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unraveling
29.Sept.2011
The vig
As you may have noticed (I hope you noticed), I'm not that big on
advertising, but there is a little something here. Back when the idea
was new, and the company was a tiny but promising upstart, and the dot
com bubble had yet to pop, and
it didn't go without
saying, I joined the Amazon Associates program to link to
interesting content about books, and to ever-so-gently dip a toe in the
flow of commerce on the web.
It wasn't obvious 11+ years ago, as I said, that I'd "ever make
the $100 minimum for them to send me a check," in spite of participating
in what as supposedly going to be "the most effective web marketing
method." Never have got close to getting such a check, but
they've now sent me $144.44 in gift certificates over the years (duly
spent in their store), and once I garner another $0.26 in referral fees,
I'll be over the top for another $10-something cert. Works out to about
$1 a month (or 1% of what I spend to keep the lights on here), although
it's been running half that lately.
I only contributed a handful of book reviews to their site, a long time
ago, but I do still read them from time to time. There are, I'm sure, a
lot more touts than there used to be. Lector emptor.
26.Sept.2011
Meet the new boss, same as the old boss
"Any irresponsible chatterbox will have to cross me."
Dmitry Medvedev, quoted in
The
Montreal Gazette
Or, how can you "return" if you never went away? It's the talk of
Russia as the finance minister protests he wouldn't serve under a 3rd
term for Vladimir Putin, the interim president says
ok, then
resign today, Alexei Kudrin says
ok
then, I will, and the last leader of the Soviet Union says
"serious
changes" are needed to the brittle and corrupt political system in
Russia. Still and again.
"It is difficult to get away from the feeling that the Russian
authorities have neither the political will nor the readiness to find a
real way out," Gorbachev, 80, said in an article published in two
Russian newspapers.
"They (the authorities) are limited to cosmetic measures and more often
to resounding declarations and the imitation of reform: apparently
powerful personal and corporate interests depend on the preservation of
the status quo."
Not a bad description of our political system either, really, although
we do provide for slightly more regular musical chairs up top.
Is this spam?
That was the question I got back from one of my friends after hitting
the Google+ [+1] button to spread the word about the interesting video,
part 1 of 4 of
The men who crashed the world, recounting the key events of the
2007/8 financial crisis.
"Please tell me if this is for real or your email got hijacked."
While it was invitation-only (and still), Google+ offered to add
anyone or everyone in your address book to one of your "circles," and if
they weren't on the system, to send them email. Without knowing what I
was doing (pretty much how social media go viral), I checked a box that
turned my "+1" into spammy email that was far more cryptic than
intended, my intention being the { terse comment + headline + link
+ source-generated blurb } that is the stock in trade of Facebook, and
as-cloned with variations into Google+.
My pithy comment ("The dramatic music is a bit much... but then...") had
been turned into the subject line, the sender was a plus.google.com
noreply address (tagged with my good name), the body started with a
teaser for Google+, and then the link to "view the full post," via a
4-line https URL with multiple encryptyed attributes, and no signal
whatsoever of what the hell I was talking about.
I wouldn't follow that link, and while I believe it is safe, I
wouldn't expect anyone else to follow it either.
Fail.
25.Sept.2011
Fridge-be-gone
Nice work if you can do it: drop an old refrigerator in the hopper, and
a minute later, turn 95% of the solid waste into useable raw materials
while
capturing
99.8% of the refrigerant (most of which is in the insulating foam,
rather than liquid in the plumbing).
Sounds like some fabulous mechanical engineering in the systems
described, one from Untha Recycling Technology of Karlstadt, Germany,
the other from SEG of Mettlach, Germany. Untha's costs $5.5 million and
can dispatch 150,000 used refrigerators in a year. If it lasts for 4
years, the capital cost would be less than $10 per refrigerator.
23.Sept.2011
Missed it by that much (probably)
Good news: If you're reading this, NASA's Upper Atmosphere Research
Satellite didn't fall on your head. (Very) shortly before it fell to
earth, (08:50pm MDT), NASA issued
this final
update of the mission:
As of 10:30pm EDT on Sept. 23, 2011, the orbit of UARS was 85 miles
by 90 miles (135 km by 140 km). Re-entry is expected between 11:45pm
Friday, Sept. 23, and 12:45am, Sept. 24, Eastern Daylight Time. During
that time period, the satellite will be passing over Canada and Africa,
as well as vast areas of the Pacific, Atlantic and Indian oceans. The
risk to public safety is very remote.
Canada, Africa, Pacific, Atlantic and Indian oceans doesn't narrow it
down very much, but at least it spreads out the risk.
Yell leader
Bit of a recurring theme in Republican circles, George W. Bush's days as
a cheerleader, Rick Perry's
old yeller time at Texas A&M... not there's anything wrong with
promoting optimism. SecTreas Timothy Geithner could use a lesson or two
before he rolls out the next edition of Debbie Downer. Granted, we can
all see
"deep
concern" "across the world and around the country about whether the
political system in the United States is up to the challenges we face,"
but doesn't he have enough to stay busy without stating the obvious?
Like mom said, if you don't have anything nice to say, shut up. (I think
she said it in a slightly nicer way, though.)
The utility of the noisy megaphone came to mind when I read
Gabriel Iacoboni's effusion about
"Exciting
times for young conservatives"
in the Idaho Statesman this week. The lamentable state of English
education in our country also came to mind, as the media outreach
coordinator for the Boise State University College Republicans does not
seem to have reached full high school proficiency.
His lede doth run on a bit too much. "Slack" is not a verb, but we can
give him partial credit for half the idiom "to slack off." We do
not, however, believe that "one outspoken liberal professor [who] knows
where you stand and expects more of you" will "deliver a brutal blow to
your educational career."
"Most Republican students don't know there's a solution. College
Republicans is that solution, and it's reached Idaho!"
So few coherent sentences, so many questions. If you join the College
Republicans, your problem of liberal professors delivering brutal blows
to your "educational career" for your slacking off will be solved?
Sounds rather like a student union or something.
He goes on to give a shout out to new leader Domenic Gelsomino, and how
things are moving fast. Some folks have "chaptered themselves."
"BSU College Republicans has made great strides in recent years. The
group is consistently active and engages students everywhere."
Including, say, Timbuktu?
"Waves of real change you can believe in are coming."
So, um, make sure your sump pump is in good working order.
22.Sept.2011
Reaping the whirlwind
If the Congress in general, and the House of Representatives in
particular, has become so obsessed with partisan advantage that it can't
do its regular business, let along actually reform anything, it's safe
to deem it a "disaster." And if the
Congress
can't figure out how to stop bickering long enough to provide funding
for disaster relief, will it thus implode with a giant sucking
sound, leaving a black hole on Capitol Hill?
The leaders of the House can't seem to count votes, let along whip the
fringe Republicans into line. They've definitely changed the way
Congress does business, but so far, not for the better.
Eight more days to the start of the new fiscal year, and no indication
of how anyone plans to escape the developing singularity.
Equinox
OK, it could be worse
In terms of usability, a clumsy website for your bank is a minor
annoyance, but a cheating casino could actually spoil your day.
As
Matt Richtel put it, "the millions of
people who signed up for a Web site called Full Tilt Poker knew they
were there to gamble. But it turns out they were taking on far more risk
than they realized, even when they had no chips on the virtual
table."
Just when the nuttiest GOP Presidential candidate (and front runner!) is
trying to get some mileage out of name-calling on Social Security,
federal prosecutors have a real, live global Ponzi scheme to go after.
Most of $half a billion wired in by the rubes, not to
super-safe-and-secure escrow accounts, but "transferred to the owners
and management of Full Tilt."
The good news is that the federal government has actually been proactive
on these guys, having shut down access to the foreign-based sites for
Full Tilt, Poker Stars and Absolute Poker back in April, "arguing that
they were violating fraud and money-laundering laws." And stealing, they
now complain.
But hey, maybe it's a bridge too far to call it a Ponzi scheme.
One Florida lawyer "who specializes in gambling and First Amendment
law" (an interesting couple of specialties) "quibbled with the
government's characterization," saying the outfit "may simply have been
lying to players and possibly embezzling funds." Lots better.
Comment value is too long.
That's what KeyBank's web form told me after I tried to submit the
following:
Guess what the #1 reason I come to your site is?
Go ahead, guess.
If you said "to retrieve my bank statement," you're a WINNER!
Congratulations.
One more question: guess WHICH bank statement I'm interested in?
I suspect we have ANOTHER WINNER!!! That's right, I want MY MOST RECENT
statement (or sometimes my most recent 2 or 3).
Now guess what statement is NOT AT TOP LEFT, and/or FRONT AND CENTER
after the 3 to half-dozen clicks[*] it takes to get
to the list of statements on my one and only account with you?
Today is your day, that's right, THE ONE I'M INTERESTED IN IS NOT
FEATURED... and in fact IS NOT ON THE PAGE. What's that you say, not on
the page? Oh, but you've added a sort affordance, I can go "Descending"
instead of "Ascending". Having done so, I find statements from 2010 and
older... because you sorted just the first page of statements selected
by ascending order.
This is crazy, are you running a usability counter-experiment and I'm in
the negative control group? Fine, let me help you:
1) NARROW THE DEFAULT DATE RANGE TO NO MORE THAN A YEAR, 12 months, 12
statements. It's great that more are available, and I can use the date
filter controls to get at them should I wish to, which 99.5% of the time
I won't.
That one change will keep me from writing to you again, but if you want
to actually improve the site, here are two more ideas:
2) SORT IN DESCENDING DATE ORDER BY DEFAULT. That's NEWEST FIRST,
because NEWEST is what your customers want 99% of the time.
3) Get me to the statements list in ZERO, ONE or TWO clicks from login.
You know how many accounts I have, I don't need an account selection
menu if there's only one.
Thanks.
So I sent a shorter version, and then went back and fetched my September
statement. Before I got there though, a pop-up: my password is expiring
in 10 days, do I want to change it now or remind me later?
Neither, actually. I like my password, and it's a good one that nobody's
going to guess.
While we're on the subject of usability, could you stop asking me what
language to use when I stick my ATM card in the machine on the side of
your branch office? And which account I want to take money out of?
Thanks again.
The process:
-
login form -> Important notice about Bill Pay, which actually
isn't important to me, because I don't have or use their Bill Pay.
-
Menu item Statements & Documents -> page with two menus of
hyperlinks, for "Statements" and "Documents."
-
"View Statements," please -> View Statements page, listing my
"Currently Enrolled Accounts" [sic], of which there is one.
-
Yes, "View statements" -> Finally, the list of statements, and one
tiny bit of good news: the "descending" sort selection is sticky, and
survives beyond one session.
20.Sept.2011
It's a beautiful day
What
Sisyphus said over there on Huckleberries Online in the thread about
today's final repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell. "The shameful legacy of
institutionalized discrimination in the military is over." Still a few
cultural institutions to go, but this is a major milestone for civil
rights in this country.
Orwell is in the House!
You remember the
greatest
hits from the Bush Administration such as the "Clear Skies
Initiative" (more toxic pollution) and "Healthy Forests" (more
clearcutting) and maybe you even can remember the oxymoronic appointment
of James G. Watt as Secretary of Interior under the Reagan
administration, following the Gipper's famous mispronouncement that
"government is the problem," and his team's concerted effort to
dismantle the "obstruction" to rapine.
The latest offering from the Republicans in the House carries its
Newspeak irony between acronym and title. Who doesn't like trains, yeah?
But the so-called
TRAIN
Act has nought to do with choo-choo, nor vocational education; it's
all to do with "Transparency in Regulatory Analysis of Impacts on the
Nation."
Transparency.
As shall be facilitated by a committee comprising the Secretary of
Agriculture, acting through the Chief Economist; the Secretary of
Commerce, acting through the Chief Economist and the Under Secretary for
International Trade; the Secretary of Labor, acting through the
Commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics; the Secretary of Energy,
acting through the Administrator of the Energy Information
Administration; the Secretary of the Treasury, acting through the Deputy
Assistant Secretary for Environment and Energy of the Department of the
Treasury; the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency; the
Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors; the Chairman of the
Federal Energy Regu1latory Commission; the Administrator of the Office
of Information and Regulatory Affairs; the Chief Counsel for Advocacy of
the Small Business Administration; and the Chairman of the United States
International Trade Commission, acting through the Office of Economics;
said committee to conduct analyses for each of the calendar years 2016,
2020, and 2030, of the cumulative impact of covered rules that are
promulgated as final regulations on or before January 1, 2012, in
combination with covered actions; the cumulative impact of all covered
rules (including covered rules that have not been promulgated as final
regulations on or before January 1, 21 2012), in combination with
covered actions; and the incremental impact of each covered rule not
promulgated as a final regulation on or before January 1, 2012, relative
to an analytic baseline representing the results of the analysis of the
cumulative impact of all covered actions as provided above.
I won't go into the (proposed) legally mandated components of the
analysis this committee is supposed to do, nor the laundry list of the
regulations mandated to be analyzed, but the committee is supposed to
make a preliminary report under this bill "not later than January 31,
2012," provide a 90 day public comment period and then come up with a
final report by August 1, 2012. Because, uh, what else do those people
have to do, anyway?
I suspect that even without concerted action on my part, this part of
Eric Cantor's
declared war on regulations is unlikely to see the light of day in
the Oval Office any time soon. I could be wrong, but it just sounds like
a complete laugher for getting past the Senate. (After November 2012
there may not be as much laughter, however.)
19.Sept.2011
Let's go for a swim, let's fly through the tide
While swimming in a sea of lies, you may find it difficult to recognize
any one in particular what with the gasping for air and all. And the sea
is so vast. Consider the "we're broke" one so popular in Tea Party
circles these days (from what I hear of T.P. circles).
America is broke? Really? Even while we keep the holiday pageantry
going, the flyovers for sporting events, the wars, the Congress, the
Supreme Court doing their business (or not) as usual?
It's like saying "oh oh, the fiscal year is almost over (11 shopping
days left!), we'd better get a budget ready to go for October 1st."
I bet Speaker Boehner will be
all over
that with that new GOP discipline and all.
While we're supposedly "broke," the scene in the vaults of Scrooge
McDucks across the land is the classic tycoons swimming in loot.
They're not broke, suffering, struggling,
nor even slightly
indisposed, thankyouverymuch. But if you recall your
Uncle $crooge
comics, you will recall that there were no windows in the vault, and
no passers-by to look in and see what's going on. Hence the duping,
when we all pretty much agree on what's right, and yet most all are
united in our
delusion about what is. (That's a link to David Cay Johnson's
article published in
Tax
Notes a year ago, starting with a fun little quiz.)
We tried this idea of giving tax cuts to the rich to create jobs, right
about 10 years ago (when, you might recall, the budget surplus
was projected to eliminate the debt in ... 10 years or so), and you
know what, it didn't actually turn out that way. Not the debt
elimination, definitely, because we gave away the surplus, but
not
the job creation either.
H/t to Dave Johnson and his
Five
Super-Congress Debt-Cutting Myths for getting me started this
morning.
18.Sept.2011
Yeah it's class warfare (guess who's winning?
$2,000,000,000,000 is big even when all you're doing is typing it out
for a blog. That's how much cash corporations are sitting on while
waiting for the economy to head north and consumer spending to give them
a reason to invest, hire, create jobs. If we cut corporate taxes, we can
increase the size of that pile of cash, but
(a) if the economy doesn't head north and consumer confidence remains
low, business still won't invest, hire and create jobs; and
(b) if the economy and consumer confidence do improve, businesses
will invest, hire and create jobs, whether their taxes are lower,
the same, or higher. (That's why they call it "business.")
So lowering corporate taxes at the moment would be a remarkably stupid
thing to do. Which is not the message that corporations are going to be
paying to advertise between now and the next election, but do keep it in
mind as they tell you black is white and up is down.
John Atcheson tells the story slightly more floridly, as
The Ayn Rand Six
Step. (H/t to
d2 for that.)
The truth of the matter will not, however, prevent those who really like
the comfortably low taxes they've enjoyed for 10+ years from
howling
like stuck pigs at the suggestion—the very idea!—that
they aren't pulling their weight.
17.Sept.2011
The Boise River Sweep
A little change in the weather put a bite in the morning, but we
fleeced- and neoprened-up and floated the semi-serene 4½ miles
from just above the Glenwood bridge in Garden City to just above Eagle
Road in five boats, collecting garbage at frequent stops as we went. The
river's down to 600 cfs at the end of summer, and there were a few spots
that required getting mostly or all out of the boat, and one portage
over a diversion dam.
Turned out to be a beautiful day, not too chilly, good company
(including the cormorants and kingfishers), good work, and a nice
lunch provided by Bardenay
as our reward.
There were hundreds more volunteers walking the river banks in Boise,
Eagle, and Caldwell in this the annual
River Sweep. Great
community activity.
It would be nicer if there weren't quite as many slobs who can't be
bothered to pack out there own trash, of course. But I guess the people
drinking Keystone (the litterer's beer of choice, from what
I've seen) in the bushes may be afraid of getting caught... or
ridiculed.
That's
Idaho Rivers United's
Liz Paul (left) displaying the attractive volunteer t-shirt, which
cleverly employs "Can Man" (who lives at
the Boise
Watershed) and his Roman numeral-like silhouette to match this 10th
annual effort.
Update: Let it be noted that despite all that trash we picked
up, and all the trash everyone else picked up in a 4 hour go yesterday,
the banks of the Boise River are actually pretty darn clean. We were of
course motivated to seek and find, and did do, but there are a lot of
miles of river, and a lot of visitors who leave it as clean or cleaner
than they found it.
16.Sept.2011
News manufacturing is at least a growth industry
Kudos to the
Campaign for America's Future
for expertly tapping into this week's Zeitgeist. When I posted the item
early morning two days ago after reading their "Progressive Breakfast"
piece, I didn't expect the "scandal" to be following me around all day.
But there it was on NPR while I was driving, a Congressional hearing in
D.C., a chatty conversation on the next tennis court over, and then
topped off with
the Newshour.
Even if it were a legitimate scandal, it's a pity all the energy
expended to flog it couldn't be applied to generating electricity or
HVAC or transportation. We could take a trip around the world or
something.
If you're still keeping score at home, here are the
five
biggest right-wing lies about Solyndra, in Dave Johnson's
estimation.
14.Sept.2011
When metaphors collide
Down toward the end of the short piece about
a
bigger economic role for the federal government, after the reminder
of what government austerity did for us in 1937, and the reminder that
the lack of demand for goods and services appears to be the economy's
central problem, we read that the
president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago said that with the
unemployment rate at 9%, Fed officials should be "acting
as if their hair was on fire."
But Richard Fisher, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas,
said Monday that the Fed already had "filled the gas tanks of the
economy..."
I would say there should be no smoking in those Federal Reserve Bank
meeting rooms.
The latest, oily, whipped-up scandal
I skipped right over the talking heads (I guess because I don't tune in
to Faux News, ev-er) and to Dave Johnson's explanation of
the
phony Solyndra Solar scandal. The "beauty" of the free market (with
or without government help) and entrepeneurship is that some ideas
succeed, and some fail, and we move on to try, try again. Having a big
enterprise (with big government backing) fail big means... the system
works!
"If this was a sweetheart deal, it was the worst sweetheart deal ever."
"An official" quoted by
Grunwald
Or, if you prefer the corruption and abuse version (with ties to people
with ties to people who mysteriously benefit from having a company go
bankrupt), you can follow the story on that other network, with lots of
helpful links over there on ourfuture.org.
And you can follow the Heritage Foundation's anti-green attack machine
(again, links over there) with such titles as
"Green Jobs Are Con Jobs," "The Green Job Myth Exposed," "Obama's 'Green
Jobs' Pipe Dream," "The Green Jobs Story Obama Doesn't Want You to
Hear," "Are 'Green Jobs' the Answer?", "Are Green Jobs 'Gone with the
Wind'?" and I'm sure much, much more. Having
invested
in a panel of experts funded by ExxonMobil, this stuff just about
writes itself.
Johnson recommends
Michael
Grunwald's piece for Time as an objective report. If anyone's
interested in such a thing.
"Soyndra's loan, the first approved under a clean-energy program that was
launched during the Bush administration and expanded by Obama's stimulus
bill, was supposed to finance a new state-of-the-art factory for the
company's unique cylindrical solar cells. At the time, Solyndra was an
exciting startup; according to the public filings, it attracted big
money from bigtime financiers, including $35 million from Richard
Branson's Virgin Green Fund, $57 million from U.S. Venture Partners, and
even $2 million from affiliates of Kohlberg Kravis Roberts."
Plus the $535 million federal loan, $320 million from Kaiser-linked
funds, $75 million tossed in for the first restructuring, hoping to
salvage some value... I'm not sure I'm following it all, but it sounds
like a lot of money and an impressively big failure.
So, let's compare and contrast: of the $30 billion in government loans
made under the program (and "another $20 billion in private financing"),
do we have some success stories to share, to balance off losing a fifth
of the amount budgeted for failures?
12.Sept.2011
Responding to terror with courage and love
There seemed to be ample remembrances and commemorations yesterday, and
not much need for me to weigh in. But Fran Korten's short piece about
what the U.S. could learn from Norway's response seems particularly
worthy.
And I kept thinking about
my dad's response less than 2 weeks after
the attack on the U.S., and long before we went to war in Iraq,
rejecting the idea that there is any religious basis for returning
violence for violence.
One of the songs we sang in church on Sunday has a repeated chant,
something we fallible creatures need to keep telling ourselves:
"We forgive ourselves and each other, we begin again in love."
Starting right... when?
Rick Perry's USA Today op-ed has the ever-so-slightly ludicrous title of
I
am going to be honest with the American people, that future tense
suggesting he hasn't been, yet. If he were serious about wanting to
"fix" Social Security, the first step would be to determine
whether it was broken, and if so, how it's broken.
That's basic analytical problem solving: first, define the problem.
He wasn't able to get through a short opinion piece for the newspaper
without stumbling on facts, spouting confused nonsense, and repeating
the word "honest" five times in barely eight paragraphs. Wethinks he
doth protest too much.
Bill
Scher is likewise unconvinced by the Texas Governor's avowed
affection for truthful discourse, because, well, Perry's got a book out
that's telling different tales than what he's spouting on the campaign
trail.
9.Sept.2011
Search is heating up
Which would you rather have, a 60W light bulb that you turn on for three
hours a month, or Google? Yeah, me too. So
complaints
about how much electricity the latter uses don't amount to much from
where I sit. Plus it's a little silly to say that
"every time a person runs a Google search, watches a YouTube video or
sends a message through Gmail, the company's data centers full of
computers use electricity," because they're using electricity whether or
not anyone is searching or watching or sending. Just like your computer
is using electricity when it's on but you walked out of the room or
something.
The incremental energy a search takes is an interesting thing to
consider. The story says Google's estimate is 0.3Wh (on their end,
presumably) which seems high to me, but I guess they ought to know?
At that rate, and a billion searches a day, that makes 95% of the
company's energy used for YouTube and other stuff. Don't sweat the
searching, I'd say.
One way or another, it's all turned into heat, and most of that heat is
"waste" (although the data center in a former paper mill in
Hamina, Finland could certainly keep some neighbors' houses warm in
their long winter). In our house, just as yours, we obey the laws of
thermodynamics, and law #2 says there's no breaking even.
Whoops a daisy
They're still trying to figure out how the spreadsheet made its way from
Multi-Specialty Collection Services to the Student of Fortune mercenary
tutoring site, but having had names, diagnosis codes, account numbers,
admission and discharge dates, and billing charges for patients seen at
Stanford Hospital's emergency room during a six-month period in 2009
posted on a
website for a year (apparently as a convenient dataset for
illustrating "how to make a bar graph"), we might consider what
Diane Dobson, of Santa Clara observed about the larger implication:
"Everyone with an electronic medical record is at risk, and that means
everyone."
And in case you're thinking gee, this is just a random, isolated case,
there's the HHS saying 11 million people have had their data improperly
exposed in just the past two years, 306 cases of at least 500 people
since September 2009, and tens of thousands affected by "smaller
breaches." Take your pick of stolen laptops, hacked networks,
papers left on a subway, misdirected e-mail and what-not. Mistakes are
going to be made.
7.Sept.2011
But they "really" apologized
Chilling story from Minnesota, but not about Michele Bachman's latest
lunacy this time: it's about being
under
suspicion at the Mall of America, exploring the legacy of this
country's response to the dramatic terrorist attack 10 years ago.
The vice president of the mall, Maureen Bausch thinks that as
"definitely the No. 1 attraction in Minnesota, one of the biggest
attractions in the United States," and with that name—Mall of
America!—their facility is "attractive to people that want to hurt
America."
She's not quoted on how many of the 100,000 or so people who visit the
mall on a typical day are attracted with hurt on their minds. Just one
determined terrorist could ruin everyone's day, after all. And only "a
handful" out of the 750 million+ visitors over the mall's two decades of
existence are "complaining." Bausch says "we apologize if it, you know,
if it caused them any inconvenience, I mean we really do." Like the two
hour detention, and having all your video erased. (Um, whoops,
there goes the evidence!)
If you go to the Mall, just don't be suspicious, 'K?
Post-Labor Day
Speaking of Top Secret America
The
Washington Post investigation of the subject has some amazing
information about the "fourth branch of government" that's come into its
own in the last 10 years.
One of the reporters, Dana Priest, will be
featured
on Fresh Air today, talking about the work. PBS'
Frontline episode of
Top
Secret America airs tonight as well.
Should we feel safer knowing that we know have 51 federal organization
and military commands tracking the flow of money to and from terrorist
networks? Or a 45 x 18 matrix of organizations and activities with half
of the 800 boxes filled in? Or that we know have a "professionalized
killing force" that responds to unilateral commands from the
President?
Speaking of Congressional critics
Joe
Nocera's column today describes an internal critic,
Rep. Jim Cooper, from Tennessee, and Cooper's perception in the villain
of an institution
"gone from Brigadoon to Lord of the Flies": none other
than Newt Gingrich, who we'll be able to see flabbering about
on Wednesday, in his quest for a 2nd political career, after the first
one ended in such richly deserved disgrace and resignation ("it's the
hypocrisy, stupid"), but maybe not as broadly applied as it should have
been.
Gingrich apparently believes his skill in
"historical
fiction" permits him to create a new, post hoc reality. Cooper's
view of the most important chapter of Gingrich's history:
Gingrich was a new kind of speaker: deeply partisan and startlingly
power-hungry. "His first move was to get rid of the Democratic Study
Group, which analyzed bills, and which was so trusted that Republicans
as well as Democrats relied on it," Cooper recalled. "This was his way
of preventing us from knowing what we were voting on. Today," he added,
"the ignorance around here is staggering. Nobody has any idea what
they're voting on."
It's hard to dispute the rest of Cooper's description of the Gingrich
legacy of institutionalized dysfunction. It's nice that he holds out
hope for us to overcome it, but hard to see what basis there might be
for such hope. Just as the worst of the Bush administration
remains
institutionalized
in the (supposedly "radical, left wing") Obama
administration—you know, the black sites, Gitmo,
a
secret army—whatever tactics prove effective in a skirmish are
reinforced. Not a recipe for greater democratic representation and
shared decision-making.
Disloyal opposition
So to continue the graphic metaphor, having driven the country into the
ditch, the Republicans have now unplugged several spark plug wires and
continue to jabber loudly while we sit by the side of the road wondering
what the hell just hit us and how are we going to get this thing going
again. Wednesday night, they'll have a barker's half-dozen on soapboxes
pronouncing the failings of everyone but themselves (and, if it's to be
entertaining, at least a little bit
at
each other) while word is that the next night, the President is
going to tell Congress he wants them to create some jobs. Or
something.
Just in time for Labor Day, we had the big fat zero of the August jobs
report, welcome fodder for administration (and, um, Congressional)
critics and presidential hopefuls. (Dancing on a grave
can
get you in trouble but fomenting, and then using collective disaster
to further your own interests, that's politics as usual.)
It's possible we could celebrate
the other number that came out Friday, the low, low interest rate on
10-year U.S. bonds signaling that you know what, our debt is
good enough, it's smart enough, and, doggonit, people like our bonds!
People are willing to loan us money for about half as much return as
they were two years ago, so whatever else the stimulus did for us, it
did not ignite debilitating inflation. And the proximity to "default,"
that was all self-inflicted.
Remember? Was it just a month ago we "won" that game of chicken?
Remember how great that felt to not go over the cliff?
Krugman's questions for the Thursday speech are good ones. They're no
more cynical than the political climate the speech will be given in,
but if he's right that "nothing [Obama] proposes will actually happen
anytime soon," we'll have to acknowledge that the opposition's plan was
a smashing success.
And then ask if we really want to reward them for smashing things, or
try a different approach.
4.Sept.2011
The Thomases vs. Obama
There have been ample reasons to lament Clarence Thomas' elevation to
the Supreme Court of the United States for the two decades since George
H.W. Bush nominated him and the sorry spectacle of his confirmation
hearings. Choose what you (dis)like from Jeffrey Toobin's piece for
The New Yorker,
Partners. For me, it was his conflating the honor of the country
with his own, self-pityingly citing the "price to pay today for standing
in defense of your Constitution."
Those respective honors will be at issue in decisions to come, when
Thomas uses the Court's "honor system" to judge that he need not recuse
himself for anything, thankyouverymuch, no matter what causes his wife
promotes nor what donors are covering her travel expenses.
Worthwhile (and New Yorkerly long) article to catch up on how the
silent Justice is steering the court to the right from his reclining
swivel chair. Thanks to Marc Johnson for introducing it to me, along
with some history
about Abe Fortas that came before I paid much attention to the
SCOTUS.
2.Sept.2011
Extortion, sabotage, blackmail
The new normal in Republican political strategy, as described by
Paul Krugman:
Eric and Irene. It brings to mind Mitch McConnell's highest
priority, to keep Barack Obama from being re-elected next year. How much
pain and suffering is it worth inflicting on the American people?
Whatever it takes, is the answer spoken by his and Eric Cantor's
actions.
1.Sept.2011
"and bang! you'll find the Pinwheel Galaxy."
At the vertex of an equilateral triangle north of the Big Dipper's
handle. Why would you want to look for the Pinwheel Galaxy, 21 million
light-years away from your optic nerve? Because there's
a
type 1a supernova just lit up ("just" 21 million years ago, eh),
visible with binocs or a small telescope, estimated to peak in
brightness within a week or so.
raveling
Tom von Alten
tva_∂t_fortboise_⋅_org
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Saturday, 01-Oct-2011 20:53:47 MDT
http://fortboise.org/blog/201109.html
