Mind-vomit that's kid tested and mother approved

History is hilarious

2009-12-22T00:03:07Z

Corporate personhood is one of those quirks of history and politics that make me feel like there's no reason to read fiction anymore.

In 1886, the same year as the Haymarket Tradgedy and the Carrollton Massacre, California's Santa Clara County sued Southern Pacific Railroad over some fees and such. This case would have been forgotten among countless such boring cases, if not for J.C. Bancroft Davis. Former president of a railroad company and the court reporter for this case, he decided to record an offhand comment by the judge which has since been used to argue that the 14th Amendment, meant to give citizenship to freed slaves, also applies to corporations.

Fast forward to 1998, when two Fox News Channel investigative reporters in Florida tried to sue the "infotainment" megalith under whistle-blower laws, as they had been forced out of their jobs for refusing to present news they knew to be false. They won in the lower courts, but Fox appealed, saying "it is not technically illegal for a broadcaster to deliberately distort the news on television." Citing corporate personhood granted by the precedent created Bancroft Davis, the company asserted that they had a first amendment right to lie. Fox won.

Now there's a case that will be decided in January that will push corporate personhood even further. "At issue [in the case ofCitizens United v. Federal Election Commission]: whether corporations, as 'unnatural persons,' can make contributions to political campaigns." Surely, if they are people, then they have the same first amendment rights as people, yes? And though the strength of corporate personhood has waxed and waned through the years (in 2003, Nike settled rather than risk losing it's court case over false advertising), there's still plenty of precedent for the conservative-majority Supreme Court to work with.

We'll have to wait until 2010 (it's gonna be a great year) but there's a chance that there will be a tragically funny punchline for the joke Bancroft Davis wound up over 100 years ago. The Houston branch of the Bin Laden Construction company could bankroll a candidate to run against a candidate sponsored by Frito-Lay and Yum! Foods. As legal persons, corporations could skip the middle man and run for office themselves (as long as they were "born" in the U.S. and are over 45. I guess I'd vote for Ford over Bechtel).

Crazy world we live in.

For a hilarious trainwreck;

2009-11-26T00:35:01Z

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.

Even Somalia is doing it.

2009-11-25T23:39:32Z

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.

Psalm 109

2009-11-19T18:29:58Z

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).

When you're almost homeless

2009-11-19T01:25:42Z

"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

2009-11-08T12:15:04Z

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.

Full Employment Now

2009-11-08T03:53:21Z

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.

ACN and network marketing

2009-11-06T03:48:47Z

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.

If we have to have a military, lets not kick people out of it for dumb reasons

2009-10-16T03:55:36Z

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.

Religion

2009-09-22T17:59:16Z

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.

Fun with Slippery Slopes

2009-09-11T18:13:54Z

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.

Top Healthcare Champion

2009-08-28T21:54:46Z

Rep. Anthony Weiner is leading the fight for real healthcare reform more than anyone els of the field. Hell, he went into Scarborough country and changed Joe's mind, and you can watch it in "real time," as Joe is rendered "speechless" (is it really speechlessness if you can still say "I'm speechless!"?)

He's so cogent and his arguments so well articulated, I was on the verge of predicting a meteoric rise in politics, especially considering his wide exposure in the media right now and our nation's demographic shift to the left. But aside from his position on healthcare, he doesn't seem "left" enough for the liberalizing trend with the democratic base, though perhaps "centrist" enough for a national campaign.

His message, and the argument for single payer healthcare in general, is that we already have a couple government run health care programs that work wonderfully and suffer from 3% overhead compared to 20% overhead of insurance companies. The very fact that the angry right-wing town-hallers can be heard shouting "keep the government out of Medicare!" communicates that people like Medicare and consider it a successful program, even if they aren't aware that it is government run "socialized" medicine.

Comcast interrupts a conversation about political philosophy basics

2009-06-28T21:37:48Z

or, Pertaining to a conversation about political philosophy basics, interrupted by a Comcast service interruption

In a strictly unpolitical setting, one of my many online acquaintances recently said something without warning that spurred a fun dialog that we were forced to carry on in private; "OBAMA HAS SPENT MORE IN THE FIRST THREE MONTHS OF HIS PRESIDENCY THAN ALL OTHER PRESIDENTS COMBINED!"
This at once sounded outrageous and impossible to me and a few other people, and not just because of some level of liberal, Democratic, or Obama bias. I asked him to cite a source, and he said simply "public documents." I told him that this was sort of like citing "books" as a source, but he stood by his statement. I take this kind of thing as a challenge since this kind of disagreement, contention over a fact that should be cleared up with a bit of research, is a great opportunity to educate myself or my "opponent."

I tried searching for the original claim, assuming that some conservative columnist or personality was behind perhaps an earlier form of the statement. Strangely, I could only find it on message boards and "crowd sourcing" question/answer services like wikianswers, askyahoo, and whatever, and none of them pointed to an original source (which leads me to believe that it originated from an emailed chain letter or something).
Then I looked up the CBO and historical US Treasury documents, which of course showed how ridiculous the claim was, that the deficit left by G. W. Bush was a few billion under 11 trillion and that the current deficit is a few billion over 11 trillion. I tried to look further at what similar claim could be made that could, with the telephone effect, have become the one that began my research, but could not. The closest I could come was a few graphs that did not look like they used adjusted dollars that compared projected deficits to GWB's deficits. As always, if anyone has any other information on this subject, I'd be delighted to hear it.

So I gave him my report, but first I told him my position: all politicians, anyone who holds or seeks power, should be distrusted and held accountable, but attacking them with incorrect information is more helpful to other corrupt politicians than the common good. My acquaintance had another beef with Obama, that he was "cutting defense spending during a time of war," another weird conservative myth which a bit of research revealed was not true, that Obama's slight increase in defense spending is one of the campaign promises that he kept. He was pretty sure that this wasn't true, but I could provide sources while he could only barely remember hearing something on TV. I attributed his confusion on this issue to the retirement of some programs meant to fight massive conventional wars with military equals, like a united Russia and China (with the addition of alien technology or something). The only specific example I could think of was an increase in small arms purchases offset by the decision to not purchase any more F-117s, which have never been needed anyway [NOTE: I looked this up, and it looks like I was thinking of the F-22 which, pending congressional approval, will leave us with "only" 187]. The point, which I didn't get to explain to him, is that our military was organized to fight wars that are not expected and probably won't ever happen, while it is not organized for the types of wars we are fighting and expect to fight. I also would have made the case that the reason why he was hearing complaints from politicians about the decision to not order more of these was because it will cost some manufacturing jobs in their states and cost them some kickbacks from weapons-industry contractors, so to push back they would try to frame their complaint as Obama being soft on defense.

At this point, after soundly (I think) making the case that the budget has been increased but also funds have been redistributed to recast the military to handle many smaller situations instead of a giant 2-front war with the USSR ("you do know the USSR doesn't exist anymore, right?" "Uh, yeah, that's why it's better to retool to fight the enemies we have instead of the enemy we don't"), I threw him my curveball; "so Obama has definitely not decreased military spending, but he SHOULD cut it in half" to which his response was, "... you don't care about keeping our country safe?" and just before I was disconnected by Comcast (which later denied any service problems and said they would charge 50 bucks if they sent someone to fix it and they didn't find the problem) he said something about how China has enough people to march over us and that their technology is improving.

That's where we get to a fundamental difference between liberal and conservative assumptions, and a really interesting conversation COULD have begun.

The question I wish I had been able to ask was, how safe is someone who has a gun? Provided this person is adequately trained in gun use and gun safety, they're certainly safer in certain specific situations, like maybe in a battle, a bank robbery, a shooting spree, or an attempted rape. But simply having the gun does't necessarily make even a highly trained person safe in these situations, and absolutely does not make them safe in many other more common situations: avoiding high crime areas especially at night, installing security systems on your house, and not being an asshole so your family or neighbors don't kill you are all things that would be far more effective at keeping you alive by preventing life-threatening situations than a gun might be at keeping you safe DURING such situations.

So it is that the liberal will cite a positive reputation around the world and active economic participation as a greater deterrent against state aggression than military power, and in fact, the sheer size of our military (and our nuclear arsenal), coupled with our willingness (eagerness?) throughout recent history to use this force actually emboldens politicians around the world that ride to power on the idea that the U.S. is a dangerous empire. Meanwhile, a conservative will follow the refrain called out since the rise of Mao, that being "soft" was the cause, and that liberals were too soft on communism, soft on terrorism, and soft on defense -- so opposed are they to "soft power" that conservative voices have said "liberals want the enemy to win."

I would have laughed at the idea of a Chinese military invasion, and was preparing to say that nearly every tactician from Sun Tzu and on have said that the worst position for a rational state acting in its own interests is to begin a long and sticky occupation and that China (like North Korea) is too busy ensuring domestic stability through the constant pressure of oppression to survive a long term foreign entanglement and would never attack such an important economic partner. Walmart and the world economy have far more to do with normalization and stability of U.S.-Sino relations than the F-117, F-22, or military capacity in general. Hell, we have Latin America and China has Tibet, all governments are probably evil, but we didn't conquer Russia when Moscow was crippled with confusion by the collapse of the USSR, nor would China suddenly develop a taste for world conquest if we stop buying any more stealth-bombers, nuclear submarines, and amphibious assault tanks.

If we really want safety, we should pursue universal nuclear de-armament, reduce military spending, reassure the world that we would prefer to speak softly and carry a stick (instead of yelling and hitting people with a giant stick), and act as a consistent moral example to follow in foreign and domestic policies.

The Dr. King quote was awesome, though.

2009-06-25T04:33:28Z

Best part of yesterday's press conference (barring the hilarity of how craptastic some of the questions are, like "as a former smoker myself, can you tell us how much you smoke?" or whatever) was riiiiight before the end. It went something like this (well, kindof exactly; this is the official transcript after all)

POTUS: All right. Last question. Suzanne.

Q: Thank you. Back to Iran, putting a human face on this. Over the weekend, we saw a shocking video of this woman, Neda, who had been shot in the chest and bled to death. Have you seen this video?

THE PRESIDENT: I have.

Q: What's your reaction?

THE PRESIDENT: It's heartbreaking. It's heartbreaking. And I think that anybody who sees it knows that there's something fundamentally unjust about that.

Q: We also have people on the ground who have been saying that the streets are quieter now and that is because they feel that they're paralyzed by fear -- fear of people gone missing, fear of violence, that perhaps this is a movement that's gone underground or perhaps is dying. Do you have any concern over that?

THE PRESIDENT: Yes. I have concern about how peaceful demonstrators and people who want their votes counted may be stifled from expressing those concerns. I think, as I said before, there are certain international norms of freedom of speech, freedom of expression --

Q: Then why won't you allow the photos --

THE PRESIDENT: Hold on a second, Helen. That's a different question. (Laughter.) And I think it's important for us to make sure that we let the Iranian people know that we are watching what's happening, that they are not alone in this process. Ultimately, though, what's going to be most important is what happens in Iran. And we've all been struck by the courage of people. And I mentioned this I think in a statement that I made a couple of days ago. Some of you who had been covering my campaigns know this is one of my favorite expressions, was Dr. King's expression that "the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice." We have to believe that ultimately justice will prevail.

All right. Thank you, guys. [Exit stage right]

A hailstorm of big dumb snowballs that Obama danced right through, and then Helen Thomas was like "you ready to play hardball?" and POTUS was like "I'm outta here!" In case you're still reading but you didn't catch what happened there, Helen was ABOUT to ask Obama about the torture photos which, Republicans and Obama agree, should not be released to the public because it would be a recruiting tool for the enemy. Though it could be a subject worth holding up to show that he's willing to work with Republicans and make concessions while the other side of the aisle only fights with him, he recognizes that it's toxic with liberals and libertarians that firmly believe that censorship is the enemy of Democracy and transparency, however egregious, is necessary to foment repercussions, the bedrock of any nation of laws.

"Morning Joe, brewed hot by Starbucks"

2009-06-24T19:31:36Z

As a Liberal, I have to check in with the Daily Show for my talking points, Monday through Thursday. A week or so ago there were a few episodes outlining an inter-show dispute between John Stewart and the people at The Morning Joe over Scarborough and Co.'s agreement to be sponsored by Starbucks. Joe and Mika took issue with what John was insinuating and said that they were just joking and being sarcastic. Since I'm sensitive to the idea that I can be wrong, that I live in a bubble, and that I may unknowingly suffer from confirmation bias, I decided to withhold judgement and not accept John Stewart's word on this issue, but I actually watched a segment of their show (a fun argument with Chris Mathews over health care) and a Starbucks plug is actually their freaking catchphrase!

"Morning Joe, brewed hot by Starbucks." WTF! I thought J. Stewart was just joking, saying that to make fun of their asskissy interview with the Starbucks CEO and the glowing way they talked about the product, but they actually say that? I know it's commercial TV and sponsorship is the way commercial TV has worked since TV was called radio, but damn... they might as well wear the Starbucks logo on their jackets.

Maybe it's all the more troubling after learning about the life and times of I. F. Stone. Stone wouldn't have put a tagline on his commentary like that, he wouldn't be like "This muckraking rag brewed good to the last drop by Folders!" I guess the difference is that he was an actual newsman and the Morning Joe is a hot bucket of opinion, but they present themselves as a serious, moderate, rational, and thoughtfull while they are anything but. They're just one of the many dangerous voices that sculpt the mainstream political opinion.

Who's the greatest Canadian?

2009-06-16T02:53:57Z

Back in 2004, CBC did a nationwide poll to find out who was the greatest Canadian of all time. It looks like it was kind-of a big deal, carried out in a style similar to American Idol and with a similar level of popularity. And who won? Tommy Douglas, the father of Canadian government health care. So for all the arguments against such a healthcare system, that it means there will be impossibly long waits for care, that it wouldn't be good enough, or that it would send us down a slippery slope of Stalinistic government, is all AMA insurance company lobbyist bullshit.

That is all

Pixar's _Up_ is the best movie of the year so far

2009-06-09T08:07:36Z

Pixar's Up is the best movie of the year so far, and if not for the unusually exciting titles I know are in the pipeline (like District-9!) I would wager it will be the best movie of the year.

Knowing that the most successful kids movies are the ones parents won't mind seeing again, and perhaps they suspect that being bearable to adults mean kids will like continue to like them as they get older, Pixar has been banking on this more inclusive model. With huge successes in this movie making strategy like The Incredibles and Wall-E, Pixar seems unique to me in that it is a studio with a name that is synonymous with quality films that will not sacrifice wit and grace for slapstick humor and easy plots (full disclosure, I haven't see the toy-commercial that is Cars. What's even greater is that they don't have to do this since the movies are such works of art that people would still see it just to see the product of new computer graphics technologies.

So I'll say it again. This is not a kids movie, but a movie that kids will also enjoy. This movie tackles pride, greed, death, despair, fear, obsession and ageism in a genuinely deep way with a small ensemble of characters who are more unlikely than usual, but never decides to go too far and hit you with an obvious message that screams "I'm a smart movie! I'm a movie about issues! Marvel at this philosophy reference!" No; though this movie's speeches are still accessible, they aren't verbal, they just are.

Cognitive Dissonance and Organized, Systematic, and Institutionalized Disregard for Law or Decency

2009-06-03T21:25:40Z

One of the things that I don't understand about the Modern Conservative ideology is their position on Modern Liberalism. In the same book or even the same breath, a liberal will be insulted for insisting that the government is the solution to every problem and should be given limitless power as a "socialist nanny state," and then bemoan a "blame the government first" attitude. I suppose this is close to the inverse of another confusing Modern Conservative position, that government should be small enough to be drowned in a bathtub but large enough to fight endless multi-front wars, maintain a "community" of intelligence agencies, and keep the largest prison system in the world to count our successes in the drug war.

It makes it difficult to find a foothold from which to begin a real dialog. Reagan said that "the most terrifying nine words in the English language are; I'm from the government and I'm here to help," so he established himself as the white-hat hero who would save us from Government, which is maybe why they trust Reagan even though he insisted you can't trust government. Maybe that's why things like the Iran Contra scandal, among conservatives, falls somewhere on a scale between "much ado about nothing" and a "necessary act in the interest of collective defense."

With the consent of Congress, Harry Truman placed the U.S. under the jurisdiction of International Court of Justice, and the Senate added the stipulation that we could only temporarily rescind the ICJ's jurisdiction 6 months in advance. This 6 month addition was designed to prevent the U.S. from deciding it couldn't be prosecuted if it did something it knew was wrong, which is exactly what happened in Nicaragua v United States on April 6, 1984 (my second birthday!). This was a violation of constitutional law because it usurped the Senate's authority over international treaties. But that's just the tamest example of executive power crushing the spirit of the constitution's separation of powers.

In order to overthrow the Sandinista government, which had itself overthrown the ruthless Somoza dynasty, the U.S. recruited what had been a disparate group of "counter-revolutionaries" who were dissatisfied with the Sandinistas for one reason or another. With some help from Argentina's intelligence service, the Contras were consolidated, centralized, trained, given money and weapons, and even an airstrip in Honduras from which to carry out long range bombings. Since congress blocked this proposed action, this secret war needed an alternative source of funding, which came partially from cocaine sales to the CIA and primarily from weapons sold to Israel as a reimbursement for weapons Israel gave to Iranian moderates (in order to bypass a U.S. trade embargo) in order to fuel the Iran-Iraq war and in order to buy the release of hostages.

I think a big difference between the foreign policy stances of modern conservatism and liberalism comes from the Vietnam War: the Liberal will say the lesson we learned is that we should not enter into unnecessary wars and we lost because we were too ruthless and did not have political support of the people, while the Conservative will say we lost because we didn't fight hard enough and shouldn't have left. If you believe we only lost Vietnam because we left and we only left because of Hippies, Woodstock, and The Weather Underground, then I supposed using domestic propaganda (essentially illegal under the Smith-Mundt act of 1948) under the guise of "white propaganda" to build support for war in Nicaragua is only reasonable, and the foundation of the Office of Public Diplomacy is the natural result.

The OPD was openly run by a fanatically anti-Castro Cuban-American and secretly reported directly to Oliver North, Reagan's National Security Council aide. It used stratagem that had been employed by intelligence agencies in previous successful regime-changes, but with a softer goal of aggressively manipulating public opinion to go to war with Nicaragua. Mirroring the overthrow of Mossedegh in Iran, the OPD manipulated the media, handed to journalists reports of MiG jets or chemical weapons being delivered that cited "unnamed intelligence officials" and were eventually revealed as hoaxes. These reports would be the focus of OPD drafted op-ed pieces and were cited by other organizations in favor of war in Nicaragua as a Cold War battle, like The Young Republicans. Public opinion in favor of war was building, and it probably would have happened if not for a few mistakes, like Oliver North's secretary accidentally transposing a couple digits in his Swiss Bank Account Number, thus wiring 10 million USD to a random guy.

All this insanity is in the public record, and is behind a lot of the pardons at the end of (then VP) Bush 41's presidency. This is also the sort of thing that will get a liberal thinking that the CIA is rarely up to any good and to distrust actions that result in an expansion of executive power or expansion of the role of the U.S. military in foreign affairs. To say someone who knows even just about this historical episode simply "hates America," is outrageous. It takes serious cognitive dissonance to read history and trust that anything the CIA does is legal.

So now Pelosi is saying the CIA lied to her, and some people are offended. It's true that she's a politician, but I'd say it's just as likely that the CIA is lying as a politician.

Everyone's doing it.

2009-06-01T21:26:21Z

When Christopher Hitchens did it, it was hard core. He had big military guys in masks, whose identities he'd agreed to keep secret, and he was bound and hooded; he lasted 2 seconds, and decided that waterboarding actually was torture. Hitchens is always serious, and for as big-headed as he is, I doubt he does much half way. On the other hand, Mancow is a radio blowhard I'd never heard of until now with a soft core version in which he lasts 6 seconds.

Anyway, they are both conservatives who support the War on Terror and didn't consider waterboarding to be torture, but changed their minds after experiencing "simulated drowning." Sean Hannity insists waterboarding isn't torture and said he would do it to prove it isn't, but hasn't. We can draw our own conclusions from that

Free Speech

2009-06-01T18:58:26Z

I don't know what's going on with a lot of people, but there seems to be some confusion as to what "freedom of speech" means.

I don't remember the situation, but there was some Obama rally or something, and some "anyone but Obama" Clinton supporters started yelling about something and she was overwhelmingly booed and shouted down. Later someone commented "so much for the party of free speech," as if this was somehow a violation of her rights. Seriously, it would be one thing if she was put in prison, but she was at a private event - it would be like bringing a boom box to a theater production and deciding to listen to Metallica during Shakespeare: the people are there to listen to Shakespeare, not Metallica, and they would be well within their rights to expect a security guard to throw you out.

More recently, I heard that the disgusting energy drink (and I'm pretty sure that's redundant) Rockstar is owned and operated by the wife and son of right-wing AM talk-radio host Michael Savage. This information understandably prompted a boycott of Rockstar because of Savage's numerous inflammatory comments, like that everyone who's gay should get AIDS and die or that women who feed the homeless should just get raped or that 100 million Muslims should die. Some have responded to this, again, by complaining that liberals don't respect freedom of speech. The irony, of course, is that a boycott is protected by the first amendment as "political activity."

Not that any of this is important or noteworthy... it just strikes me that the more a person supports conservative activists, the less likely it is that they've actually read the constitution.

Covering for the damage I've done to the movie industry

2009-05-20T03:10:27Z

It's bad. Really bad. I pirated some movies.
First it started with movies that aren't available in the U.S. Then it was just the slightly hard to find stuff. Now it's any movie that I haven't seen. I'd still like to own some of the great movies I've seen lately, but I'd rather see them now than wait until I have 20 bucks to throw at a luxury item other than beer.
So if you like off beat movies far from the main stream with a dark twist and sharp story, I highly suggest you see these. Maybe you'll buy one and make up for my stealing.

Kin Dza Dza

   A really awesome low budget sci-fi from mid-80's Russia. It's said that the movie only made it past censorship because the director was the most famous Russian film maker of the day, and given the depth of social commentary mixed with a splash of uncommonly appropriate slapstick humor, it's amazing that this movie exists at all. Aside from a few scenes, the whole thing was filmed in the desert (think Dune) and almost all the props were scavenged from abandoned missile silos. The sparseness of the movie allows you to focus on the desperation of the main characters as they navigate the subjective ridiculousness of Pluk society.
   The story is that two random, every day soviets are walking down the street when they suddenly find themselves on the planet Pluk in the Kin Dza Dza galaxy, where the verbal language consists of almost just one word (they must prefer telepathy), they've turned all their water into fuel (so if you want water you have to get it converted back), they have the technology to instantly go almost anywhere in the universe, and match-heads are like gold. We follow our heroes as they try to make it back home, making things more difficult as they try and take part in the ruthless bargaining style of Pluk.

Primer

   This has got to be my favorite time travel movie of all time. It's another low budget experience (shot for $7,000), but again it was done right, using that "less is more" to an extreme degree. There's even less explanation, which makes everything infinitely more believable. For the first 30 minutes, we catch glimpses of engineers at work, snippets of conversations and flashes of stress, and none of it makes sense. Some people don't like this, but I've always enjoyed watching people work, and you really feel like this is real. The fact that they don't dumb anything down makes it feel like there was a hidden camera in an actual garage-based company. What is it they're building? Well, whatever it was they were trying to build, it ends up being a time machine.
   Then begins all the confusion that time travel probably would bring. What happens if they alter the timeline or talk to one of themselves? What will they do with this amazing discovery? And will they need to try and undo it? If you don't mind a spoiler, take a quick look at this chart that illustrates the chaos they create.

The Machinist

   A psychological thriller in the vein of Fight Club, with the darkness and strange distance that comes with a cinematic depiction of sleep deprivation. When Kathleen and I first saw Christian Bale in this movie as the lead, we both were sure that there was some CG going on and then both groaned in discomfort as we realized that it was real: the dude was CRAZY skinny, and we read later that Bale lost 60 pounds for the role.
   The whole movie was like liquid discomfort, really carrying that creepy feeling you get from looking at a skelletonized person. The audience follows him in his decent into paranoia and we really don't have a clue what's really going on as he scrambles from disaster to accident, until the final revealing twist.

Ravenous

   Guy Pierce plays a union officer in the Mexican-American war who freaked out during a gruesome battle and decided to just pretend to be dead. Though he was able to capture the enemy command because he was thrown into a cart of bodies to be buried later and forgotten, his commander knew that Pierce was a coward and assigned him to a distant camp in the California mountains. This is all explained in the first minute, using excellent editing to tell this back story and foreshadow the cannibalistic developments later.
   Once at the camp and introductions are out of the way, evil stuff happens and everyone dies.
   Some people call it a vampire movie, but it certainly isn't the classic vampire on display here. You get the feeling, probably just because of the antagonist's monologue while trying to recruit the protagonist, that this is somehow a metaphor for the "manifest destiny" that consumed the Americas, conquered hundreds of indigenous nations, and sucked the marrow from the earth. But really it's just fight between good and evil in a compellingly unique format.

Supply-side globalization

2009-04-30T05:19:27Z

People on my side of the economic spectrum have a strong distrust of everything "globalization," so I try and compensate for that bias. Still, I can't get over the fact that a global economy will not follow the same rules of a local economy, and the repercussions of moving an industry to another country are far different from moving to another city or just across town, especially since you can't just hop on a bus and go to China. Sometimes, retraining is just as likely.

So, say a plant in the U.S. closes and moves to Vietnam so they can make their product for cheaper. Even if the company lowers the price of their product to be more competitive, it won't be proportionate with their savings, so they're bound to get a healthy profit. However, as more companies follow suit and move to places where they can pay 12 dollars a day or 1.2 cents a unit (without benefits, obviously), the U.S. loses its ability to buy the goods the company produces. After all, running shoes aren't exactly the "Field of Dreams;" "if you build it, they will come" is not a long term business model. So, as jobs siphon off to countries where they are payed so little that they couldn't possibly afford the products, former consumers are left dependent on initiative, family, good fortune, and the state, unable to consume their favorite luxury goods.

Though I should avoid implying that I think they work against their best interest, since it depends on their interests, which is something I can't possibly know. Does the constant pursuit of higher quarterly profit margins prevent companies from looking into long term systemic repercussions? Or does that aspect of our capitalistic system prevent them from CARING, (since, if you can make a hundred million dollars right now, it doesn't matter what happens later)? Or perhaps it just doesn't matter, since "risk has been socialized" and mega-corporations never have to worry about the things that mortals do, like bankruptcy or death, since the State will always save them.

Military Industrial Complex Confronts the Peace Candidate

2009-04-08T23:13:29Z

So what happened? When we peal back the pageantry of business as usual of Democrats cheering the roll-back of military spending and Republicans screaming that incontestable military superiority is the only thing preventing the End of America, we see that nothing is really changing. The headlines sing about the slow dismantling of the military industrial complex, but can an industry where a single product has parts made in 48 states die when 96 senators will fight to keep those jobs alive? So I wonder at what point does the person assumed to be the "peace candidate" go from a pledge of a lobbyist-free government to making an exception for a Raytheon top dog in a DoD top spot? At least the other exceptions were lobbyists for better veteran care or workers rights.

I imagine something like that famous scene in Network. The candidate gets ahead in the primaries by having opposed the war from the start (excluding the "not ready for primetime" candidates) and understands Eisenhower's warning that "Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed." The Military Industrial Complex calls in the candidate because the century old collection of globe-spanning industries sees the writing on the wall and knows it can't squeak by with another War Party victory. The candidate is forced to wait in a dimly lit board room where the fates of nations are bought and sold, and from the shadows the face of the Military Industrial Complex emerges...

MIC: You have meddled with the primal forces of nature, Mr. Candidate, and we won't have it! Is that clear? You think you've proposed to merely shift the priorities of government spending. That is not the case! The Chinese have taken billions of dollars out of this country, and they must not put it back! It is ebb and flow, tidal gravity! It is ecological balance! You're of an old ideal that thinks in terms of nations and peoples. There are no nations. There are no peoples. There are no Chinese. There are no Arabs. There are no third worlds. There is no West. There is only one holistic system of systems, one vast and immane, interwoven, interacting, multivariate, multinational dominion of dollars. Petro-dollars, electro-dollars, euro-dollars, reichmarks, rins, rubles, pounds, shekels, and lindons. It is the international system of currency which determines the totality of life on this planet. That is the natural order of things today. That is the atomic and subatomic and galactic structure of things today! And YOU have meddled with the primal forces of nature, and YOU...WILL...ATONE!
Am I getting through to you, Mr. Candidate? You get up in your little Democratic Primary and howl about America and democracy. There is no America. There is no democracy. There is only IBM, and GE, and Citygroup, and DuPont, Halliburton, Lockheed Martin, Microsoft, Monsanto, and Exxon. Those *are* the nations of the world today. What do you think the Chinese talk about in their councils of state, Chairman Mao? They get out their linear programming charts, statistical decision theories, minimax solutions, and compute the price-cost probabilities of their transactions and investments, just like we do. We no longer live in a world of nations and ideologies, Mr. Candidate. The world is a college of corporations, inexorably determined by the immutable bylaws of incorporation. The world is a company, Mr. Candidate. It has been since man crawled out of the slime. And our children will live, Mr. Candidate, to see that . . . perfect world . . . in which they see no war or famine, oppression or brutality. One vast and ecumenical holding company, for whom all men will blindly work to serve our profit, in which all men will hold a share of stock. For a market determined price, all necessities provided, all anxieties tranquilized, all boredom amused. And I have chosen you, Mr. Candidate, to sell this evangel.

Candidate: Why me?

MIC: Because you're on television, dummy! Because people believe that you are in charge and 300 million people pay attention to what you say even if they're told not to like it!

So the candidate comes back to work, wins the election, and quietly assures a military presence in one country will grow as another shrinks, and that the defense industry sees some dramatic cuts while there is a net spending increase. We remain the de-facto world power with unimaginable military power, eager to apply military solutions to create problems to approach militarily.

Putting down the pitchfork to look at more interesting financial news: drugs and oil

2009-03-20T00:17:46Z

I know I'm not the first to think of the classic "one of these is not like the others" Sesame Street song when it comes to this story, but it can't not be said. From the CNN article: "What do software mogul Bill Gates and banking investor Warren Buffett have in common with wanted Mexican drug lord Joaquin 'El Chapo' Guzman Loera? They are all featured in Forbes magazine's world's billionaires report as 'self-made' billionaires."

Hilarious, no? Now the "war on drugs" can officially be renamed the "war on drug lord poverty." And you know if there's a billionaire drug lord there's probably also a few millionaire drug lords as well, since illicit substance trafficking and sales remains at least a $400 billion industry. Does this perhaps suggest that we should rethink our strategy here? From Wikipedia: Despite over $7 billion spent annually towards arresting[4] and prosecuting nearly 800,000 people across the country for marijuana offenses in 2005 (FBI Uniform Crime Reports), the federally-funded Monitoring the Future Survey reports about 85% of high school seniors find marijuana 'easy to obtain.' That figure has remained virtually unchanged since 1975, never dropping below 82.7% in three decades of national surveys.[5]"

Now California is considering legalizing, taxing, and regulating marijuana, but this sort of thing has been bouncing around between petition gatherers and state legislators for years. Obama was thought to be the right candidate for this issue, but he's since put it on a back burner (very far in the back) because this is exactly the sort of thing "tough on crime" Republicans would use to improve their chances in 2010.

Meanwhile the states are losing out on huge amounts of tax revenue and the federal government is preparing to send the national guard to defend our border from spiraling violence, where there are more and more beheadings and Mexican police forces are forced to join the cartels or get on the losing side of a war. Whatever problem we had with immigration in the past will be 10 times worse if we let Mexico become a failed state.

Aside from the lost opportunities and wasted money caused by prohibition, we should be prepared for another spike in oil prices as oil rigs are being left idle. Production is being slashed to account for decreased demand, but workers and engineers are also being laid off, orders for new rigs are being put on hold, less money is being spent on looking for new oil fields, and less money is being pushed into alternative energy infrastructures and research. The consensus is that there will be a huge spike when demand picks up, but I think it's more likely to happen sooner, as production will be cut more than necessary in order to enjoy the good times of $80 barrels once again, since $30 a barrel is just too damn low for oil-based economies to handle. OPEC is supposed to weigh the question of raising prices against damaging demand with those higher prices, but with everyone fleeing Dubai, if Russia succeeds in its scramble to get in OPEC, they will certainly vote to increase the price of their most valuable export.

Because of the attempt at bipartisanship with people who assert "bipartisanship is dead," not enough of the stimulus package is actually in infrastructure projects, which means way too little has been devoted to renewable energy and energy conservation. Until this is addressed, we will remain at the mercy of OPEC, and until we seriously examine our wars on drugs and terrorism, we will be hemorrhaging money.

Hopefully my final mention of AIG for a month

2009-03-19T22:57:57Z

Sometimes I read through the other LiveJournals in the "News & Politics" section of "Explore LJ," and it always makes me sad when I find I've written pretty much the same thing that 30 other people wrote. It's kind of like going to a party thinking you've got a really cool and unique shirt on and then there's 8 other people with nearly identical shirts. But that's how the Zeitgeist works, AIG and outrage are all over every media, so anyone who's paying attention can't help but have an opinion.

Some of the opinions I found on the subject (like, a fifth) were concerned with directing outrage onto Democrats. This kind of surprises me. Is memory that short and fallible? The Treasury decided we needed this initial bailout, and they pushed Dems on removing language that prevented bonuses. They met halfway by saying that only bonuses established before Feb 11 would be allowed.

Some others were outraged that congress was abusing its power when it made a 90% bonus tax specifically for people making over 500,000 a year working for companies that received over a Billion in government funds. I agree it would have be better to have done what Olbermann suggested on Leno, which is what any company does when they don't want to pay a bonus (since the government is now technically the owner of the company); transfer the people owed a bonus we don't want to pay to a specific department, turn that department into its own company and underfund it, and then let that company declare bankruptcy. But it's too late, and now there's a tax on the books that is very large and very specific. I can't really be mad at that, since there are equally large and specific loopholes in the tax code. Also, it's vitally important that a capitalist system not reward failed business ventures like theirs, and one person made a really good point: if they had followed the route that every other business has to by doing the paper work and declaring bankruptcy, then it would be fair to bemoan the recent politically charged tax. But they decided to go through a political process hoping for a better deal, and unfortunately for them, politics is an alchemy that requires a good public image, something they neglected.

Most of the opinions I found, though, were similar to mine: This is retarded, it shouldn't have happened, that's our money, they don't deserve it, the fact that they don't get jail time is infuriating enough without handing them a million bucks to spend in London.