Watch Howard Dean try and sit in for Rachel Maddow. He's so nervous, it's hilarious. Drier than Jim Lehrer and more uncomfortable than Bobby Jindal, it must be seen to be believed. He handles the interviews pretty well, but you can tell he's not really used to being the one asking the questions.

We used to be one of only two countries that said they would NEVER sign a treaty banning landmines. Now we're the only one.

We say that we can't sign it because of our obligations to our friends and allies, and yet they've all signed it too. Seen in the context of the escalation of war in Afghanistan, the revelation of PMC (private military contractors) activity in Pakistan, continuation of the f-22 program (even though we at least won't be building any more of them, they're still a worthless money-pit) and our quiet agreement with Russia that we would stop badgering the Russian Federation about human rights if they let us move forward on the European missile defense system... it makes one wonder about whether a president runs our military policy or if it's the military industrial complex.

This is terrible press for a country that should be leading the world in human rights and whose world standing is vital to our security. This is a ridiculous political and humanitarian blunder.

I think this is my favorite psalm because it is such a great example of the extreme vindictiveness of biblical justice.

Psalm 109:8 reads "May his days be few; may another take his place of leadership" so people have started printing bumper stickers that say, "pray for Obama, Psalm 109:8" but the instant you look at it's context, you should get chills.

109:9 "May his children be fatherless and his wife a widow" OMG!
109:10 "May his children be wandering beggars; may they be driven from their wandering home"
109:13 "May his descendants be cut off, their names blotted out from the next generation."

Apparently some people aren't aware of it's violent context and just think it's a fun way to say that you hope he gets voted out. But with so many high profile, main stream Republicans comparing Obama to genocidal dictators and describing liberals as vermin, I have a feeling that the rest of psalm is part of the message (and referencing the only non-violent part just a way to claim plausible deniability).

"Couch surfing" is a lot like staying at a friends house for a couple days. Ideally, it should be nearly identical. They should want to have you on their couch, and at the least you should be able to leave them with good enough standing that they'd be willing to have you back, so tips on couch surfing can be taken as tips on guest etiquette

Make your bed. More generally, leave your space the same as you found it, or better: I never made my bed when I was a kid and I never make my bed now, but when you're on a couch, usually in a space that is a common area, a tiny bit of mess goes a long way. Fold your blankets and place them in a neat or comfy arrangement, or stuff them behind your couch. If you have stuff with you and you have to move anything to make room for it, move the stuff back when you leave. If you eat something, throw away what you're done with. Never leave something out that can be put back to where you found it. Never leave a light on or cubbard open. Never let your host do a dish that you're responsible for; some pathologically nice people might insist that you leave your dish for them to do, but you endanger your situation every time they are inconvenienced in even the tiniest way. When you use the bathroom and you notice the toilette seat is down, then always put it down. If the shower curtain is closed, then always leave it closed. On dishes, the best thing to do is just rinse and reuse the same dish the whole time you're there.

On whether to go or stay: They like you enough to have you over, but when you stay you should be actively entertaining them, or you should leave. You should spend as little time there as possible unless you're helping in some way or "hanging out," because they will begin to get tired of you. With this in mind, you should be spending a good part of your day contacting friends and finding out if you can stay over a few nights. If you have 10 friends and you can stay at each one's house for a few days, then you could stay at a person's house just a few days a month and they may never have a problem. If you don't have friends, you should be hanging out at a coffee shop with friendly regulars so you can quickly make new friends, or volunteering somewhere. This also gives you the appearance that you are trying to improve your situation, which will harden your hosts from losing their patience. You want to leave for your next living arrangement early enough that it won't be long before your host wants you back.

You've played a video game before, right? You know those health bars above character's heads? Imagine that "patience" is a health bar, and it's almost always running out. Some money or helping with the groceries (food stamps are great) will keep the bar nearly full, but not every household will feel that this transforms you from guest or "couch surfer" status into "room mate" status. Large houses with a lot of people living in them might be happy to displace their rent by a few dollars or ecstatic to see their fridge cleaned and full of food, but smaller living situations will give the host the feeling that you're taking more space than you really are. And even with some kind of compensation, if you aren't careful, you won't be couch surfing anymore. You will be homeless, looking for an abandoned building to break into (which isn't so bad either).

ABC's reimagining of V is already falling short of the original early 1980's miniseries is already falling short. Maybe it's because ABC's show is a straight series and the original had more freedom as a miniseries, or maybe the creators of 4400 simply don't know how to tell a gripping story, but something feels very bad about the show.

After watching the pilot, I watched the first 30 minutes of the first part of the original miniseries (for the first time in 10 years), and despite the less believable acting that was just par for the course of 1980's TV, I already care more about these characters. The ABC show has nice special effects, but some shots in just that first part of the first episode of the old miniseries were so much more compelling. Like the opening scene at a resistance movement battle and subsequent hopeless helicopter chase where the main character is luckily saved by the arrival of the visitors, or the introduction of the anthropologist character where you see a fantastic shot of a city-sized flying saucer in the background of a closeup on the skull he was in the middle of unearthing. In the new show, we KNOW the visitors are evil because the main character is attacked by them -- in the old show, only spooky foreshadowing and gut feelings warn of darker things to come.

I'll give it a shot, I suppose, but so far I feel like I'm watching the "light" version. The only "re-imagined" aspect of this show so far is that they seem more advanced and have already infiltrated the government (yeah, and thanks for telling us in the pilot - what surprises are left?)

Maybe I'm just tired and grumpy.

The stimulus is working to prevent a catastrophic end to capitalism and keep certain businesses and industries limping along, but the consequence of a "jobless recovery," is that government will remain the driving economic force while the people will be unable to provide for themselves. Everyone who wants a job won't necessarily be able to find one so more people are going back to school. But unless there is a massive increase in demand for workers, a wave of graduates will create an "education glut" which will devalue existing positions.

This is more of an existential threat than Iraq or Afghanistan. Finding ourselves in a position where a more educated workforce is actually a bad thing is a terrible place to be and a monstrously inefficient use of manpower. Lassaiz Faire capitalism and leaving the market under the guidance of an "invisible hand" was great for growth in the last two centuries, but now it's failing humanity, morally and materially. We can not wait for the system to repair itself organically without massive "collateral damage" from which it could take a generation to recover.

Why can't the government begin a new public works program to repair our crumbling infrastructure and begin a new "great works" program to build monuments to human ingenuity? Deficit hawks will say that this is something we can't afford. The Washington Post goes a bit farther and describes the war in Afghanistan as a necessity while health care is a luxury we must wait for. But the "smoking gun" proof of mortal danger in the form of a mushroom cloud that the previous administration scared us with is here now, but in the form of economic disintegration rather than organized jihadism. Thousands of people die needlessly every year because they don't have access to the "for profit" health care system, our electrical grid fails when attacked to seasonal winds, and our railways are dangerously insufficient to meet freight demands.

At least a third of highway traffic comes from the shipping industry; we need to build more railroads so goods can be shipped more efficiently and the burden can be eased from our highways. A huge amount of our vital bridges are structurally deficient because repairs were deferred under the cost cutting Reagan administration; we need to invest in preventing future embarrassing, expensive, and lethal disasters. Our power grid is grossly inefficient, and insufficient at our rate of growth; we need more connections and a wider range of sustainable energy sources. There are countless small businesses being aborted by the cost of health care as many potential entrepreneurs would rather stay in their dead-end jobs than lose their current health care; universal health care or expanding Medicare to cover everyone would create an explosion of small business creation and allow people to spend in the market the money they otherwise would have to spend on treatment or medication. These are just a few of the things that the government can do to get people working, and it MUST do it because no one else can.

My first brush with network marketing was a friend of mine who tried to sell me knives. It didn't work to badly for him because he had a very large extended family, but once everyone in his family owned the delux set of knives he had to offer, he went back to selling drugs (where the big money is).

Now my girlfriend's old boss, whose old business was buying land from the elderly and selling it at inflated prices by misrepresenting it, is contacting me out of the blue and trying to get me into ACN. I had never heard of ACN before, in no small part because their own regulations prohibit marketing to anyone other than family and friends (which is why they call it network marketing.) So I looked it up: ACN repackages and rebrands products and services, like dial-up, dsl, voip, and a "revolutionary" video-phone featured in an episode of Celebrity Apprentice.

I know what you're thinking: "Donald Trump is a billionaire business celebrity, he must think ACN is a great opportunity if he endorses it!" and you're right. This guy that has made outrageous amounts of money in real estate should be trusted to give financial advice because he has a reputation for looking out for the 'little guy.' (sarcasm) He also endorsed Pizza Hut and McCain, who cares if he likes the revolutionary IRIS 3000 Video-phone. Who has one? ACN Independent Representatives, that's who. All the more reason to get your entire family to join ACN.

How do you make money when you buy local phone services and resell them? Well, you can inflate the price or you can charge your salesmen to work for you. ACN has been making money for 16 years by doing both! Beyond a licencing fee of $499 (including a $50 "kit" which is widely called worthless) there's a monthly $6 fee, and a $1 administrative fee, and none of this vital information comes up in the initial demonstration or can even be found on the website until you check the button that you have read the policy and procedures legalese and are ready to become an Independent Representative. It's true that you have to spend money to make money, but for 500 bucks I'd rather buy a bunch of pens and sell them downtown. At least then I'm getting 100% commission without having to rise up a bunch of ranks. At ACN, you get 1/4% commission and don't get 10% until you've recruited 6 or 7 layers of other Independent Representatives, which is where the real financial incentive is... which is why it's a pyramid scheme.

So this guy calls me and tells me to listen to a 3 minute presentation and call him back. Believing the best ideas are simple and that anything that requires listening to a 3 minute presentation can't be simple, I silently declined and went about my day. Then he emailed me a few times, so I finally decided to do the right thing and not be passive:

-----
Dear Sir,

I admire your tenacity. [My girlfriend's] mom has been kicking around business ideas for years and waiting for a "sure thing," but you jump at an opportunity with zeal and enthusiasm. I would be delighted to chat with you about other entrepreneurial possibilities that don't involve fishing for suckers. Otherwise, I wish you luck looking for people unable or unwilling to research ACN or the "revolutionary" videophone and yet with deep enough pockets to throw at gimmickery in this market.

In the meantime, please remove me from your spam list.

Respectfully
[me]

------

...well, it was a bit passive aggressive because I'm still bitter that he said bad stuff about me behind my back before ever having met me, but that's off topic.

Anyway, I was surprised when he called me back and talked to me for 26 minutes about how this was a great opportunity to make residual income, that they sell all kinds of products that people already need, and repeated the line, "I don't know what you're doing with your time, but..." to sort of drive home the idea that I would have nothing to lose with going to one of the seminars or chatting with him and a mysterious friend at a coffee shop. He also made a point to respond to my line about researching ACN, that I may have done some quick internet research but that wouldn't do it justice because it could have been misinformation by his competitors, to which I said that it is distressing when the only information to be found on ACN is glowing, enthusiastic, and damn-near cultish, or extremely discouraging descriptions of a pyramid scheme, and only ever something in the middle when the article is by someone who does not want to discourage a reader from multi-level-marketing in general.

Afterwards I did more digging. The first two articles are the best; arbyte draws mainly from their own texts of rules and regulations, while CrimesOfPersuasion goes in depth with the math and probabilities and much more.

http://www.crimes-of-persuasion.com/Crimes/Delivered/ACN/ACN%20MLM.htm
http://arbyte.us/blog_archive/2005/04/ACN_Pyramid_Scam.html
http://www.scam.com/showthread.php?t=14188
http://www.scam.com/showthread.php?t=37730
http://www.ripoffreport.com/Utility-Companies/ACN-Communications/acn-communications-ripoff-di-q8fca.htm#B9GF3
http://www.complaints.com/directory/2005/november/29/13.htm

(yeah, and of course I checked Wikipedia)

At first I was planning on sending him a more complete email about how I don't want anything to do with something that feels like a cult, that I don't want anything to do with sales unless it pays a serious commission (and doesn't have a 97% failure rate and the company only has access to less than 5% of market share), and I don't want anything to do with a business that is only barely on the legal side of a pyramid scheme, but I think I might just try and get free coffee and free pizza instead.

Unit cohesion was invoked when the question of racial integration was brought to the top military brass. How could maneuvers be expected to be carried out as planned while a target for burning hatred walked amongst our numbers, distracting with their differences? But when the order came, it was shown that the military is no stranger to following orders, and integration was quick and final. Integrating gays into the military would be different. It would be easier. While racial integration required breaking up all black units, all we have to do with our current issue is simply stop firing people who don't want to lie about having a same-sex relationship.

A recent study concluded that sexual orientation has no effect on unit cohesion, but research in the field of unit cohesion is not new and almost unanimously supports the fact that task cohesion is not necessarily effected by a slight decrease in social cohesion, and years of anecdotes already told us this. There have been many cases of people who were known to be gay and allowed to serve for years, soaking up expensive military training and proving themselves to be essential personnel, and sometimes their sexuality was even an "open secret" before there was a shift in their chain of command and someone decided that being willing to die for your country does not trump forbidden bedroom behavior. On top of everything, the don't ask don't tell policy disproportionately affects women in the military.

Regardless of your opinion on homosexuality, "don't ask, don't tell," is an expensive mistake that has no practical purpose and should be ended asap. Anyone who wants to be an instrument of imperialist foreign policy and die protecting corporate interests should have that right.

Went to a friend's birthday party. We got drunk quickly in order to cut the awkwardness and get down to conversation. Imbued with liquid courage, I apologized to Joe for being an ass to him when I met him some time ago. This got us talking about religion and morality.

See, when we met, just about the first thing he started talking about was how Islam is a religion of hate. This sort of thing makes me angry; like saying Democrats are socialist, what makes me angry is not that they aren't part of a bigger problem but that the problem isn't that they are socialists. To say Islam is a religion of hate and implying that Christianity is not is like saying the Republican party is the party of big money and implying that Democrats have taken a vow of poverty.

He, never having read more of the Koran than carefully chosen inflammatory excerpts, had an easy time believing that Islam is a religion of hate. Having read more of the Bible and deciding to put faith in it as the "true word," was willing to put examples of violence in the Christian tome in a greater context of peace. This is in part because his own sense of morality imbues him with a belief that peace, forgiveness, and justice are good and their opposites--war, spite, and injustice--are bad, so naturally the book he decided to describe as the pillar of his morality must reflect this.

So, as to be expected, God telling Abraham to kill his own son, killing everyone in a "great flood," condemning to hell everyone for all time because of an innocent and arbitrary "sin" and then "saving" them by torturing to death an innocent victim, all of it is full of meaning to the believer who has the opportunity to interpret these things in the best possible way. But anything of equal insanity to a non-believer, is simply insane. Job surviving being swallowed by a giant fish? Totally not crazy. God sending bears to maul children for making fun of a prophet's baldness? Totally not crazy. Is the command to Jihad so far from condemning to eternal damnation those who don't follow Christ? Especially when you decide to interpret scripture in a way that makes it ok to kill a non-believer, as was done to justify the crusades.

--

Matthew 10:21-22, 34-39

Brother will betray brother to death, and the father his child; children will turn against their parents and send them to their death. All will hate you for your allegiance to me; but the man who holds out to the end will be saved….You must not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. I have come to set a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, a son’s wife against her mother-in-law; and a man will find his enemies under his own roof. No man is worthy of me who cares more for father or mother than for me; no man is worthy of me who cares for son or daughter; no man is worthy of me who does not take up his cross and walks in my footsteps. By gaining his life a man will lose it; by losing his life for my sake, he will gain it.

(Luke 22:35-38, NRSV)

He said to them, ‘When I sent you out without a purse, bag or sandals, did you lack anything?’ They said, ‘No, not a thing.’ He said to them, ‘But now, the one who has a purse must take it, and likewise a bag. And the one who has no sword must sell his cloak and buy one. For I tell you, this scripture must be fulfilled in me, “And he was counted among the lawless”: and indeed what is written about me is being fulfilled.” They said, ‘Lord, look, here are two swords.’ He replied, ‘It is enough.’

--

That this mention of "two swords" was used to justify the violence of the Holy Roman Empire or that other parts of the bible were used to justify the United State's particularly violent brand of slavery, doesn't matter to the believer. They will still say that morality is impossible without religion. I say that morality is possible only in spite of religion. There may be a higher density of craziness in the Koran and it might be a longer stretch to explain away the violence, but implying that Islam is a religion of hate while Christianity is the religion of love simply speaks to the ridiculousness of elitist religions that sport gods with petty emotions like jealousy.

If we give people tax exemptions for marriage, how long before we give tax deductions for other aspects of family life, like children's allowances and family reunions? If the government begins subsidizing the family, won't we be near the end of a long march toward socialism? Won't we just be a breath away from death camps and a new holocaust?

I like to think of it as an extra slippery double-slope. Though you can argue that tax exemptions for marriage are an example of "social engineering" by incentivizing legal marriage, it'd be hard to imagine any argument for tax deductions for allowances or family reunions getting beyond the question of "why?" But even if the government were to take such an unprecedented interest in keeping extended families together (potentially boosting barbecue-related sales), would it really be socialism, a model that focuses more on the means of production being in the hands of the workers more than anything else? And finally, assuming some kind of "red tsunami" swept the nation and labor unions were controlling the government instead of corporations and mandating controlling shares of stock be given to all employees of their respective companies mean there would be a sudden genocidal effort?

It's the same kind of extreme argument used by the "birthers" turned "tea baggers" turned "deathers." Pointing to typically confusing legislative language as "hidden in plain site" proof that the government wants to kill your grandmother, the elderly-who've already followed the likes of Orly Tates, Sarah Palin and Newt Gingrich-have been convinced to bring signs to town hall meetings demanding (un-ironically) that the government keep its hands off medicare (because a government run health care system that would be an expansion of medicare would obviously have to siphon money from medicare for funding).

It would be hilarious if it wasn't so funny. Instead, it's better than hilarious. It's so funny, it's life changing. In the future, students will be required to read about this moment in order to attain government-mandated enlightenment.

"Read the bill!" they shout at non-believers, neglecting that it's still in various committees and there's hardly a bill to read. Combining provisions for "end of life counseling" (which in the past has been a bi-partisan effort but has now been removed as an attempt to placate the town-hall mobs), with suggestions that efficiency be incentivized in order to prevent overhead, they insist that the elderly will just be killed instead of given a prescription for cold medicine or something. Awesome. I'd be worried if the Department of Education released videos describing the elderly as "social parasites," instead of AM radio-hosts like Savage and Limbaugh using such language to describe and dehumanize liberals (just like before the genocide in Rawanda, and before every other genocide in history).

I guess I'm just an America-hating liberal. If I really loved America I'd want the government to be small enough it could be dragged into the bathroom and drowned and I'd draw Hitler mustaches on pictures of Obama.