideal of a fair election, and 5) a douchebag.

This article is pretty slanted against Republicans, but the idea goes both ways. The whole point of the primary is for each party to choose who will represent them in the national election and build the platform they will run on. Instead of busying yourself voting for Hillary because you think she’s more beatable than Obama or because you’d rather see her win in November if a Democrat wins, why don’t you take the time to examine your arguments and get ready to tell the voters why we should think the same way. I’ll summarize a few of them here:

1) We are at the beginning of a recession and your current poster boy won’t admit it. The fool doesn’t even know what the price of gas is. You might want to think about how you’ll get the economy moving. And no, lowering taxes is not an option. You can’t spend billions a day on oil, wars, and defense without bringing in an equal amount in revenue.
2) America’s image both abroad and at home is sinking lower than Eliot Spitzer’s hooker. What plan do you have to improve the situation without reverting to “China and Korea are worse than us” rhetoric?
3) Our bridges, roads, water treatment plants, power plants, weather satellites, and other infrastructure are rapidly deteriorating. You might want to decide how to get it back in working order.
4) There are millions of children, minorities, and women living in substandard housing, with substandard schools, and no end to their poverty in sight. Take a minute to figure out what should be done to help them.
5) You’re all about fighting “terrorists”, yet we are pouring resources into Iraq (which study after study has shown led to an INCREASE in terrorist activity) instead of attacking the roots of terrorism- poverty, unemployment, political and religious extremism, etc. How will you defend this to the public?

Don’t think I’m letting the Democrats off either. They do the same shit and it’s just as shameful and retarded. But Democratic aisle jumping appears to be a non-issue in this election since McCain has it wrapped up tighter than a jimmy hat. So I’m not going to hammer it in. Plus, I haven’t heard any of the left-wing Laura Ingrahams spouting this non-sense out loud yet. The Dems have their own issues seeing as they can’t even agree on how to follow their own party’s delegate nomination rules in Florida and Michigan. Anyone that crosses party lines to influence the other party’s nomination is a person that doesn’t trust their party to win on its merits. And that doesn’t say much about you or your party.

Lastly, in case you were wondering, no- this is not the same as vote swapping. We’ll deal with that on The Politicircus.

Republican wet dream

2008-03-18T19:11:00.000-07:00

I didn't realize it had been so long since I put something up. Hopefully someone is still checking in on this. Today, let's talk Ann Coulter. This is the woman all of these homophobic, anti-porn, anti-abortion white men go home and beat off to. She's made a career out of wearing little black cocktail dresses, stroking (haha...stroking) the egos of the right, and ruffling feathers on the left. And that's why she's possibly the greatest person in America right now.

Ann Coulter represents everything the rest of us think we stand for when we say we believe in free speech. She's not afraid to say anything and she has no shame. She's apparently the only one willing to even question some of the motives of the 9/11 survivor families. I'm not agreeing with her exactly. She lumps a very diverse group of people under one banner. And she could have been far more tactful. But it's something we were all thinking. She just had the balls to say it.

The next time you hear a democratic politician say they believe in free speech, ask them if that includes Ann Coulter. You won't get a straight yes. You'll get a lot of bullshit about how she's gone too far and doesn't love America. Whether you agree with her or not, you have to defend her right to say it. Otherwise, maybe a I question how much you love America. The best part of the whole situation is that she's busy defending a group of people that are working as hard as they can to take free speech away from her. And if you don't believe that, just take a look at who is responsible for the steep increase in censorship of TV, military blogging, and FOIA requests over the past five years.

Ann is in the entertainment business. She's a stripper dazzling the political right with anti-liberal speech instead of her tits. Although to be fair, she's not working real hard to keep those out of the spotlight either. She's no different than Rush Limbaugh, Howard Stern, or Sean Hannity. Her job is to sell books and airtime. No one in their right mind takes her seriously. She's not looking to deliver facts or thoughtful commentary. There is no analysis involved in her arguments. She's telling half of the people what they want to hear about the other half. She's intentionally pushing buttons to get a rise out of people and keep her face in the news. And if you really hang on her every word as if they in any way reflect reality, you're just as gullible as she's hoping you are.

Fresh fish!

2008-03-01T15:57:00.000-08:00

I’ve been thinking about doing a piece on some of the many reasons the U.S. prison system is messed up, but it appears that someone beat me to it. 1 out of 100 people in this country is in prison. What the fuck? I don’t believe for one second that Americans are more prone to crime than other people. We’re the richest nation on Earth. Why are we filling up our prisons instead of helping these people?

For starters, if you think about it, the idea of prison is kind of stupid. Essentially, you take all of the worst aspects of society- hard core drug use, violence, low self-esteem, poverty, racism, and straight-up ignorance- and put all those into one central location. Many prisoners are people that are already marginalized by society. Now we send them to a place where they can have all those ideas reinforced by being around other people that think and act the same way. And we wonder why prison doesn’t seem to work.

In this country we like to talk about how we believe in rehabilitating criminals. This is utter garbage. Rehabilitation involves intensive care including education, psychological treatment, counseling, personal attention, good role models, and the opportunity to put those treatments into action. The system, as designed and run now, does none of those things. Drug use is rampant in prisons. Guards are combative, fearful, and don’t have time to act like role models. Plus they have guns. Not exactly a friendly relationship. There is no psychological treatment or counseling. Education programs are under-funded or non-existent. In short, there is no rehabilitation. To top it all off, criminals are branded for life when they leave. They don’t get to start over. What they did will follow them until they die. And out in the rest of the world, we’re so paranoid of former inmates that they rarely get a chance to fit back into society. And we wonder why prison doesn’t seem to work.

I’m not saying that prison is all bad. There is a need to keep violent people away from the general public. But we’ve got people locked away for bullshit reasons. Rapists, murderers, multiple-offenders- these are the people that belong in prison. Not people getting 5-10 for drug possession. If we had fewer people in prison, the ones that are there might get the attention and treatment they need and deserve. I know you can’t rehabilitate everyone. But at least you could make an honest effort. More importantly, the “rehabilitation” should begin outside, before prison is even a possibility. Reducing poverty and racism, increasing education and employment opportunities, and getting young kids the help they need before they turn to gangs, guns, and crime would do far more good than waiting until they are already headed down that path.

Prisons would work better if they actually treated criminals equally. The ethnic and racial make-up of prisons does not match the overall population. More minorities end up in prison, even for the same crimes committed by whites. Embezzlement, insider-trading, and other white-collar crimes are treated less harshly and receive less prison time than crimes that are perceived as “minority” driven or more blue-collar - robbery, assault, or battery. You can’t tell me without some decent proof that if 70-aught percent of America is white, we shouldn’t see at least a similar percentage in prisons. I can understand minorities making up a slightly larger proportion in prison because they are more likely to be poor, uneducated, and have fewer opportunities to do something that earns them a decent wage. But when prisons show 80% minority populations, that points to something fucked up about the system that put them there. And we wonder why prison doesn’t work.

In the end, it all comes down to priorities. We have money to fritter on a trillion dollar witch-hunt for “terrorists”, we have money to build arsenals and nukes, we have money to buy statues of dead Americans and useless libraries for every president, but magically have no money to pay for schools, community programs, youth centers, or job training. We’ve got our priorities backward. We’re spending money to protect a perceived “way of life” when we should be spending money to increase our human capital and help our own people with tangible things like a livable income. We have to bring our protection of “America” (whatever that really means) in line with the realities of its citizens. Otherwise, we will continue to be the most incarcerated group of people on the planet. And that doesn’t appear to jive with either freedom or democracy.

You shake me and my confidence, about a great many things

2008-02-21T16:20:00.000-08:00

Hooray Blues Traveler. A poignant statement related to today's topic. It seems that Arlen Specter is busy making a jack-ass out of himself again. I watched his appearance a few days ago on Wolf Blitzer in which he said OUT LOUD that the destruction of the illegal New England Patriot's tapes was COMPARABLE TO the destruction of CIA tapes or the destruction of White House emails. That's the kind of stuff you should think to yourself, share a laugh with your buddies, and then go home and put in the file under D for "dumb-ass things to say”.

Arlen just compared (and found more lacking) the ethics of pro-football than our own government. Are you serious? He won’t demand answers of the CIA or the White House, but he will spend thousands upon thousands of tax-payer dollars to have private meetings and possibly government hearings about the NFL. In fact, he's so concerned about the fairness of the NFL that he has suggested he may seek cancellation of the NFL's anti-trust exemption. Whether he does or not isn't really the point. The point is he's already put time and energy into this that would be better spent carrying out the business of the country. We elected him (I didn't - Pennsylvania did) to deal with issues of governance and leadership, not be the football police.

This is a prime example of what government uses for cover to make it look like they’re useful. They’re not really doing anything. They’re not addressing any of the actual problems they were elected to deal with. Those problems are hard and don’t have cheap, fast, easy solutions. The NFL is easy. It’s a single target and everyone can agree that cheating is wrong (whether or not they actually practice that agreement). Steroids in baseball, cheating in football, and the hockey strike are NOT what we expect our politicians to be spending their time on. We have far more pressing matters like a shitty health care system, a trillion dollar war, and millions of kids living in poverty.

This is yet another reason why Americans are apathetic and disgusted with their government. How can you have confidence in a government that spends its time looking into every sports “scandal” that comes along but can’t seem to take the time to agree on its own ethics or answer straight questions about its own behavior? These people cover up their actions, lie (sorry, “hedge the truth”) to the public, do not apologize when they’re wrong (Iraqi WMDs anyone?), and constantly blame the other side for the same shit they just did. Maybe I’ll be a little more inclined to believe that government intervention is helpful in non-governmental situations when they can show that their own behavior matches their rhetoric.

Terri Schiavo isn't the only one who's brain-dead

2008-02-19T00:20:00.000-08:00

Let's talk about pro-lifers and Terri Schiavo. In case you live under a rock or think that the news is Satan, you'll remember she's the clinically brain-dead woman whose husband wanted to let her die and whose parents insisted she be kept on life support.

This case brought out the pro-life, every life is sacred, God loves life crowd. They spent months arguing that God demands we keep everyone alive. Letting Terri die would be a crime against God, Terri, and America. Apparently even letting a brain-dead woman die is an issue of patriotism. Essentially it was mass hysteria and making a medical decision tantamount to religious sin.

Here's the problem. The pro-lifers immediately assumed that God wanted Terri to live. But without very expensive, very sophisticated technology, she would die. In fact, in the most natural sense (no machines, no science, just Terri and God) Terri would have died months before she did. So it was a combination of biology, engineering, and chemistry that even allowed us the opportunity to keep her alive. In any previous era, she would have died and people would have said "God wanted it that way". Now that our science has progressed to a point that we can keep her alive (even if we don't know if she'll ever function again), apparently God says "let there be life". The point is that she was, without the technology, doomed to death. Millions of brain-dead people have died in the history of the human race. One more won't bring down the wrath of God. In fact, by your own argument, God wanted them to be brain-dead and die. Why would Terri be any different?

Of course, you can always argue that "God gave us the knowledge and equipment to keep her alive, therefore we should". This is an unprovable, untestable, and specious argument. In the end, Terri died because she was in a state that, without constant time, energy, and technological intervention, is ALWAYS fatal. Seems to me God really wanted her dead and we just kind of prolonged the process. We can argue about the sacredness of life or whether being a vegetable constitutes being alive all day long. That's a fine thing to discuss. But saying "God wants everyone to live" is a poor reason to keep a brain-dead woman on life support.

On top of all that, I would hazard to guess that most people can't afford that kind of treatment. Most types of insurance have lifetime caps. And when the money runs out in a hospital, so does your life support. So I would say that in many cases, even if people wanted to keep loved ones alive, they simply do not have access to the resources (monetary and otherwise) necessary to do so. Are all of these people sinners because of circumstance? No. And stop making it sound like they are. Go back to your magical book and your other crusades and leave the medical decisions to people who've spent their lives dedicated to its art and practice.

Hypocrisy? Wasn't he a Greek dude?

2008-02-16T22:20:00.000-08:00

This is why the rest of the world hates America: we are planning to shoot down a spy satellite that is falling out of orbit. That in and of itself isn't the problem. The problem is we just got done bitching and throwing hissy fits at China for doing EXACTLY THE SAME THING. The only difference here is: 1) we're letting people know ahead of time (although that changes exactly nothing about the consequences of the action) and 2) it's us and that makes it ok.

Our government is in the business of saying one thing and doing another (e.g. we're not torturing prisoners when they're actively water-boarding them, we're not spying on our own people while actively tapping phones, etc. etc. ad infinitum). It's also in the business of telling other countries what to do while we do the opposite (e.g. not making nuclear weapons while we design new ones, reducing carbon emissions while we increase our own, etc. etc. ad nauseam). And this is, among many other reasons, why the rest of the world would love nothing more than to see the bully on the block get its comeuppance. You cannot expect another sovereign government to not do something if you are actively doing the same thing. It makes you look like an asshole.

To add insult to injury, the US has offered to pay for any damage to other nation's satellites that may result from the destruction of ours. (I'm tired of every news story being some fucking video I have to watch and sit through commercials, so you
don't get a link). But the expense isn't the point. The point is we made a big stink about China doing it and now we're going to do the same thing. Whether we pay for it or not, we're still going to fill satellite orbits with extra debris when we know that orbital debris is already a major problem. This could easily be avoided by either 1) letting the fucker fall out of the sky (the original plan) or 2) take the next shuttle crew up, attach a rocket, and do a controlled crash into the ocean.

The argument for destruction is that it's a spy satellite, so we have to do it to protect "national secrets". I don't buy it. I might if this were the first such thing to happen during this particular administration and if we hadn't busted China's balls for it. But it's always a "national security" argument with this administration. And my chances of dying because of a breach of national security are the same as they were yesterday and last year: 0%. That makes this a specious argument. It's only advantage is that it can never be proven wrong and so will act as a cover for any other nation that legitimately asks why we're being two-faced about shooting down satellites.

Fuck this hypocrisy. I'm going to get a donut.

Belief Vs. Science: Round II

2008-02-08T20:03:00.001-08:00

Stop cherry-picking your science based on your religious beliefs. This is particularly true when discussing evolution, but also applies to astronomy and biology, to name two examples. Here's the way it often works:

Scientist 1: "Electrons flow through the wire and make your tv work"
Believer 1: "I like tv. Now I can watch EWTN"

Scientist 2: "Gravity is the invisible force that pulls masses toward each other"
Believer 2: "Oh good. Now I won't float away when I go to church"

Scientist 3: "Humans are animals and evolved from previous species and animals"
Believer 3: "BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH...GOD DID IT! GOD DID IT!"

I'm not saying that every religious person holds this view, which is, admittedly, a bit extreme. I'm talking about the most vocal and hence most advertised. These are the people that come out every time some new evidence is presented and scream about how we're destroying America with heathen beliefs. We all cherry pick to some extent since science is presented in a social setting and sometimes the evidence challenges our beliefs. But often those beliefs were based on assumptions that turned out to be bad.

Science is based on evidence and observations. After the evidence is studied, a theory is put forth to attempt to explain the observations. Theories are evaluated for consistency and the one that explains the most is the one used. When contrary evidence arises, the theory is revised or thrown out. But until a better theory or contrary evidence is presented, evolution stands as the best explanation of where we came from. It accounts for the observations and is consistent with what we observe both today and in the fossil record. The theory isn't perfect. But then again neither is the theory of gravity and we don't seem to have a problem with that.

It's true that saying "God did it" is a viable hypothesis. But since it can never be proven (by definition) it should not be presented as such. There is NO evidence you can bring that will show that God did or did not create humans. Therefore, your argument can never be validated and hence, cannot be considered scientific. So stop brining it into the science classroom and into the scientific discussion and literature. Keep it in the realm of philosophy where it properly belongs.

I'm of the opinion that if you want to cherry pick science to conform to your religious views rather than using your brain to look at the world in front of you, you're essentially saying "I'm not going to use the logical thought processes that God gave me." How is it that it's acceptable to understand electricity, magnetism, why the wind blows, how to build a house, and how babies are made but it's not ok to look at the past and understand where humans came from? Evolution in no way negates your religious views. Knowing that the universe started with a big bang should not effect your conviction that God set the wheels in motion. If your beliefs are so easily eroded by examining the natural world (that your God ostensibly created), then I could easily reach the conclusion that your beliefs weren't that strong or that accurate in the first place. We'll discuss this idea more in the final round tomorrow. For now, I want you to think about why some science is considered "good, moral science" and other science considered "inappropriate, atheist propaganda" when all science is an attempt to explain what we see around us and all science is based on observing what is happening right in front of you.

Belief Vs. Science: Round I

2008-02-07T20:26:00.000-08:00

No, we're not discussing the deity/no-deity hypothesis. Arguing about whether there's a supreme deity or not is kind of like arguing about whether or not John Edward can talk to the dead - it's a waste of time because you can't prove one way or the other. Although it's a great way to give your more gullible friends apoplexy.

Today's round is about that misunderstood and generally maligned topic GLO-BAL WAR-MING (for the pronunciation, just imagine I'm discussing the dreaded gum disease GIN-GI-VI-TIS). It's a popular pastime for people that don't know better (and some that do) to go on national television and say some shit like "I don't believe in global warming". Here's the problem: it's not a question of belief. Scientists aren't asking you to believe in the volcano god or that Gaia is pissed. There's nothing to believe or disbelieve. There's only evidence. By definition, a belief requires no evidence. Hence, there's no rational way to argue that there is or isn't a volcano god. Go Vulcan!

You can, of course, have different interpretations of evidence. But when all of the evidence is consistent with only one hypothesis, that hypothesis wins by default until a better one comes along or until contrary evidence shows up. So...does the evidence point to warming? Yes. Does the warming correspond almost one-for-one with increases in industrial activity and agriculture? Yes. Can the amount of warming be explained by natural processes (changes in sunlight, ocean circulation, Earth's orbit, volcanic acitivity)? No. Therefore, simple logic tells you we are responsible. Humans are the cause of the warming. There's nothing to believe. And so far, there is no explanation that has been put forward that is as consistent with the evidence. So stop bitching about it and start doing something to change it.

If you don't "believe" in global warming then I guess you don't believe in electricity, the ozone hole, or gravity (or as its known to those in the loop "God's magical fall-down formula" - wish I could take credit for that, but it's all Ben). So instead of spreading misinformation, pseudo-science, and poorly supported but loud and authoritative-sounding rhetoric, why don't you crawl back under your rock and let the people that want to face reality do so without you.

The word tragic is thrown around a lot today...

2008-02-04T22:50:00.000-08:00

Am I the only person that is tired of seeing the word tragedy used to describe situations that aren't tragic? It's like the word hero. Not everyone is a fucking hero. And not every car crash and cancer diagnosis is tragic. Let me see if I can help illuminate the difference.

When teenagers or college students get drunk and kill themselves or their friends in a collision, it's NOT TRAGIC. They fucking knew better. Every school teaches kids that drunk driving is stupid. Every school and every alert parent tells their kids never to get into a car with a person who's been drinking. So when they do it and end up dead it's not tragic. They were being stupid. And when you do stupid things, don't be surprised when stupid things happen.

When you build your house on the edge of a cliff overlooking the ocean and your house then falls into the ocean it's NOT TRAGIC. Are you retarded? The house has nowhere to go but over the edge. And you do not control the ocean or the weather. So whenever I see this on the news, I laugh.

When you smoke for 30 years and get lung cancer it's NOT TRAGIC. You're stupid. You have no one to blame but yourself and no one should feel bad for you. You knew the risk and you should accept the consequences. So don't come crying to the news station to do a story about your "tragic situation". Fuck you.

When a drunk driver kills OTHER drivers, that IS TRAGIC, particularly when that person walks away with no injuries. Those people were killed because of another person's idiocy, not their own. They had no control over the situation. So you empathize with them. This also applies to situations in which people kill or injure other people because they can't be bothered to slow down in fog, ice, snow, heavy rain, or any situation where common sense tells you to slow down.

When a natural disaster happens and you're too poor to afford to leave the area you're in (a la New Orleans) or live in an area that is too poor to have facilities for early warning (a la Indonesia 2004) IT'S TRAGIC. When the government then fails to help the affected citizens, IT'S TRAGIC. Notice the pattern. When you have control over your situation and choose to do something dumb, it's not tragic when you get fucked up. When you have no control over the situation and other people are responsible for what happens to you, I'll empathize with you.

As a last example, when your house burns because your Christmas tree caught on fire, it's NOT TRAGIC. Every year, there are more than 10,000 fires across this country on the three days from Dec. 24-26, a large number of them due to trees. That should tell you not to bring a dry, dead tree into your home and surround it with electrical wires. So I don't feel bad when your house burns down.

If people just used a modicum of common sense, there would be far less need to describe any situation as tragic in the first place.

If this doesn't offend you, you're not thinking hard enough

2008-01-19T01:40:00.000-08:00

It's time to start our own political action committee. We won't actually give money to candidates since they'll use it for their own nefarious purposes. But we'll bitch real loud, send form letters to representatives, and litigate like a mother fucker a la the RIAA.

I'm am sick and tired of commercials, advertising, and the insidious things that go along with them. I'm willing to put up some advertisements. They can be entertaining and, in extremely rare cases, informative. But I'm done. Fuck these people and the the cheap uninspired garbage they hawk. You can't get ripped abs working out 30 minutes a day. No matter how fortified your ice cream is, it's still fucking ice cream. And you can't clean with the power of oxygen. If you could, there would be no need for washing in the first place since we're surrounded by....drum roll please...OXYGEN!

Advertisements are pervasive. They're on tv, radio, magazines, newspapers, every internet page. There are advertisements for products whenever you call a company with a complaint about their other products. We have ads in schools, on clothes, and on sidewalks. There are ads on the fucking stripes between spaces in parking lots. Victoria's Secret should just start advertising on titties. And now here are in-game advertisements for computer and video games. I have to sit through 20 minutes of commercials at the movies. Up next are ads in every pdf document you view. As I type, search engines are compiling data on users to send targeted advertisements and giving that data to other businesses ("their affiliates") for advertising and data mining purposes. TV shows are now smashing the credits into the top 1/3 of the screen so they can run ads in the bottom 2/3. They've lopped nearly 3 minutes off of perfectly good shows to run more commercials. Give me my 3 minutes back asshole! It's enough to make you puke. But if I did, I bet I'd receive an ad for some miracle carpet cleaner that will not only clean my vomit but also wash the car, the cat, and leave both with a pine-fresh scent.

Ad companies, movie studies, and tv networks are working hard to remove the DVR feature that allows you to skip commercials. This means, in effect, that you are LEGALLY OBLIGATED TO WATCH COMMERCIALS. It would be ILLEGAL to fast-forward through them. Of course, you can leave the room. But how many people are going to do that? Not many. And that's what these companies are banking on. Preying on the stupidity of the average fool.

For those of you that want to argue on "personal responsibility" grounds, let me just say I agree with the principle but not the application. It's true that if you don't buy, they may advertise less. But you can't ignore the fact that people are gullible, easily manipulated, and easily fooled. Study after study shows that people, ESPECIALLY CHILDREN, are heavily influenced by the images and messages they are pelted with from ads (see the well referenced summary report at the bottom of this link ). If you say it's all on the people who are being fooled, it's tantamount to blaming the poor for being poor while denying them opportunities for better jobs and better education.

Why are people not up in arms about this? These companies are forcing their ads into your home, your time, and your kids' brains. They're using your personal habits to sell more junk and very often don't tell you they're doing it. But remember: it's not spying because we don't call it that.