unraveling
31.March 2012
The collegiate model
The land where sports, education and finance—big
finance—intertwine: Joe Nocera goes over the top (maybe ever so
slightly) with
Orwell
and March Madness.
I haven't been watching the NCAA basketball championship, mostly because
basketball's just not that interesting to me, but if I had been, I'm
certain I would not have watched the NCAA's or anyone else's ad
"hundreds" of times, or even a half dozen times. If a really good ad
happens to catch my eye and prompt me to let up the FF, I might watch it
once, twice, or even a third time. But not four, nor "many."
I see that the NCAA hasn't modified the page Nocera refers to (with an
indirect hyperlink).
Protecting
the Collegiate Model
is part of the
Major
Issues and Current Challenges collection, and talks about the
"term of art"
"created by Myles Brand as a surrogate for—but not a replacement
for—the concept of
amateurism
to the degree it was too frequently used as a descriptor for
intercollegiate athletics."
(Speaking of Freshman English... "much of the rest of the legislation
for all three divisions is impacted by a 'bed rock' commitment to the
subject"? One should avoid being impacted by a bed rock. But I digress.)
The President's briefing document on Amateurism describes the current
challenge well, and why "a steady drumbeat" of semantic reinforcement is
essential to maintain the façade:
"As the scale of both revenue generation and spending has grown over the
last few decades, there is a general sense that 'big time' athletics is
in conflict with the principle of amateurism. There is some critical
mass of making and spending money above which, conventional wisdom
holds, intercollegiate athletics is no longer viewed as amateur
sports."
I understand that "March Madness" is set to trickle into April this
year. Something to think about during the many timeouts leading up to
the final buzzer.
Living and dying
Susan Jacoby:
taking
responsibility for death. "The politicization of end-of-life
planning and its entwinement with religion-based culture wars provide
extra, irrational obstacles to thinking ahead when it matters most."
We had a little bit of such politicization of end-of-life planning in
Idaho's just-finished session of the legislature,
Senate
Bill 1348 passed mostly on party lines after it had been amended.
As passed and sent to the Governor, it adds a new section regarding
"withdrawal of care," emphasizing that the desires of a "competent
patient," that person's health care directive, or his or her "surrogate
decision maker" to maintain assisted feeding, artificial
nutrition and hydration should not be overridden, "unless such care
would be futile," as state law defines it.
The principle of state code remains as it was: "Any authentic expression
of a person's wishes with respect to health care should be honored." But
in the absence of such expression, this legal change tips the
balance toward "do as much as you can, as long as you can," the position
many in the U.S. Congress took—and attempted to act upon—in
the infamous case of Terri Schiavo.
Jacoby sums up my point of view pretty well:
"...I do not consider it my duty to die for the convenience of society.
I do consider it my duty, to myself and younger generations, to follow
the example my mother set by doing everything in my power to ensure that
I will never be the object of medical intervention that cannot restore
my life but can only prolong a costly living death."
30.March 2012
Know when to walk away, know when to run
According to
The Caucus' report, it was Bar who urged applying
Don
Schlitz's lyric to the Republican presidential race, as the means
for greater clarity. Rick Santorum, she's talking to you, through hubby
GHWB. (Newt Gingrich, and Ron Paul don't need to be
addressed at this point; doesn't matter whether you fold or not when
you're all-in and everyone knows you're holding a losing hand.)
The establishment is lining up behind the establishment candidate, now
that the risk of not supporting Romney appears to fully outweigh
the risk of supporting him. It would have been a bit more convincing if
they could've used Mack
Gordon and Harry Warren, but the feeling's not quite that
strong.
29.March 2012
Son of swan song
If Newt Gingrich is going to stick it out all the way to Tampa, as he's
said he would on many occasions, it
sounds
like
he should buy his ticket today, rather than risk NSF by the time summer
rolls around. Moneybags Sheldon Adelson says Gingrich is mathematically
challenged, and doesn't want Rick Santorum "running my country."
As for his entourage,
a
third of them won't make it through spring and with the campaign
underwater and no billionaires in sight to throw a lifeline, it'd be
time to make other plans. Gingrich's campaign communications director
says "Obviously, every campaign has got to have a structure that fits
within the financial ability they have," but didn't say what fits within
$1.54 million cash and $1.55 million debt. No-host campaign events, for
sure.
Out of order
Ira Shapiro laments the "polarized, paralyzed and dysfunctional" state
of our nation's upper house, "after a 20-year downward spiral." His
call to action:
Take
Back the Senate, Senators.
Last month, as she announced her decision to retire, Olympia Snowe,
Republican of Maine, described a Senate that "routinely jettisons
regular order," "serially legislates by political brinksmanship" and
"habitually eschews full debate and an open amendment process in favor
of competing, up-or-down, take it or leave it proposals." In
The New Yorker,
George
Packer described the Senate as "the empty chamber."
Right in our neighborhood
While the discovery of exoplanets proceeds apace and the question of
whether there is other life in the galaxy (let alone our universe)
is reduced to a matter of time, here's a reminder that we have some
home-grown worlds worth direct scrutiny. Carolyn Porco wonders if
it's
snowing
microbes on Enceladus?.
"NASA's Cassini spacecraft has revealed watery jets erupting from what
may be a vast underground sea. These jets, which spew through cracks in
the moon's icy shell, could lead back to a habitable zone that is
uniquely accessible in all the solar system....
"The kind of ecologies Enceladus might harbor could be like those deep
within our own planet. Abundant heat and liquid water are found in
Earth's subterranean volcanic rocks. Organisms in those rocks thrive on
hydrogen (produced by reactions between liquid water and hot rocks) and
available carbon dioxide and make methane, which gets recycled back into
hydrogen. And it's all done entirely in the absence of sunlight or
anything produced by sunlight."
27.March 2012
Quasi-khaki
Newcomer showed up at the Humanists meeting yesterday, I'm told, in a
khaki outfit looking vaguely like a uniform, a name badge and
suspiciously black hair. Ted Dunlap is
running for an office you didn't
know was open, "Constitutional Sheriff," according to his faded
flag-themed business card. Jeanette asked him if he was affiliated in
any way with
Posse
Comitatus, and he smiled slightly, said "I do speak about posses
quite a bit."
Dunlap was apparently set on course by Richard Mack, the guy who started
the "Constitutional Sheriff" movement (according to Dunlap), and now
making a living traveling and talking. Mack's visit to the Kootenai County
Republicans' Lincoln Day Dinner caused some kerfuffle up
north, such that he
"said
he never felt as unwelcome as he did before coming to Coeur d'Alene"
but then found out that KootCo Republicans are OK after all. And the
chicken was real good.
Dunlap learned about what he wanted to be for Ada County at a
conference, but you don't have to travel these days, you can visit the
Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace
Officers Assn. on the intertubes, and see Sheriff Mack (RET)
ask such questions as
"What would you do if you knew you had just one chance to save your
family and country from complete and utter destruction?"
and give such answers as
"Very few people realize that the Sheriff has the legitimate authority to
prevent federal agents from entering the county - or the power to throw
them out once they are there."
The theme of Mr. Dunlap's visit was "I'm just like you guys, and fishing
for endorsements," which the
Humanists of Idaho, as a
501(c)(3) non-profit organization, is not actually handing out, even if
they had bought his pitch that he's a humanist, too.
The theme of the right-wingnut quasi-organization is "we can restore
peace and freedom." And "stop sending them (feds) the money!" And the
message Richard Mack delivered up north: "the federal government is a
greater threat to the Constitution than terrorism."
"The President of the United States cannot tell your Sheriff what to do,"
Mack says, which seems to be an especially appealing idea at the moment,
for some reason.
Dunlap filed for
the
Ada County ballot as a "Libertarian," and his name won't appear in a
polling place near you until the fall general election, where the odds
are very, very good that he will be trounced by incumbent
Ada
County Sheriff Gary Raney. But you never know.
26.March 2012
Uniquely disqualified
Rick Santorum failed his campaign stress test and
went
all Breitbart on a NYT reporter. Whoopsadaisy.
"He is the worst Republican in the country to put up against Barack
Obama," Santorum said. And I guess we're all supposed to know when he
says that, he means "on the issue of the Affordable Care Act," because
yada yada yada. And woe unto you, lowly reporter if you ask him what's
up with that? Worst Republican in the country? Apparently even asking
him to clarify was a bridge too far, got him all apoplectic and
indignant and stuff.
"If I see it, it's bullshit."
But the best part is where he says "you don't care about the truth at
all, do you?"
Yup, we're all out to get you, Ricky.
And then he's working the fundraising angle of how he was "aggressively
attacked by a New York Times reporter," whoa. From sanctimonious
#Tantorum
to sanctimonious fundraising in nothing flat.
Two drawings of income disparity
Victors get spoils, and these days there quite a few to divvy up.
Steven Rattner reports the not-exactly-news that
the
rich got even richer in 2010, with $4.2 million average
raises for the 1-in-10,000 top 0.01%, a nice six figure bump on
top of the income for the rest of the 1%, and you 99% lot get about $80
each. Don't spend it all in one place.
I didn't think the
sidebar
box chart did it justice, really, since yeah, 56% is bigger than 37%
is bigger than 7%, but it's about the distribution after all, so
let's show that more than half the pie went to "one" l'il circle, more
than a third went to a ninety-nine, and the leftover sliver went to the
remaining 9,900. Which are kind of hard to jam into the picture,
so I cheated by piling them on top of one another, and, um, only drawing
half as many as that. But you get the idea?
The other picture is about Omgpop, started "as a joke" and "on track to
run out of money by May," but accidentally tapped into the Zeitgeist
with a breakout smartphone hit game, Draw Something. Another company I
never heard of,
Zynga,
bought it up for something in 9 figures, and the 32 year-old founder
has stumbled into "way more" than $22 million, an unbridled fashion
opportunity ("It's the kind of money where I'll be wearing whatever I
want when somebody invites me to a wedding," he said), and traffic.
Perhaps he'll hire a handler.
25.March 2012
History lesson
There's a reason why this year's legislative folderol seems familiar:
we've been through this ringer before. Dan Popkey smooths out some of
the creases in the archive to show how
the
1990 battle easily eclipses this years'. The electoral aftermath was
re-election by a landslide for the Governor who vetoed that legislation
and a 50-50 party split in the state Senate (which is 4-1 Republican
now).
"They're slow learners over there," [former Governor Cecil] Andrus said.
"It's not only politically correct, but it's the right thing to do. They
need to take that piece of garbage and put it in the round file."
I have to assume that the Idaho Statesman didn't let
its
own editorial position bias the letters it selected to
print and
put
online today, giving an indication of public sentiment:
30 to 1 opposed. And that one is not actually an argument in
favor of S 1387, but a bit of bathetic speculative fiction in opposition
to abortion.
The larger issue is addressed by Rabbi Dan Fink in his Saturday religion
column:
the
questions of religious extremism and control of women.
Soul of a new machine
Kevin Baker's campaign stop for the NYT:
The
Outsourced Party. How the Fairness Doctrine became a quaint
artifact, and outsourced messaging (and then "thinking") left the
Republican Party subservient to its mouthpieces.
"This campaign season we've seen all the major Republican candidates for
president adopt the bombastic, apocalyptic rhetoric of talk radio,
insisting that we will 'lose America' if they aren't elected, and
filling their speeches and debates with ugly personal insults, directed
at each other and at President Obama. The results are in the poll
numbers. Unlike the sharp but generally civil 2008 primary fight between
Obama and Hillary Clinton, which galvanized the Democratic base, the
Republican struggle this year has been steadily driving down the party's
appeal and driving up the candidates' negative ratings."
What do you get when you combine rugged individualism and tax-cut
facilitiated unbridled wealth? The Billionaire Fairness Doctrine:
"Forced to resign as speaker of the House by your own party? Handed the
worst electoral defeat in your own state that anyone can remember? Way
behind in the delegate count? In some circumstances, it might be good
that even though you've failed previously you can still go out and make
your case to the people. But now you can even fail at that, as well. It
doesn't matter. Just one billionaire can keep you on the campaign
trail!"
In a smaller market, viewers of the weekly public TV legislative
roundup, Idaho
Reports, were treated to the bizarre spectacle of Wayne Hoffman,
speaking in the royal plural for his secretly funded Idaho Freedom
Foundation "think" tank, saying
"we have a whole, you know, herd of potential new legislators
coming in and our job is to educate them, because we find that many
people do not truly understand "free markets" and "limited
government."
Hoffman's organization enjoys a tax exemption as a 501(c)(3) entity,
as well as the free air time on public TV. The IRS limits such
"charitable" entities to no more than 20% of their budget to lobbying, so
"most of what we do is education," don't you know.
Host Greg Hahn charitably imagined that Hoffman's subsidiary "news"
outlet has "a team of reporters," and Hoffman volunteered that they'll
be covering "issues," not "who'd you get money from, and who's ahead in
the polls or whatever." One of the two reporters
currently listed
is
off
to greener pastures, and the editor shares a surname with the
remaining team-of-one.
With "news" and "education" like this, who needs lobbyists? (Or an
actual political party, for that matter.) Just herd 'em up, teach 'em
how to talk good and tell 'em how to vote.
Direct email
The good news is, the messages come and go with less waste of resources
than the old days of direct mail, an obligatory 4-page pitch with a
response card and return envelope. And since no one would read 4 pages
of text, the messages are a lot more direct. The bad news is that
after a while they just seem pathetic. Today's, under the slightly
ominous subject, your record:
Hey friend -- Our team is reviewing supporter records this weekend, and
we noticed that you had not yet made an online contribution (your record
is copied and pasted below):
Supporter record: #######
Name: , friend
2012 online support: pending
Suggested support: $5.00
The ask is easy enough, and if I could drop a fiver in the hat and walk
on, I might even do it. But, my record. They've got my number,
and you know the first contribution is the most important one. I
could be hey , friend for life, for a click, chip and five bucks.
23.March 2012
Gas is cheap
Not the liquid gasoline you pump into your car, the gas gas someone else
pumps into your house if you heat with methane. Crazy cheap.
The domestic oil and gas boom is full on right now,
"vastly increasing production, reversing two decades of decline."
The recession has reduced demand, and people are buying more
fuel-efficient vehicles. Liquid fuel imports are down from a record high
of 60% in 2005, to 45% last year.
From
the New York Times:
"...the domestic trends are unmistakable. Not only has the United States
reduced oil imports from members of the Organization of the Petroleum
Exporting Countries by more than 20 percent in the last three years, it
has become a net exporter of refined petroleum products like gasoline
for the first time since the Truman presidency. The natural gas
industry, which less than a decade ago feared running out of domestic
gas, is suddenly dealing with a glut so vast that import facilities are
applying for licenses to export gas to Europe and Asia."
Where they're keen to have it. The
charts
linked in the sidebar show world consumption of liquid fuels in
Europe and the US relatively flat by comparison to the rest of the
world, booming in consumption for more than a decade (or well more than
two decades in the Asia/Pacific region that includes India and
China).
Gail the Actuary's post on The Oil Drum earlier this month,
Why High Oil Prices Are
Now Affecting Europe More Than the US had a graph that should be
held up and waved any time someone shouts "Drill, Baby Drill" as if it
were an answer to anything. It's a time series of world oil supply and
the price of oil from January 2001 to November 2011, and shouts two
things: (1) the world has a very substantial infrastructure for
maintaining a steady oil supply; and (2) the price is not correlated
with supply. In any way, shape or form. "The world is presently sharing
a limited supply of oil." As she (?) describes, it does matter
where your supply comes from. Domestic is cheaper.
The natural gas price chart comparing the US, Europe and Japan is
astounding. Figure 7 shows our price down to decade-ago levels after
peaking at 4 and 5 times what it is now in 2005 and 2008. While our
price is plummeting, Europe's and Japan's are peaking again, almost
$12/million Btu in Europe and over $16 in Japan, versus almost down to
$2 in the U.S.
So while folks consider the sticker shock of filling the car, they may
also notice that their winter heating bills are a ton more
manageable this year. Our new high-tech furnace has been loafing, and
our cost for the whole winter this year will be about what we spent
in the two peak months in 2007-8.
Mitt Romney's hope is that nobody will be thinking about natural gas
come summer, and what
Paul Krugman called a "craziness triple play—a lie wrapped in
an absurdity swaddled in paranoia" will have some persuasive power.
It'll all be Obama's fault, whatever "it" we don't like.
Brand new CEO at HP's annual meeting
Reading
Andrew Nusca's account of HP's annual meeting this week
brought to mind the one such meeting I'd attended, back when I was an HP
employee, and an HP shareholder. It was at the giddy precipice of the
dot.com boom, when blogging was still a geek sport almost no one had
heard of. I took notes, and published my account on HP's intranet, where
a select (but worldwide) audience enjoyed the color commentary with
carefully rounded edges. Nothing in it that would get me fired, and
besides, everthing was coming up roses about then. The spinoff of
Agilent was underway and seemed to be going well, after
the
largest-ever IPO in Silicon Valley history to date. (Talk about good
timing!) The first round of layoffs and the gigantic merger with Compaq
that would follow on its heels were more than a year in the future in
early March, 2000.
There are all sorts of parallels and comparisons to consider, even though
the context, and HP as a corporation in 2012 is nothing like what
it was 12 years ago. Some of the same people are still there, to be sure
(many of them good friends and valued colleagues), but after mergers and
spinoffs and countless rounds of "workforce reduction," it has
nearly 350,000 employees, four times what it had before it was
split roughly in two to form Agilent. For 2000, it reported $3.7 billion
net earnings on $49B revenue; in 2011, it earned $7B on $127B
revenue.
With HP debuting another CEO, it seemed like time to mine the archives,
and put it up on fortboise:
HP's 2000 Annual
Meeting.
22.March 2012
This could be a trend
Rachel Maddow
covers our breaking news—that the Idaho House, of all
entities, has decided to
slow,
redirect, or possibly abort the coerced ultrasound bill—along
with stories from around the country about right-wing overreach being
walked back. Seems way too early to imagine they're done overreaching,
but it's good to know there is a bridge too far, finally.
Turns out our womenfolk may have some say after all. Rep. Max Black's
wife spoke up about a legislative bill, for what he says is the first
time in 20 years. "By darn, she talked to me about this. She said, 'I
don't understand how the Legislature thinks it can do this to women.'"
Rep. Marv Hagedorn (R-Meridian) says he's conflicted because he's
"pro-life" and "pro-business"... where I guess being pro-business
means anti-government intrusion.
If the legislative overreach does indeed fail, there will be no small
irony that our home-grown, self-promoting religious zealot, Brandi
Swindell's putting on an
ultrasound
sideshow at the Capitol yesterday might have been the tipping
point.
Another opinion: Kevin Richert of the Idaho Statesman,
Winder's
ultrasound case: callous, clueless.
21.March 2012
Can't buy an Apple ID
The iPad first light produced a never-explained server error, and now I
don't know if I've got an account, or half an account, or what, I just
know I can't get in. And no Apps for you if you can't get in!
Figured I'd just start over, create an account and so on. Having done
that, and received the emailed verification link, and followed it, I'm
asked for my Apple ID. From, uh, before? Or now? Because I don't
remember asking for that, entering one, or getting it. Guessed once and
no joy. Let's say... I can't remember my Apple ID. There's a link,
instructions, gives more information (which is to say, the same
information over again), and to this:
Sure enough, the email that comes has the subject "How to reset your
Apple ID password." and a link inside to do that, which is not really
what I was looking for. Maybe if I reset my password, they'll tell me my
Apple ID too?
Of course I can't reply to the email. Of course I can't contact
support. I can wander through web pages and FAQs and everything other
than means to actually contact a human being.
These are the vaunted paragons of User Interface Design?!
"If you can't remember your Apple ID, just provide us with some
information and then we'll find it for you. [After we find it, we
won't say a word about what it is!] Then we'll help you reset your
password, even though you weren't asking to do that, were you?"
Update:
After some gratuitous shaming from family members, I made another
effort, searched up the
relevant knowledge base
article (Google still works for me), and read verrry carefully to
the end where it explained that after you gave them your name and email
address, asked for a password reset, received the email for that reset
and then went back to their site to the reset web form.... on that
form it tells you what your Apple ID is, and, (drum roll, please)
it's my email address.
Now if it were me, I would have provided some sort of teeny, tiny hint
somewhere earlier along the way that psst -- it could be like your
email address. Or, I might have just guessed that's what it was,
because I hadn't made anything else up, and a lot of systems work that
way, even though email addresses make lousy tokens, and your bank
doesn't have that kind of security defect, now does it?
Beyond the patronizing misogyny
Marci Glass, the pastor of Southminster Presbyterian Church in Boise,
provides a thoughtful response to the news out of the Idaho Senate,
on her "South Minister" blog:
My
conversation with Chuck Winder.
I'd listened to the debate (and posted my
response), but even though I heard what Senator Chuck Winder, the
sponsor of Idaho's coerced ultrasound bill, said when he said it,
it simply did not register in my awareness. I was multitasking, and it
didn't make enough sense to keep from being filtered out. Betsy Russell
posted his statement verbatim on her
Eye
on Boise news blog, and Winder's remarks have gone viral (the AP
story making it to
The
Washington Post, for example).
The conversation Glass started hasn't gone very far, but her attempt at
deepening the dialogue is well-worth sharing. I won't do it the
disservice of summarizing or excerpting; do go read it. The point she
has to make—out of her own experience of being a pregnant teenager
and an unwed mother—packs considerable punch.
Answering Norm Semanko's call
The Chairman of the Idaho Republican Party is doing his fiddle-dee-dee
leprechaun imitation again, celebrating the dismissal of ethics charges
against Idaho State Senator Monty Pearce who waited until the 22nd vote
on oil and gas legislation to mention that um, he had a bunch of leases
on his land... the most recent of which
was
for 288 acres, and signed just a few months ago.
In the process of excoriating "desperate Democrats," Norm did not find
any nice words to direct to the three who served on the Ethics panel
and joined the
unanimous
vote to dismiss the complaint.
"With Senator Pearce being cleared of any wrong doing [sic] by
the Senate Ethics Committee, I now call on the Idaho Democrats' [sic]
to explain to Idaho families why they are opposed to the responsible
utilization of our natural resources, including oil and gas development
rather than hiding behind baseless ethics charges."
Dear Norm, what ever are you going on about, and why do you feel it is
necessary for you to say anything, let alone anything as
ridiculous as what you just put out in a press release? Pearce had a
duty to disclose a potential conflict, and failed for 21 votes.
By his own admission on the 22d, he had a potential conflict.
He just hadn't thought of it as a conflict before then. The
investigation was completely appropriate, and the matter was resolved
quickly, and all the members of the Legislature received some training
that was apparently needed.
Maybe you could explain why your party members are now
attempting
to turn the need for disclosing potential conflicts into a joke.
And for unintended irony, you couldn't have chosen a better
red herring
fallacy for the matter of oil and gas development regulation
than poisoning the well; that is, your ad hominem attack
that Democrats "oppose responsible utilization of our natural
resources."
Hence I explain to Idaho families: pay no attention to the little man
behind the curtain. He's not making sense.
Equinox
Wow, look at that. Wow, oh wow.
That was the
reported
reaction from the person who asked a roomfull of seniors in
Pocatello who there thought Social Security was "very important" to the
financial security, at the number of hands went up. If the AARP's
campaign to "change
the conversation" about Social Security and Medicare only talks to
the recipients, the outcome seems preordained whether it's in Idaho,
Binghamton,
Chicago,
Columbus,
Denver or Miami.
19.March 2012
Idaho's low regard for women, part 2
There were only a couple of moments in the Idaho Senate debate of SB
1387, mandating ultrasound procedures for pregnant women before they can
obtain an abortion, that flirted with full-on emotion. Chuck Winder's
elliptical response to the flood of emails that he planned to ignore,
and once again testifying that he had no malice in his heart. Les Bock's
bringing up his memory of growing up in the Cold War, what the "state"
meant in the Soviet Union, Ayn Rand's novels, and 1984. Jeff
Siddoway trying to duck out of having to vote, moving to be "excused,"
and sending his caucus into an at-ease tizzy to straighten him out
and get him to vote "aye" like he was supposed to. And Joyce Broadsword,
starting to tell her colleagues supporting the bill what she thought of
them, before being backed off to "Common sense is lacking. This Senator
votes no."
Senator Michelle Stennett, the Minority Caucus chair gave the longest,
and most detailed debate against the bill, at the beginning of the
debate, identifying five specific reasons why it would be bad law.
-
Ultrasounds are not free. None of the providers prepared to offer "free"
services are abortion providers.
-
In spite of it not being made explicit, in the case of early pregnancy,
the bill would effectively require transvaginal ultrasound.
-
The medical emergency provision as written does not apply to the new
sections; it lacks a provision for "reasonable, medical judgment."
-
It conflicts with the Medical Consent Act, giving adult persons in this
state the fundamental right to make their own decisions for their health
care.
-
It is likely to violate the privacy of patients, in that they would have
to sign a statement which will become a public record.
And finally, that the addition of a severability clause after the
initial draft signalled that the authors recognized the flaws in the
legislation that would likely lead to (a) litigation, and (b)
invalidation in part.
Contrast Stennett's careful, well-prepared debate with that of Jim Rice
of Caldwell, telling us that (a) life begins at conception, (b) he
"respectfully disagrees" with the Supreme Court decision Roe v. Wade,
and (c) Horton Hears a Who! Yes, that's right, never mind that
Theodor
Seuss Geisel and his widow specifically deprecated the hijacking of
his artistic work to apply to this debate. It can simply be boiled down
to "tolerance," of the rights of an imaginary person. Over a real
one.
There are only 7 Democrats in Idaho's 35 member Senate, and
only
5 Republicans who were strong enough to vote no on this bad bill.
The 9 women in the Senate voted 5-4 against.
Our sometimes "libertarian" Governor seems unlikely to use that part of
his conscience and veto this legislation after the House affirms it, but
we shall see whether the anti-big-government posturing is mere lip
service.
Idaho's (Governor's) low regard for women
Good piece in Sunday's Idaho Statesman from Dan Popkey,
describing how the state's good old boy network translates into salary
disparities in Governor C.L. "Butch" Otter's cabinet. The headline
provides the summary, and punchline:
women
make less money than men. In general, in particular, pretty much
regardless of job scope and responsibility. They also hold a lot fewer
executive positions than men do in this state.
They provided a table in a sidebar (and
as a PDF on their site, sorted from highest to lowest pay, and
showing the number of employees reporting to the position, and the
arithmetic of "pay per employee," one of many dimensions of job
responsibility. (It varies by a factor of almost 500
from highest—$24,733 each for 3 employees at the Office of Drug
Policy—to lowest—$50 each for the 2,853 employees under the
Director of Health & Welfare.)
They used their power of colored ink
to... style alternate rows, which sometimes makes it easier to read
across rows, but adds no information. Watch what happens when you
highlight the list by gender (after removing the 3 rows with 9
Commissioners for jobs that have pay set by law, and the one job whose
holder recently resigned):
Popkey's text highlights a couple of interesting particulars.
The highest-paid woman, Department of Agriculture Director Celia Gould,
supervises 259 employees, versus Commerce Director Jeff Sayer, with 53.
She got essentially the same salary as her predecessor a few years
ago. Sayer, hired last October, got a whopping 66% boost from his
predecessor. (Both posts were previously held by men, as are more than
70% of the cabinet positions now.)
The chief of the Bureau of Occupational Licenses spoke up for the
Governor (who declined to speak up for himself... because hey, he
doesn't have to), saying that the totally gross disparity "is not
troubling because I do not believe a list tells the whole story." The
rest of the story is... she, personally, has turned down recommended
increases recommended for her position, out of deference to the
licensees she serves, and for the salaries of the other (35) employees
in the Bureau. She knows which side her bread is buttered on, has a
remarkable and unusual attitude toward executive pay, but I would have
to question her powers of inference and observation.
Sure, there are more details to the story, but the big picture speaks
for itself.
17.March 2012
iPad day 2
The brilliant: Its display. Whether sitting still in your hand, or
responding to gravity, or the "spread" and "pinch" gestures, scaling
razor sharp at any resolution, it defines "state of the art" in
2012. Really, truly instant on is brilliant, too.
The annoying: I get that this is a consumer portal to the cloud, and
that I'm supposed to tap in an IV from my bank account to Apple's vein,
but Free should still be Free, damnit. First visit to Facebook suggested
I should download the Facebook App, which is "free"... But not coming my
way without that app store account that didn't get set up yesterday
because of a server error. Later, the NYT h'link to its election app...
takes me to the Facebook dead-end. No account, no apps for you.
The semi-digital: Touch-typing sort of works, but I have to mostly look
at the keys, which I stopped doing about 27 years ago. And the silly
stripped down keyboard that makes most anything beyond the alphabet a
game of hide-and-seek is opportunity and obstruction. For a context
where input is tightly constrained, the keyboard can be reduced to only
permissable input. But that's not really what's happening: the space
constraint means it's ALWAYS stripped down, spread across three screens.
(Thank goodness I don't need to find diacriticals!) I guess "smart"
phone users know all that and more, and this seems like a generous
provision to them?
Autocorrect is very clever when it's right, and a real annoyance when it
isn't. It helps make up for the hidden keys, inserting apostrophes in
contractions at least as well as I usually do on the first try. It makes
sense to default accept corrections—when they're right, but an
opening to unintended... humor, hopefully, but Bad Things will happen,
sooner or later.
Interesting: no cursor keys. Not expecting you to review and edit.
Funny: the F and J keys have the little "raised" bivets to let your
fingers "feel" the home position. As if.
16.March 2012
When religion meets politics and goes crazy
Jennifer Granholm, former governor of Michigan:
Women
facing sexual McCarthyism:
"Guys, I'm thinking it's hard for you to imagine what it's like to have
your most private decisions made for you. By women.
"Let's put it this way: Imagine that you need Viagra. Imagine that a law
passed by an 80% female Legislature mandates that to obtain a
prescription, you have to procure an affidavit from a sexual partner
verifying that you are indeed incapable of an erection. ..."
In Texas, the 80% male state legislature was willing to forgo $35
million in federal funding to starve funding to Planned Parenthood,
and in the long run pay even more than that in added maternity bills
as a result.
"Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius announced that
Texas would not be receiving federal Medicaid money under its waiver
anymore because the state was unlawfully limiting access to health care
choice."
Maybe the courts will sort out whether,
as
the Texas A.G. surmises, "a Women's Health Program that withholds
taxpayer subsidies from Planned Parenthood does more to 'promote the
objectives of Medicaid' than a state in which the Women's Health Program
does not exist at all."
In the only slightly less contentious realm of contraception,
Margaret
Talbot's comments for The New Yorker that it "seems more
systematic than probable" that the attack on women is an attempt to
"undermine them in the private [sphere]" "because women are on the
ascendant in the public sphere." She thinks it looked like a good angle
to work the attack on "Obamacare," and by the way, it's gone horribly
off the rails.
Into another world
In the early 80's, back when I still spun up Steeley Dan and set a
stylus in the groove once in a while, and it was time to buy my first
desktop computer, I considered an Apple ][, or maybe a III, and a PC.
I ended up going in the direction of my employer at the time, HP,
but eventually came around to the main mainstream of DOS, then Windows
3.1 (~shudder~), 95, 2k, and on down the line. Each round of obsolesence
gave another opportunity, but the early inertia held ground, and even
though I thought about it a lot, I never crossed the Rubicon.
Until today.
My boss got a notion to reward my labors with the gift of a shiny new
iPad. Thanks, boss!
The packaging is elegant and spare. Less is more. A smooth, white,
shrink-wrapped box the size of a thin book. The size of an iPad with a
box around it. No help getting the shrinkwrap open, I'm am now
responsible to protect this work of art against sharp objects.
There's no manual inside. A glossy "iPad" card, escaped from a high-tech
Tarot deck, points me to the On/Off Sleep/Wake, Silent, Volume
Up/Down switches on the side, and Home, down in front. There is a
booklet printed on thin, slick paper, cover says "iPad" on it. Inside
are many pages of alarmingly fine print. Very efficient use of paper,
very annoying to anyone older than mid-40s. (Was I not supposed to buy
this?) First section heading is "Important Safety and Handling
Information," which I have to assume is not actually important,
otherwise they would've made it readable. I am able to see that there is
no instruction, however. But then Apple products don't need any,
right?
Press the on button, et voilà, the battery is charged and
it's ready to go. No need to figure out the not quite cubical plug
thingie and the cord just yet. Screen comings and goings I don't
understand, I keep bringing it back with "Home." It wants to know my
language, has guessed English. Next. It wants to know my country, from a
long list. I have to know how to scroll with a gesture. I do. I have to
know how to scroll to the very bottom of a long list. I do. United
States. Next.
I have to have a network to proceed. I do, but it requires (a) a
password, and (b) configuration to permit this new device to connect.
(We believe in tight security here.) I can't find how to do either. It
can't (or at least won't) help me, because setup is not complete. You
can go back... and specify your language and country again. And tell it
whether or not to allow location-based services. (And if not, are you
sure you don't want to? Yes, I'm sure.)
But no network, no go. And precious little color as well. Color is for
people who have been able to finish setup.
Eventually, I roll down my Wi-Fi security knickers and let this upstart
in to my home network, and we stumble through the essential parts of
configuration, including an attempt to setup an Apple account of some
sort, which fails, because of some problem on the server that it's
unable to explain. Try later.
Once configured, I'm granted color, and access to fish around for the
MAC address, and a place to enter the WiFi password after I turn my
router's security back on.
I'm sure it'll be interesting and fun, but I'm pretty darn surprised at
what a thoroughly awful user experience I had to go through to
get to the "home" screen as shown on the card inside. (I don't have to
worry about offending my benefactor with this public criticism, because
he was sitting next to me as we—veteran technologists,
both—worked to puzzle out this spare little beast, and both
witnessed the minor debacle.)
By the way, on the back of that card, Below the Welcome to iPad
paragraph instructing me to use the On/Off button, there's Learn
more. with a web address for learning more, and for downloading the
iPad User Guide. Because... they didn't want to preload the wrong one?
And I could Get support. if I can get to an apple.com
hyperlink.
Don't think of it as a computing device, so much as some sensors and a
user interface to connect to the world. And the Apple Store.
There's a hole in the ground where they used to grow
Today's soundtrack would be
King of the
World from Steeley Dan's Countdown to Ecstasy album, their
second shot into the blue of my early 1970's music scene, after their
debut Can't Buy a Thrill. That record was cool, catchy,
complicated, cracking categories.
No marigolds in the promised land,
there's a hole in the ground where they used to grow...
This brought to mind by reading the news that the
Frederick
E. Terman Engineering Center is gone, if not lost: 99.6% of what
used to be an L-shaped, 5-story building, a lovely below-grade pool with
fountain, and a grove of mature conifers "has been diverted from
landfill through either recycling or reuse," in Stanford style.
Terman was a lively building, from its small basement cafeteria, to its
big classrooms on the 5th floor, full of engineering faculty and
staff and students, and lightweight construction that let you feel the
rumble of mechanical systems not quite in balance, or someone crossing
the elevator lobby in a hurry.
At a couple minutes past 5:00 on October 17, 1989, when the
Loma
Prieta earthquake rumbled through the San Andreas fault, stopping
the World Series, remodeling the Marina District, collapsing freeway
viaducts and adding
a
new feature to the Bay Bridge, I was in a design
class on the 5th floor, listening to project presentations. If you've
been in a big earthquake, you know the confusion and pandemonium that
comes from your essential expectation of stability being rocked, the
dilation of time and awareness. I remember the tables, the table
that I did my best to get under after looking to the nearest, best
doorway, and deciding that it was too far for me to reach, and with too
many others trying to reach it at the same time.
Even without the amplification from the building, that was a big, long
quake, and... I decided it was the longest, biggest one I ever
wanted to be in. (So far, so good.) 45 seconds of shake, rattle and
roll? Who knows at this point. I just remember it went way past "ok,
this should be over now" and into "how long can this possibly
go on?"
But not all the way to "the building is collapsing!" Terman
passed its biggest mechanical engineering mid-term with colors flying,
unlike a lot of other structures in the Bay area. It was not-quite a
teenager at the time, dedicated in Steeley Dan's heyday. In its
mid-thirties, "advanced deterioration of its exposed structural
laminated wood beams"
spelled
its doom.
The fountain will survive... in a pleasant little park on the site.
Not quite the same thing, though. What of the memories, the lessons, the
late hours' labor over class projects, the learning? Let's hope 99.6% of
all that can be reused or recycled, too.
Ides.March 2012
Batting .037
That's a lot closer to Little League than the minor leagues, but
Newt
Gingrich soliders on, fueled by his ambition, and the dream of a
brokered convention allowing him to apply the same sort of machinations
that once made him Speaker of the House. As Paul West puts it for the
L.A. Times, "his sense of himself as an epic figure may well be
what's keeping him going."
And he could make some more history! A "leading Gingrich lieutenant"
during the 80s and 90s and now Romney campaign advisor, former Rep. Vin
Weber says he's "hoping that [Gingrich will] have second thoughts" about
sticking it out. But, the lure:
"Newt, being a political historian, sees the prospect of the first open
convention, at least since 1976, as a very exciting historic
opportunity."
14.March 2012
Out with a bang
That would be Greg Smith, explaining on the New York Times' Op-Ed
page
why
he's leaving Goldman Sachs, today.
"I believe I have worked here long enough to understand the trajectory
of its culture, its people and its identity. And I can honestly say that
the environment now is as toxic and destructive as I have ever seen it.
To put the problem in the simplest terms, the interests of the client
continue to be sidelined in the way the firm operates and thinks about
making money."
He's not your run-of-the-mill disgruntled employee, having been a
mentor, recruiter, featured in their college recruiting video, and
having "[advised] two of the largest hedge funds on the planet, five of
the largest asset managers in the United States, and three of the most
prominent sovereign wealth funds in the Middle East and Asia."
"What are three quick ways to become a leader? a) Execute on the firm's
'axes,' which is Goldman-speak for persuading your clients to invest in
the stocks or other products that we are trying to get rid of because
they are not seen as having a lot of potential profit. b) 'Hunt
Elephants.' In English: get your clients—some of whom are
sophisticated, and some of whom aren't—to trade whatever will bring
the biggest profit to Goldman. ... c) Find yourself sitting in a seat
where your job is to trade any illiquid, opaque product with a
three-letter acronym."
Witnessing duplicity
We got up at dark thirty, added ourselves to the morning commute influx
and made our way through the rain to the Capitol and the "garden level"
auditorium on the Senate side, to listen to the State Affairs Committee
hearing on the ultrasound mandate bill,
renumbered
S.1387 after a severability clause was added on Monday.
We arrived 5 or 10 minutes after the scheduled start, still a line of
people signing up to testify, the room mostly full, and lobbyist
Kerry
Uhlenkott of Right to Life of Idaho in the middle of her extended
remarks, first up in support of the bill.
Matters of fact that should have been resolved through testimony, or
by the Senators or their staff were not. We understand that there are
"crisis pregnancy centers" in the state whose mission is to persuade
women seeking an abortion out of that decision, and that many of them
offer "free ultrasound" services. Not all are actual medical facilities,
nor HIPAA-certified. At least one is, but it wasn't made clear whether
(and it seems unlikely) they also provide abortion services. Right to Life
of Idaho President
Jason
Herring acknowledged the fundamental dishonesty of the service they
provide. After you get the "free" ultrasound, if you still want an
abortion, the law would require another—likely not
free—ultrasound, from the physician who will perform the abortion.
The cost might be anywhere from $200 to $1,000 or more. (Senator Patti
Anne Lodge noted her bill for a breast ultrasound and radiological
services was $914.)
For a divisive, contentious issue such as this, there are a lot of
things that can go wrong in a hearing with public testimony. The motives
of many parties are clear, but must not be disparaged. Name-calling is
out, as are certain metaphors and comparisons. Mention of the Holocaust
was gavelled. A last sentence reference to "a" holocaust
by
Ardvell Bajema was let go, after he'd waved his pictures supporting
his position that "abortion is murder" from the podium. Bajema was last
seen yelling "Shame" on the Capitol steps after last week's rally,
bringing up the memory of Breitbart's last rant to an Occupy group.
Being a veteran wasn't sufficient to permit you to
bring
up Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union without pushback. The first to
speak against the bill was my friend
Sue
Philley, who delivered a petition she'd circulated and that more
than 4,000 people signed. She described some of the comments,
including that "several [signers] likened this un-American attack on
wives, daughters, friends and children's privacy privacy to the Taliban
and Sharia law."
It's all too American at this point, but for as much as Senator
Davis might sadly shake his head, the comparison to the Taliban and
Sharia law are apt, and relevant. The moral force proponents feel has
trumped the supposed disdain they have for big and/or intrusive
government. You can't get much more intrusive than to reach into an
examination room and coerce doctors to deliver a certain message, and
patients to undergo medically unnecessary procedures. Sen. Michelle
Stennet noted that the only comparable legal coercion is for taking
blood from someone who refuses voluntary alcohol testing related to
driving, and the administration of lethal injection to carry out the
death penalty. Not to put too fine a point on what the Republicans would
have the state do.
For her part,
Brandi
Swindell was free to paint with a broad brush of hearsay, speaking
for the "they" of "numerous clients" who she said benefited from
knowledge (and "knowledge is power," don't you know), justifying
the state's proposal to enforce constraints of speech and action in what
should be the most private setting imaginable. And finally to advertise
the demonstration she's trying to arrange: conducting a live
ultrasound in the state Capitol.
In the end, it was
a
7-2 party line decision to send the bill to the full Senate with a
do-pass recommendation. I was most disappointed in Sen. Lodge, who
recognized the faults in the bill, who said her own church sent her
information with concerns... but that her "concern for the unborn" was
stronger than her sense of responsibility to her fiduciary duty as a
legislator. Emotions can be confusing.
When it was all said and done, and the unruly yelling that punctuated
the committee's adjournment died out, I was struck by both the
pointlessness and the importance of the exercise. The committee's
conclusion was already determined, as the whole Senate's may be as well.
It's important to debate the merits of issues and legislation without
being overwhelmed with emotion and personal attacks. Whatever the
motivation behind a proposal, you have to deal with the expressed
intent, not the imagined intent, even if little is left to
imagination.
And then, eventually, higher powers in black robes will have to sort out
what's right and what's wrong, and they'll make mistakes too.
(Thanks to Betsy Russell's detailed coverage of today's hearing, for
the Spokesman Review.)
13.March 2012
Demise of a troll
Couldn't happen to a nicer law firm: U.S. District Court Judge orders
Righthaven to cough up ALL of its IP (and "other intangible
property") to settle its debts.
"The order is an ironic twist to a copyright trolling saga that began in
2010, when Righthaven was formed with the idea of suing blogs and
websites that re-post newspaper articles or snippets of them without
permission."
Extra-grand theft
Not sure how much it takes to be "grand" these days, maybe inflation has
made the limit more than $1,000, the old-fashioned grand. But in any
event,
$1,600,000,000
would certainly qualify, wouldn't it? Maybe not, if prosecutors are
"unable to find a smoking gun"? Yes, we're sure there was $1.6 billion
of customer money that went bye-bye, but... maybe the responsible
parties weren't "intentional" about misusing customer money?
"[I]s it really plausible that you can take $1.6 billion—nearly
25% of the customer assets under management—and not know you've
used customer money? It is not. One theory, which is implicitly
suggested in the trustee's report, is that the executives 'borrowed' the
money thinking they would be able to replace the funds quickly, which
they then couldn't because the counterparties wouldn't give back the
collateral. That's still a crime."
And it's also the inevitable "explanation" every embezzler comes up
with. I was just borrowing it; I planned to pay it back.
Toronto a bridge too far for Dick Cheney
I feel obligated to point out that I am not making up the fact that the
promotions company that had booked our former Vice President for an
April 24 engagement at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre is named
Spectre Live Corp. Really.
But anyway, the show will not go on, as ex-Veep considers Canada
too dangerous a place for him to visit, the "risk of violent protest,"
don't you know, as
reported
in the National Post.
Best to stay hunkered down in an undisclosed location for the duration
of hostilities.
It seems when he was last north of the border, promoting his memoir,
things
got ugly. For Canada, that is: one fellow "lunged" and gratuitously
"choked" an innocent employee of the venue, quite unseemly. But in the
larger context of the violence Dick Cheney has perpetrated on the world,
it seems a small thing.
Cost is no object
Melissa
Davlin's story in the Sunday Twin Falls Times-News confirms
the duplicity of Chuck Winder's mandated ultrasound bill, SB 1394, as
I surmised last week: there is no medical
purpose in the legislation; it is solely for the purpose of shaming, and
dissuading someone from obtaining a legal abortion. Cost—and the
woman's rights—be damned.
Crisis pregancy centers will provide the service "free" in their mission
to stop abortion. And then the woman will have to pay for a
second—equally unnecessary—procedure should she wish to
proceed.
H/t to
Eye
on Boise for the link to the Times-News article, and the
reminder that the bill is scheduled for a hearing at 8a.m. tomorrow in
the Senate State Affairs Committee.
12.March 2012
Two from outer space
Venus and Jupiter have been gracing the evening sky and sliding closer
to conjunction,
coming
up in a couple days, with a four-hour show. Hope
there's a break in our clouds; today's been trying to rain, or
something.
On the other side of the sky, and much further out in space, but with a
close-up camera view in your browser,
the
water ice plumes of Enceladus.
Is this a great solar system, or what?
Making a sincere apology
As I often have done, I expressed a negative reaction at one of life's
minor vicissitudes yesterday, and then went in to sing in the choir at
both church services. Having two chances to listen to the various
speakers and the sermon, I had the opportunity to formulate a
resolution. It might seem a bit late for "New Year's," but there's no
reason to wait for a certain earth-sun alignment before heading off in a
positive direction.
That was what my resolution was, in fact: think positive. When something
goes wrong that's really no big deal, let it go by. If someone does, or
says something disagreeable, I don't have to be disagreeable too.
There's a positive side to almost everything, and a compassionate
response can be chosen. The sermon was about recognizing "the light"
in others, or as Mark Zimmerer put it in his personal story that
came before the minister's presentation,
"Not only are we in it together, we are it."
The sermon included mention of Rush Limbaugh as an example, of all
things, and the considerable challenge in responding compassionately to
his recent hateful tirade. One person's response was to observe that "he
doesn't seem like a happy man." I left it an open question, knowing that
the fallback response when "you don't have anything nice to say" was an
option to me.
But then I saw the local school newspaper ran a piece from the MCT
Campus wire,
Apology
falls short, which started with a useful observation: "Everyone can
learn from Rush Limbaugh." And then maybe basics that
we
should have all learned in kindergarten, the components of a sincere
apology:
(1) I'm sorry.
(2) What I did was wrong.
(3) What can I do to make it up to you?
Recognizing sincerity (or the lack of it) is an important, learned
skill. Expressing sincerity, and true compassion is the work of a
lifetime. So, let's get started. (This is not the end of disagreements;
nor even disagreeability, given my lack of perfection; but a direction
to head.)
10.March 2012
The war on class
Bruce Bartlett is one of the old school conservatives who got off the
bus because the rest of the passengers on it seemed to have gone crazy.
He's blogging in Economix, and his March 6 entry,
Fanning
the flames of class warfare is not too taxing to read. He brings up
the basic uncomfortable fact of the anti-tax narrative that's been the
Republican mantra of the last decade.
"I'm still waiting for the growth Republicans promised under George W.
Bush after they cut the top federal income tax rate to 35 percent from
39.6 percent, the top rate on qualified dividends to 15 percent from 35
percent and the top rate on capital gains to 15 percent from 20 percent.
All of these actions significantly lowered taxes for the rich without
raising economic growth at all. Why will more tax cuts for these same
people do any good now?"
Hope springs eternal?
Looking up
Politicians love to take credit for good things that happened on their
watch, and to blame others for bad things that happened on others'
watch, probably because credit and blame will be affixed by "the
public," especially the public who votes them in and out of office.
The Republicans vying for their party's presidential nomination are all
over Obama's failures to turn the economy around, and to fix
unemployment, as if that were something a president (and especially a
president with a do-nothing Congress) could do single-handedly. The
trouble with the doom and gloom is that it's out of touch with reality
at the moment. The
NYT Economix blog has
a stack of handy charts in its sidebar, leading with change in number
of jobs. The March 10 update of the Bloomberg data presentation is
shown here, with the time window coinciding with Obama's term of office,
more or less.
What matters to the individual voter is whether or not s/he has a
job, but the overall picture is a positive record to run on. Yes, we
wish it were even better; no, we don't have any evidence that any of
the hypothetical plans B would have come through with a different
result, any more than we can run that experiment. It is what it is.
As the grey footnote says, "losses accelerated in the fourth quarter of
2008," and whether it was force of will, brilliant action, or just
good timing, things have turned around and headed up into positive
territory for a year and a half.
Most of the other stats show the same pattern as this one does; housing
is bleaker, understandably, and Existing Home Prices are still
showing a post-bubble deflation, but Housing Starts have been
growing over the last year. Industrial production is up, as are
retail sales.
Shorter summary: unless things blow up, Obama gets re-elected.
9.March 2012
Idaho's tax scofflaw still on the loose
Hard to believe another year has ticked by, and Phil Hart is not only
on the loose, and
in
the news, he's still in the Idaho Legislature as well. He has
primary challengers this time around though, and
a
credible Democratic opponent in a district that hasn't seen a
Democrat run in a decade. His 15 minutes may be about up.
His Kentucky lawyer (I assumed Betsy's not making that up just to be
funny) argued "that Hart's immune from being served any such notices
during a legislative session, to 'prevent interference with the state
legislative process.' Wrote McFarland, 'This has been a fundamental
principle since the foundation of country and even the law of
nations.'"
Except that, um, it isn't, actually. The U.S. Department of Justice's
lawyer responded that "there is no set of facts under which Hart is
entitled to assert legislative immunity for failing to pay his federal
income taxes." And even if there were, the incident in question started
when Hart failed to respond in the three months before the 2011
legislature, and we're in 2012 now. The taxes are still due, and the
interest is adding up.
Semester in the wild
In today's mail, a link to the announcement for
the University of Idaho's
new program this summer and fall, an "intensive field-based
curriculum," with "classes in the natural sciences and humanities while
exploring some of the most compelling ecosystems and inspiring
landscapes of the Rocky Mountains." The instruction is to take place at
two unique university properties, the
Taylor Wilderness Research
Station in the Frank Church River of No Return Wilderness
("America's wildest classroom") and the
field stations on Payette
Lake in McCall.
Ah, to be young again. Once upon a time I took the "Wilderness Ecology"
course at the UI, two weeks studying botany and feeding zoology in the
Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness. This is bigger, for sophomore- and
junior-level students:
"the opportunity to fulfill 17 semester credits while studying in some
of the most beautiful, rugged landscapes in the United States. ... The
13-week curriculum is designed for students seeking a uniquely
integrated ecological, earth science and humanities learning experience
that can satisfy the curricular requirements and/or electives across
many degree programs. The curriculum emphasizes inquiry-based
learning—students and professors will be fully engaged in the
mountains, rivers and lakes of these extraordinary field stations."
I'd have to dig deep into memory and paperwork (and probably still
couldn't find it) to see what those two weeks cost me back in 1978, but
this program isn't cheap. $3k in-state tuition and $3k room and board,
and another $3k if you're paying out-of-state tuition. And worth every
penny of that, I'm sure.
8.March 2012
The ultimate government intrusion
Hundreds of Idaho citizens gathered on the Capitol steps today to
protest having the legislature insert itself between women and doctors
to coerce a medical procedure intended to dissuade women from seeking a
legal abortion. Already a law in some states (most recently Virginia,
after its legislature backed off from explicitly calling for
government-mandated rape), Sen. Chuck Winder has brought it to Idaho
as SB
1349. While I listened to the speeches, a local TV station's
reporter and cameraman got in my face, and asked me why I was there.
I hadn't expected to be giving any speeches, but I was able to answer
directly, after a moment's hesitation to collect my thoughts.
It
did make the news, as one of two "citizen" comments, positioned
before Winder's statement. Which is good, because I was curious what I'd
said: I'm familiar with the position I expressed, but wasn't sure
what words had actually come out of my mouth. I said:
"Mandating an unnecessary medical procedure is anathema, and the
Republicans in this state should be ashamed they brought it up."
I didn't do as well as the featured speakers (which, ahem, the reporter
actually should have been paying attention to, don't you think?),
and lord knows "shame" is not going to slow down those acting out the
impulse to impose their morality on others. The reporter, Scott Logan,
put my comment right in front of a sound bite from the Senator,
collected indoors.
Scott Logan: "But the bill's sponsor, Sen. Chuck Winder is
unashamed:"
Winder: "Obviously, the state has an interest in the life of that,
uh, unborn uh, baby, and uh, I think that we do have a uh an interest in
protecting that life, uh, it doesn't eliminate uh the right of that
woman to have an abortion..."
Logan: "Winder says the purpose is to give woman the opportunity
to make an informed decision by providing them with more information
before going through with an abortion."
In his set up, Logan noted, accurately, that opponents call it a
political tactic to shame and bully women already burdened with a
difficult decision." There is no other diagnostic procedure mandated by
state law. My soundbite made the 4pm and 5:30pm news, and someone else
had her 15 seconds of fame on the 5pm broadcast. (Yes, they have three
half-hour repeats of their news between 4 and 6pm.)
Sondra Lambert: "It just seems ridiculous in my mind
that you would even question that women are so stupid that they can't
make up their own minds about how they want their lives to run..."
Another disturbing aspect is
highlighted by the
ACLU: the list of "health care providers, facilities, and clinics
that offer to perform such ultrasounds free of charge" that the state
Department of Health and Welfare would be commanded to compile is
certain to include "crisis pregnancy centers" that are not medical
offices, but rather fake "clinics."
That does seem like a fitting connection for the fake principle of
smaller, less intrusive government that state Republicans mouth when it
suits their purposes, and ignore when it does not.
7.March 2012
Tipsy point
Watching the numbers roll in last night, especially Ohio
tipping to Romney (by less than 1% of votes cast, but thanks to the
little men behind the curtains, he gets
62.5%
of the delegates to be had), it seemed pretty obvious that Romney's
adequate appeal, ample money, and competent campaign have reached the
tipping point to demonstrate the inevitability that the pundit class
have talked about for lo these many months.
But the other three candidates still standing all read the results in
some favorable light, or something. Gingrich won his home state! Rick
Santorum put a couple more notches in
his
belt and will slog-fight on! Gingrich promises to take the south
(please). Mr. ConservativeHQ politely calls on Newt to
consider dropping
out, as he imagines "kingmakers" and "spoilers" in this Republican
soufflé that's already gone flat as a pancake.
But there is some comedy gold still to be mined here. Viguerie's wind-up
conclusion made me laugh out loud:
"As the astute student of history that he is, Speaker Gingrich is unique
among the candidates in his ability to appreciate that the greatest acts
of patriotism always involve a measure of self-sacrifice, such as
setting aside one's personal ambitions in favor of what is best for your
country."
If only.
6.March 2012
WHIP
The acronym for "wealth has its privileges" gave me a momentary shot
back to the Ford campaign's "WIN" which didn't: we failed to
Whip Inflation
Now back in the mid 1970s, even if we do seem to have whipped it
pretty soundly with the Great Recession we're starting to crawl out
of.
Ann Romney's robotic servant has called our house a couple times in
recent days, hoping to exhort us to attend a Republican caucus and stand
up for her hubby. It would be an interesting thing to do, to attend that
is, but the only candidate I could in good conscience stand up for is
"None of the Above," and I'm not sure the Republicans will provide for
that. "Uncommitted," though, seems like that should be a choice?
I certainly don't envy Mrs. Romney's position, life, or car choices
(could be my association of Cadillacs as hearses, or Dallas motorcade
vehicles*), and of course she needs to do what she can to support her
husband's campaign. But
"poor
in spirit" is unfortunately more self-disclosure than
self-defense. Doesn't consider herself wealthy, huh.
(Oh, and here's Mitt Romney calling, too. "...and as always, this call
was paid for by Romney for President, Incorporated.")
* Update: Thanks to an alert reader who informs me that I should
be frightened of Lincoln
Continentals rather than Cadillacs when it comes to Dallas
motorcades.)
Nation building
Peter Van Buren's book,
We
Meant Well caught my eye while looking through the "new books" shelf
at our library. Its subtitle provides a synopsis: "How I Helped Lose the
Battle for the Hearts and Minds of the Iraqi People." Van Buren is
an experienced Foreign Service Officer who spend 12 months in Iraq as
the US occupation wound down, 2009-10, and recounts his experience as a
member of an embedded Provincial Reconstruction Team on a Forward
Operating Base, in bite-sized vignettes without a lot of embellishment.
If he's lucky, he won't have any more of the kind of experience that
inspired him to write an outstanding book on his first try.
He captures the enormity of what we did in Iraq by carefully examining
the few shards he witnessed and reporting them directly. The irony and
insufficiency speaks for itself, as almost every short chapter has
sentences or whole paragraphs that can stand by themselves as summary
judgment.
The mayhem is relatively limited, but one man (and a lot of training
pigs) wounded, and one "non-combat-related" death are amply expressive.
He doesn't need to introduce a lot of opinion where description alone
tells the story. But at the end, in the Acknowledgments, one concluding
paragraph from an employee able to express himself up the chain of
command:
"Not thanks really but a special notice to Colin Powell and Condoleezza
Rice, who led an organization I once cared deeply for into a swamp and
abandoned us there. In a sad way, their actions created this
book—I just wrote it all down. There was one little hint about how
unimportant this all was to the highest levels of even the new
management at State. On our last day of PRT training, the facility was
put into lockdown for a vist from the new Secretary of State (it's cool
that when she visits her own staff the Secretary's security puts us into
lockdown). She greeted and congratulated the Afghan PRT class down the
hall from us Iraqis, then left. We didn't even rate a walk-on. Our war
no longer really mattered, though it would take me a long year in the
desert and writing this book to fully figure that out."
Kudos to
The American Empire
Project and Tom Englehardt for their supporting role to make the
book happen.
5.March 2012
Carpetbagging
When your run of the mill candidate for president comes through and
tells you about what "they" back in Washington think and do, you can
generally take it with a grain of salt. In the case of Rick Santorum,
since he spent a fair amount of time as one of "them," we can at least
assume he's representing himself well enough. During what I'd guess was
his first-ever visit to the state last month,
Santorum
weighed in with the easy and vacuous opinion that the "they" of the
federal government don't care about this land.
"They don't live here, they don't care about it, we don't care about it
in Washington. It's just flyover country for most of the bureaucrats in
Washington, D.C."
That was on the way to suggesting "we need to get it back [sic] into the
hands of the states and even to the private sector." The Sagebrush
Rebellion rides again! We can give him the benefit of the doubt that he
speaks for himself, at least. He doesn't live here, he doesn't care
about it, it's just flyover country. With 32 delegates up for grabs in
tomorrow's Republican caucuses here, really, he'd just like to use the
drive-through window.
For his part, "Romney admitted he didn't know why the federal
government managed much of the land in the West and hadn't studied the
transfer issue." Maybe some one will hand him a position shortly, but
give him credit for "I don't know" as a better response than "I don't
know and here's what I propose to do."
A half dozen people with actual knowledge and experience in the field
provided
a rebuttal to Santorum in Sunday's Idaho Statesman,
charitably pointing out that recent questioning was "misinformed."
"Most of [the individuals who manage public land in the West] have
attended universities with programs in natural resources, engage in the
same outdoor activities most Idahoans do, and chose to dedicate their
lives to the stewardship of these public lands. They know the values
the public lands bring to the American people from economic to open
space to ecological. And yes, these are the some of the same people who
often spend part of their careers as the 'bureaucrats' in Washington,
D.C. ... We have worked with them and we value them highly, they are
honorable people."
Who care about, and for, our public lands. If you have something to add
to the discussion Rick, that would be great, but if you're just dropping
quips for a campaign event, why not keep flying over?
3.3.2012
360 to zero in nothing flat
John Foster's been turning heads in Idaho in a career that's included
bicycle racing, writing, editing, directing communications for Rep. Walt
Minnick's one term, 50-50 managing Minnick's two campaigns, rising to
senior vice president at
Strategies 360
("experts at negotiating the political landscape, crafting content,
building coalitions and targeting communications" with
nine eight offices around the west), his own firm, and
a complaint out of that penultimate job for
breach
of contract, violation of the Idaho Trade Secrets Act, breach of duty
and loyalty, and breach of duty and confidentiality.
Strategies 360 hasn't updated their website to reflect
the
closing of their Boise office; the
Idaho page still
touts
"operatives [who] made their reputations in tough political campaigns and
working on the state's behalf in the nation's capital" turned toward
"solving thorny crisis-communications problems, positioning
organizations in the public arena, and guiding clients' public-policy
objectives to success."
Let's see how this thorny crisis-communications problem turns out.
Local girl makes good (we hope)
Idaho State Senator Nicole LeFavour is
featured
in the NYT for what she's planning after her term is up: helping
this state take a step beyond "what America was" by making it against
the law to discriminate for sexual orientation or gender identity, just
as it is now to discriminate by race, color, religion, sex and
national origin.
2.Mar.2012
Just in time for filing season (and hours of fun)
Autoupdating between now and the end of the candidate filing window on
March 9, Brett Nelson's and Nathaniel Hoffman's
Idaho Legislative
candidate map, and a look
behind
the scenes, to elaborate on "data journalism." (As opposed to ... ?
We'll need a retronym pretty quick. Non-data journalism. Decorative
journalism.)
Shout-outs to
Dan
Nguyen ("journalist, programmer and photographer")
the guardian's Data Store,
and hey, Boise
City Community Education where you might find a class on programming
with Ruby, but I did not.
Nathaniel says it's unlikely he'll ever be a "real programmer," but I'm
not so sure about that. Starts with the smallest of itches...
The goodies include: the shapefile of the new legislative districts
brought into a Google Map; the link to
Xpf, for converting
PDFs to text;
Google Fusion
Tables, to "gather, visualize and share your date online." Nice.
Anybody can play!
All your photobase are belong to us
I've been twiddling pixels since before digital cameras were the rage
(or worse, when they produced half and 1Mpx snippets of Impressionism),
and who knows, I may get around to scanning some of the negatives,
slides and prints squirreled away in the house. It's been all about the
user interface, and the UIs have mostly been "clumsy," to pick a SFW and
charitable adjective. With a thousand (give or take) different ways to
share your photos online, there are a thousand different ways to dig
them out of your camera, phone, disk drives, whatever.
Or, go the easy way, and give your
(Android
or iOS) phone permission to go on the internet... and woo hoo! An
app can copy all of your photos to a remote server without any notice.
"In response to questions, Google acknowledged this and said it would
consider changing its approach."
"Users typically presume some care is given when designing these
platforms such that their personal data is handled in a consistent way,"
Mr. Soltani[, a researcher specializing in privacy and security] said.
"However, this seems to repeatedly be a false assumption."
1.Mar.2012
Top 5 from Stratfor
Juan Cole
digests the Wikileaks "Strategic Forecasting, Inc." dump for us, the
top items that have emerged so far.
"The fifth revelation is that often Stratfor analysts did not know what
they were talking about and had an extreme rightwing bias. ... [T]he one
percent interpreting the world for the one percent as being about the
one percent is a dire problem in our information system, since the one
percent has the resources and can try to overwhelm reasoned analysis
that recognizes the agency of the people."
Dart him!
It's called
"pundit prep"
"You don't have one of Fox News' talking heads... I don't know,
reading the memo aloud, much to the chagrin of one of the talking heads
sitting next to him... do we?"
David
Karpf, of shouting loudly, on
why academics should read
The Fox Effect: How Roger Ailes Turned a Network into a Propaganda Machine
about "propaganda efforts unlike anything America has seen in the modern
communication era."
Karpf notes that there's still plausible deniability, of a sort (if the
absurd clips The Daily Show's team digs up four nights a week
aren't good enough for you). Good research, obvious conclusion, but
not with "the feel or rigor of an academic study" just yet. Riiight.
Disaffinity #2
It seems Intuit is not content to accept our $100+ annual spend on
TurboTax as sufficient cash flow. We started using Quicken in the
early 90s, and have bought four or five versions of it now. "Friendly"
email notice that Important: Quicken Services Will Discontinue April
30. Unless we send money. Don't think of it as marketing so
much as extortion. But it's corporate extortion, which
means they have a nice
written
policy about it. In the "Support / Help" section of their website.
What will I lose?
- Downloading transactions and balances from financial institutions
- Paying bills online with Quicken
- Accessing live help by chat, phone, or e-mail
- Uploading portfolio information to Quicken.com
- Downloading stock quotes and news headlines to Quicken
Only problem with the threat is that I don't actually use features 1-4,
and downloading stock quotes 52 times a year is not really
mission-critical, but only a convenience to me.
Continuing the extortion theme, the next subhead in the email says
Don't worry—we've got you covered!
If I send more money, that is.
Maybe I should forward this back to the address deep in the BOF fine
print, "spoof" at intuit.com, with the message that this is far too
annoying a marketing program to be genunine, and someone is trying to
besmirch their good name, and our long-standing business
relationship.
Disaffinity
Went shopping yesterday, even though I didn't need anything, and
generally don't care for that experience. The motivation was an expiring
coupon, a marketing ploy which I deplore, but the "Staples Rewards"
for $40 were enough to get me to the store. Now I don't mind "shopping"
terrible much if I'm actually hunting for something particular.
Browsing's just not attractive. The amount wasn't enough to motivate a
major purchase, or a new lifestyle gadget, and I'm pretty much
fully accessorized... but I did finally find a useful desk lamp for the
right price. But it wasn't in stock. So we'd order it, and they wouldn't
charge shipping.
And did I have that coupon?
No, I just assumed they had it wired into our account along with
everything else. Mmm, no. Don't actually have that "online account"
setup done (even though they've been mailing and emailing us stuff for
years.
Well, I could go into gory detail, but life's too short. The synopsis:
no joy. Wasted an hour. Rode home, rushed dinner, went to choir
rehearsal, came home, looked into the archives, found the coupon from
September 2011, printed it, ran out the door, raced back to the
store at 10 minutes to 9:00 closing time... and realized when I got
there that their dumbass email formatting and/or Outlook Express had
clipped the essential element of said coupon, ye olde barcode.
No joy, squared.
Back home flame-o-gram to corporate HQ, ending with "Unless you respond
at [sic] satisfy me VERY DIRECTLY, I will go out of my way--a LONG WAY
out of my way--to avoid doing business with you again." (I was typing
black text on a dark gray background in a reply off their
"inapprooriate" formatted coupon email.) This morning, they did what
they had to, via return email:
"Since you are a valued customer, I have reissued your $37 and $4 Rewards
with an extended expiration date. Please allow 7 to 10 business days for
delivery via USPS."
That was easy.
Monkey wrench
Can the Romney Flip-flop Finder find Mitt "...not only admitting to this
practice of voting in someone else's primary, but admitting it in, say,
a 12-year-old gleeful girly voice?"
Yes
it can.
raveling
Tom von Alten
tva_∂t_fortboise_⋅_org
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Tuesday, 03-Apr-2012 23:47:39 MDT
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