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Wednesday, March 31, 2004
- Posted by Richard Chlopan - 9:25:45 PM -
Pentagon Flunky Misplaces 9/11 Talking Points at Starbucks
A Pentagon employee left documents with talking points to help Donald Rumsfeld deal with questions about 9/11 on Sunday political chat shows. The employee is almost certainly due to get fired, because the documents even included a hand-drawn map to Donald Rumsfeld's house! (Note: documents in pdf file.)
- Posted by Richard Chlopan - 7:22:35 PM -
Found this via Ole's Critical Section. A "spatial news map" derived ffrom Google data.
Critical Section - Tuesday, March 30, 2004 10:44 PMOkay, now this is cool! I don't even know how to explain it - it is a spatial "newsmap" constructed from Google News. Click on any article, and poof, you're there. You can see which issues are getting the most press, in what general categories, and how "old" they are. Really amazing. Bookmarked! This is the work of Marcus Weskamp.
- Posted by Richard Chlopan - 3:56:15 PM -
Tuesday, March 30, 2004
The sloganator was a GOP-provided webtool that would generate custom Bush-Cheney posters. Pranksters used it to generate their own ironic slogans, until it was shut down. This Flash blob is a montage of some of the funniest. 1.7MB Flash link (Thanks, Jason!) - Posted by Richard Chlopan - 10:27:14 AM -
Monday, March 29, 2004 Every once in awhile I find an article that simply speaks for itself. It cannot be improved by summarizing, annotating, digesting or synthesizing. The Empire Strikes Out, by Kenny Ausubel in Orion Magazine Online, is one such article. Here it is: NATURE BATS LAST For all the chatter about the Age of Information, we really seem to be entering the Age of Biology. We didn't invent nature. Nature invented us. Nature bats last, as the saying goes and, more importantly, it's her playing field. We would do well to learn at least some of the ground rules. The great ecological play takes place in a food web that makes no waste, powered by a solar economy that neither mines the past nor mortgages the future. Some of its guiding principles are diversity, kinship, symbiosis, reciprocity and community. It's alive. It's intelligent. It's connected. It's all relatives. One of the beauties of biology is that its facts can become our metaphors. These underlying codes may also serve as inspiring parables for how as human beings we might organize a more just, humane, and authentically sustainable society. Life is intimacy interconnected. As a culture we've made a basic systems error to believe that we exist somehow separate from nature, or from one another. That illusion could prove fatal at this momentous cusp, this time at which our turbo-charged technologies and overwhelming numbers have given us, for the first time in history, the capacity to blow it on a planetary scale. Our globalized corporate empire menaces the future of the entire biosphere. Empires are castles made of sand: They always crumble, they always fade away. But by the time this empire strikes out, the biological game could be all but over. Corporate globalization is killing off its host -- and ours. Gary Larsen once did a cartoon in which a ship is sinking, and a pack of dogs crowded into a lifeboat are watching it go down. The lead dog says to the others, "OK -- all those in favor of eating all the food all at once, raise your paws." That's economic globalization in a nutshell. The real-world situation that is spontaneously combusting today is a perfect storm of extreme environmental degradation and rolling infrastructure collapse. It is by no means the first time this has happened. Previous civilizations have slid into ruin through self-induced environmental catastrophe, but in the past the damage has always been localized. But there's more to it. They had foolish leaders...who embroiled them in destabilizing wars and didn't pay attention to problems at home. HISTORY LESSON: DISINTEGRATION OCCURS SUDDENLY, JUST AFTER THE PEAK As Jared Diamond pointed out in "Guns, Germs, and Steel," these societies met their demise by cutting down forests, eroding topsoil and building burgeoning cities in dry areas that eventually ran short of water. Sometimes hastened by sudden climate change, the ensuing disintegration occurred suddenly -- in a matter of a decade or two after a society reached its peak of population, wealth and power. Because that pinnacle also marked maximum resource consumption and waste production, it produced unsupportable environmental impacts. But there's more to it, Diamond says. "They had foolish leaders...who embroiled them in destabilizing wars and didn't pay attention to problems at home. They were overwhelmed by desperate immigrants, as one society after another collapsed, sending floods of economic refugees to tax the resources of the societies that weren't collapsing." When Diamond studied the ecological downfall of Mexico's ancient Mayan civilization, he determined that the final strand in its unravelling was a crisis of political leadership. "Their [leaders] attention was evidently focused on the short-term concerns of enriching themselves, waging wars, erecting monuments, competing with one another, and extracting enough food from the peasants to support all these activities." Sound familiar, fellow peasants? Today we're going mano a mano with the whole biosphere, and she's responding with her own form of deregulation. The planet is reeling from record-smashing temperatures, violent storms, long-term droughts, hundred-year floods, unstoppable fires, massive insect infestations, migrating disease patterns, rising seas, and a level of species extinctions not seen in 65 million years. Twelve-thousand people died in France this summer from record-setting heat. In Phoenix, Arizona, people's flip-flops melted on the pavement. One woman who tripped and fell face-first on the sidewalk was rushed to a burn unit. And global warming is just getting going. Last year, the White House pressured the EPA to hit the delete key in its state-of-the-environment report regarding the forty-weight connection between global warming and the burning of fossil fuels. The US political class says we need more scientific study while they march us backwards into the 21st century dragging sacks of coal behind them. But the science is unequivocal: It's no longer a matter of connecting the dots. It's a matter of connecting the elephants in the room. Global warming means more and bigger storms, and one of the most striking images from the relatively mild Hurricane Miserabel was the battered mall of the Washington Monument. A large stand of flagpoles forlornly flew the stars and stripes, shredded to tatters by the violent weather. As the great urban farmer Michael Abelman said, "After all, what good is a country and a flag if there is no more fertile soil, no ancient forests, no clean water, no pure food? If you really love your country, protect and restore some wildness. Support local agriculture. Plant a garden. Those who work to protect and restore these things are the real patriots." THE BREEDING GROUNDS FOR TERRORISM HAVE THE WORST ENVIRONMENTAL DEVASTATION AND POVERTY In truth, the US political class is clueless. Its only plan is to eat all the food all at once. Although the empire may seem awesomely powerful, it's coming apart at the seams. But what is also true here and around the world is that people are stepping up with real solutions. There's a new superpower: Global popular movements. They are growing from the bottom up, taking back control over our lives, our communities, our economies and our cultures. People are again starting to assume responsibility for the lands, the waters, the forests, and the global commons we all share. People worldwide are rejecting the deification of the market over environmental and human rights. As Amory Lovins has said, "Markets make a great servant but a bad master and a worse religion... And a society that tries to substitute markets for politics, ethics, or faith is seriously adrift." There are brilliant scientific and social innovators among us who've been patiently incubating the seeds of successful local, regional, and even societal plans for the transformation to a sustainable civilization. An alternative globalization movement of unprecedented proportions is taking shape, weaving a green web of innovative models grounded in true biotechnologies and social equity. This new world is being born right now before our eyes. It mimics the decentralized intelligence of living systems, the innate democracy of life. It's founded in the recognition that the first homeland security comes from environmental security. Our civilization's out-of-body experience is screeching to a halt as we awaken to our absolute dependence on natural life-support systems and our interdependence with all life. Cleaning up the environment will happen only when we clean up politics and reclaim our government. In a world where half the people live on $2 a day or less, we can have no peace. The world's most dangerous political hot spots and breeding grounds for terrorism are exactly the same places with the worst environmental devastation and poverty. Go figure. DEMOCRACY IS NOT A SPECTATOR SPORT We're entering into unknown territory. There will be little to hold onto. It could be a time of unimaginable suffering and loss. But it will also be a renaissance of flourishing creativity and deep healing. The regenerative capacity of nature is powerful beyond our imagination. And the boundless nobility of the human soul is arising everywhere in waves of caring and kindness. Our social security is being woven in community, as people gather to mend our shredded social fabric and solve problems together. There is as much cause for hope as for horror. And we know we must prevail. We can start by attending to our worst wounds. In very practical terms, the solution is to invest in our problems. We need a Green New Deal, a massive global investment in repairing the environment, transforming our infrastructures, and restoring people. The measure of any solution is whether it solves for pattern by resolving multiple problems in one fell swoop. What's called for is strong government leadership to reboot the system. We need an immediate global Marshall plan of clean, renewable energy, and the re-design and rebuilding of our decaying infrastructures and clotted transportation systems. We can jump-start a permanent transition to an ecological agriculture that produces healthy, nutritious food in regionalized foodsheds -- restores the land, air and water -- and revives rural economies thriving with small and medium-sized farms. We need a just legal system that puts human and environmental rights above corporate rights. All these programs will yield dramatically positive results -- environmentally, economically, socially and spiritually. And all of it is attainable. In great measure we already know what to do, in practical terms, to realize this vision. The vexing bottleneck we face is political, not technological. As the Italian dictator Benito Mussolini, known as The Father of Fascism, said in a refreshing moment of candor, "Fascism should more properly be called corporatism, since it is the merger of state and corporate power." As the whole world becomes a company town, democracy is in peril of becoming a phantom limb, severed from the body politic while we imagine it's still attached. Cleaning up the environment will happen when we clean up politics and reclaim our government. Democracy is not a spectator sport. Voting is not something we can do just every two or four years. We need to vote every day with our lives. The coming environmental blowback and social dislocation could just as easily swing us toward martial law and totalitarian rule. If we don't change direction, we will end up where we're heading. Thanks to Jeff Gold of the Ontario Green Party for the link. |
- Posted by Richard Chlopan - 11:50:23 AM -
Sunday, March 28, 2004We'd suggest that no small part of the reason for the right wing's political success in the US over the past couple of decades is the ever-increasing web of religious stations that, along with the gospel, deliver a daily dose of reactionary politics. As we noticed during a recent cross-country drive, there are parts of the US where it's difficult to tune in a radio station that isn't a religious broadcaster.
Worse, she adds,
As anyone in noncommercial broadcasting will tell you — especially someone who works at a station that has translators to take its signal past the area of its main transmitter — religious broadcasters have for years been encroaching on the signals of public broadcasters and sometimes (legally) replacing public radio service with the broadcasts of religious stations.
Look at the situation this way. At least Clear Channel tries to bring some diversity to the airwaves. So do NPR, PRI, public radio, Pacifica, college radio and other purveyors of noncommercial radio in the U.S. Religious broadcasters, however, have exactly one point of view, one "educational" agenda. Yet they're the ones packing the dials with signals, and getting approximately zero resistance from the FCC.
Credit where due: They're really good at it. And they're kicking the pants off the rest of the folks listed in the last paragraph. And they've been at it for a looong time.
Bonus link: Against God: The Full Story of the Lansman-Milam Petition. That's for those who don't remember the dawning days of KTAO, KCHU, KPOO, KRAB, KDNA, KFAT, KBOO and other fun & fine stations, nobody ever understood what good could be done with noncommmercial community radio than Jeremy Lansman and Lorenzo Milam. They fought the religious broadcasters, and lost, basically. And they were heros. We should remember them more often, and better. Lorenzo's Sex & Broadcasting was the how-to book for setting up a community radio station. And it was obsoleted when NPR lobbied successfully for the elimination of the entire class of 10-watt ("Class D") community stations, which paved the way, ostensibly, for larger "professional" noncommercial stations to grow their signals. I don't know how much killing off the Class D stations helped NPR (all the big public stations I can think of were already big at that time), but it did knock down the on-ramp into radio over which many of those big stations first got on the air.
By the way, KPOO and KBOO are still alive. The lnks above go to the stations, and not just memories of better times.
- Posted by Richard Chlopan - 12:46:51 PM -
Thursday, March 25, 2004Don't think about pink elephants
"According to a new Harvard University psychological study, the thoughts we push out of our brains during the day seep into our dreams at night. The reason may be because the prefontal cortex--the part of the brain we use to plan and organize complex cognitive processes--doesn't work as hard when we're asleep.
"Maybe this is why students dream of sleeping through an important exam, why actors dream of going blank on stage, and why truckers dream of driving off the road," one of the researchers told Scientific American. "Dreams are where our thoughts go when we try to put the thoughts out of mind." Link "
- Posted by Richard Chlopan - 9:04:50 PM -
"Your government failed you. Those entrusted with protecting you failed you. And I failed you. We tried hard. But that doesn't matter, because we failed. And for that failure, I would ask, once all the facts are out, for your understanding and for your forgiveness."
I haven't yet even seen the video, and I'm way behind in my reading so I don't really know what people are saying out there about Richard Clarke's extraordinary testimony yesterday before the 9/11 Commission. But just reading those words in newspaper reports made me think that the words of the former head of counterterrorism will go down as one of those defining moments in American public life, like the Army-McCarthy hearings' "Have you no decency, sir, at long last" or the Watergate hearings' "What did the president know and when did he know it?"
Because Clarke's words exposed a deep emotional vacuum in the Bush administration's handling of 9/11. Bush and his team won widespread acclaim for their bullhorn-toting, Bible-waving, smart-bomb-dropping reaction to the terror attacks. And each of those responses had its place, accomplished something in the long process of coming to terms with the death and destruction of that day. But the Bush approach, with its macho swagger punctuated by interludes of lower-lip-biting moments of silence for our collective loss, has never fully satisfied the national psyche.
Someone can correct me if I'm wrong, but I can't recall a single instance when a leading Bush official -- someone on the order of a cabinet secretary or above -- looked the American people in the eye and either apologized or admitted error. They don't know how to do it. Admitting mistakes is not in their playbook. Apologies are for wimps and Democrats.
Now Clarke, neither wimp nor Democrat, has done both these things, in simple, direct words -- words that, I think, the 9/11 family members and their wider network of friends, relations and sympathizers, a circle that ripples out to include just about all of us, have wanted and needed to hear from someone in a position of responsibility for so long. By uttering these words, Clarke indirectly but boldly underscored their absence from our government's vocabulary in the entire two-and-a-half-year span of days since 9/11. His action placed Bush's failure in stark relief. Further, it reminded us that despite the incomparable magnitude of the 9/11 attacks, not a single Bush administration official has resigned, or been asked to resign, to take responsibility for what happened.
It was fear of just such a moment, I think, that led Bush to oppose the formation of a 9/11 commission in the first place. And it is the resonance of the moment with so many other Bush failures that gives it its power. This is an administration that (as Josh Marshall has eloquently argued) does not know how to say "This was our fault." I'm not saying we can or should blame 9/11 on Bush. But the Bush administration's habit of finger-pointing -- whether talking about the stagnant economy (not the fault of our insane tax policies!), the failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq (not the fault of our blindered policy-making!) or any other issue of national significance over the past four years -- has escalated from a bad habit into a scandal. The stonewalling of responsibility has made it impossible for the nation to figure out what went wrong and make the changes we need to insure it never happens again.
Someone in the executive branch had to stoop down, pick up the famous Harry Truman motto that Bush never seems to have heard, and take its words to heart. That it took a resigned official to do so, and that his doing so evoked an extraordinary barrage of personal assault from the vice president and other Bush officials, is one last stinging reminder that, in the Bush administration, no one's desk bears a "the buck stops here" plaque. Yesterday, Richard Clarke finally stopped the buck.
- Posted by Richard Chlopan - 12:57:01 PM -
The Clusterfuck Nation Chronicle
by Jim Kunstler
www.kunstler.com
March 25, 2002
The US economy has been kept in a state of supernatural levitation by two things: military power and gasoline fumes.
The military power allows us to keep extracting oil from half a world away, even from people who revile us and would like stamp out western civilization, secular law, and humanist culture. The military power is, increasingly, all that is left of the national wealth and social capital we have squandered in order to become a society of obese motorists driving from Nascar to WalMart to Las Vegas in search of "excitement."
The projection of military power provides the gasoline fumes that allow us to maintain the illusion that we are nation that actually creates wealth. This has kept the brisk trade in suburban houses going, and with it the trade in mortgages and other forms of credit, which is to say hallucinated wealth. The trade in suburban houses, meanwhile, has kept going the "consumer sector" devoted to furnishing and accessorizing the houses with everything from coffee-makers to strip malls.
The levitation occurs in the form of faith, our own and that of other peoples, that keeps the racket going. The other people, in other countries, buy our debt (faith in our interest-bearing bonds) so Americans can keep on borrowing money (whether they are credit-worthy or not), so that the people in other countries can keep on selling us coffee-makers.
The US economy is a black hole of borrowed money sucking in oil and manufactured goods from people who either have nothing else to sell (Saudi Arabia) or are creating perhaps the world's last industrial economy by combining the diminishing reserves of the world's cheap oil with extremely cheap labor (China).
Once the world passes the all-time global oil production peak, the game is over. The Chinese economy can no longer power more factories, the US can no longer base its economy on the building of unsustainable suburban infrastructure, Saudi Arabia can no longer control the price of oil, the US mortgage-and-debt machine throws a rod, and trillions of dollars in faith-based financial instruments goes up in a vapor.
Nobody knows for sure whether the world has passed the global oil peak, because the information about how much oil remains in the ground has been routinely misreported by nations and companies for a hundred years in order to enjoy market and tax advantages. But a lot of people -- including some of the world's most eminent oil company geologists -- think we are at or near that peak.
The game I have described -- of global trade based on fake wealth -- has continued in that vacuum of information. But sooner or later everybody will know what the score is because nobody will be in control of the price of oil. The price will keep going up and all the producers will be pumping flat out, unable to increase the global supply and drive down the price. Maybe we are there now.
Some results can be predicted. America's suburban sprawl economy will wobble. The idea of living 38 miles outside Atlanta will become less appealing, and so will the new houses that make that possible. Fewer coffee-makers will make that long trip from China to the WalMart. Fewer houses and strip malls will be built. Incomes will vanish. Fewer mortgage and credit card payments will be made. Chattels will be repossessed by lenders. The belief that we are a wealthy country will dissolve. Foreigners will want to hold fewer US treasury notes. Interest rates will have to rise to try to prevent that sell-off in foreign-held debt. Higher interest rates will squash what is left of demand for new suburban houses. The US economy will stop levitating.
I think this is happening now. The further results of this could be a lot of turbulance in the world and here in the US especially.
- Posted by Richard Chlopan - 9:53:00 AM -
German on the Brain
Some people pick up languages very easily, surmount difficulties with accents and regional subtleties and make the rest of us look pretty average. There are probably biological attributes hard-wired in the brain that support linguistic talents. Consider Johannes Richter, a 70-year-old retired police superintendent in Leipzig. Mr. Richter could always speak English pretty well, but after suffering a stroke a short time ago he lost his ability to speak his native German. Now he's stuck with English, which he can still speak. He could have done worse. English is the third most widely spoken language on earth, after Mandarin and Spanish. German ranks tenth (top thirty languages spoken on earth).
Just in case you retain German language skills that have been separated from Herr Richter through a medical mishap, here is an interesting weblog, also powered by Typepad, where a young German describes what it's like to live in London.
[cloudtravel] - Posted by Richard Chlopan - 8:51:57 AM -
Wednesday, March 24, 2004What would happen if a CNN anchor subtitled his book
What would happen if a CNN anchor subtitled his book "Defeating Terrorism, Despotism, and Conservatism?"
Rush Limbaugh would need to pop an extra Oxy to contain his excitement. Glenn Reynolds would trot out his "Oh, that liberal media" headline. Michael Powell might deem it obscene. And they would be right to complain -- equating conservatisim with terrorism and despotism would be a vile thing to do.
So why does Sean Hannity get a pass on his book, "Deliver Us From Evil: Defeating Terrorism, Despotism, and Liberalism?"
[EdCone.com] - Posted by Richard Chlopan - 6:47:48 PM -
Proper Pronunciation is Important
100 Most Often Mispronounced Words and Phrases in English [Hot Links]
[beSpacific] - Posted by Richard Chlopan - 3:22:49 PM -
Sexual stereotypes, Generalizations, and Pattern Recognition
The other day a woman I know made the offhand comment: "Men are obssessed with breasts." By this she meant that men were more likely to be interested in a woman with large breasts. I've learned to let these sort of provocative generalizations pass. First, keeping in mind it is a 'generalization' (and ignoring the provocative use of the word "obssessed"), it is more or less true that men are sexually stimulated by visual things more than women are (a point confirmed by this article in the New York Times).
I have also learned when I hear this sort of statement from women not to respond with the equally applicable generalization that women are more likely to be interested in a man who is financially well off. This point also appears to be confirmed by the New York Times article. Of course, the article is simply talking about general tendencies in the context of evolutionary traits that enhance the likelihood of survival. Obviously, not all men are stimulated by large breasts and not all women are focused on finding a mate who is financially successful (aka a 'good provider' in the parlance of evolutionary biologists).
The problem with generalizations is that people often make them in a callous or flippant manner that invites objection. But, since we were talking about evolutionary traits, I think it should be noted that the ability of the human race to make generalizations is itself a nice survival tool (i.e. let's see now, the prey we are hunting seem to be congregating near the watering hole with great frequency so maybe we should hunt over there more often).
" - Posted by Richard Chlopan - 3:30:37 AM -
Monday, March 22, 2004So true, so true. Thanks to Stephen Toub for posting this.
Google before asking questions[Marc's Outlook on Productivity]Found this on the web this morning... it's almost scary how true this really is. I almost never ask a question these days before first doing a well-crafted google search or two.
- Posted by Richard Chlopan - 9:43:57 PM -
Justice is duck-hunt blind
I have a little rant up in the War Room, Salon's election-and-politics blog, about Justice Antonin Scalia's broadside yesterday -- the one in which he argues that we should all go home and stop worrying about his duck-hunting trip with Dick Cheney. Here's a taste:
| The energy task force scandal itself hinges on the question of whether it's appropriate for the vice president to conduct the public's business as a private matter among clubby business chums. The Supreme Court must rule on that issue -- but here's Scalia saying the public should not be troubled that his own relationship with Cheney is exactly analogous to the relationships at issue in the energy task force dispute. Scalia just can't seem to get his inflated head around this; he seems to think that the public is worried that he and Cheney discussed details of the energy case while shooting ducks. Scalia's memo drips with contempt for both the public and the media --but we're not that stupid. |
- Posted by Richard Chlopan - 9:43:08 PM -
"With the aid of instruments such as EEGs, magnetoencephalographs, PET scanners and functional MRI machines, researchers have succeeded in localizing a vast number of psychological functions to specific centers and systems in the brain. With nonhuman animals, and occasionally with human patients undergoing neurological treatment, recording probes can even be inserted into the brain itself. Despite this detailed reconnaissance, no quiet areas awaiting new assignments have emerged."Link [Boing Boing]
- Posted by Richard Chlopan - 9:22:14 PM -
Biblical Marriage
I thought this was funny. Thanks Joel.
rlp
[Real Live Preacher] - Posted by Richard Chlopan - 9:17:39 PM -
- Posted by Richard Chlopan - 9:07:39 PM -
The Bush spinners wonder why Richard Clarke waited till now to publish his book. Interesting timing, they say, right in the middle of an election. Anyway they asked Clarke that question on The News Hour today, and he said the White House put a security hold on the book for several months, otherwise it would have come out sooner. He also said he wouldn't serve in a Kerry administration, which takes care of another objection. Anyway, we now have triangulation, between Paul O'Neill and Richard Clarke, there are two ex-Bush insiders with consistent stories on the nature of the Bush organization. One or two more and even the staunchest Bush supporters are going to wonder if we wouldn't be better off with Kerry. [Scripting News]
- Posted by Richard Chlopan - 8:59:47 PM -
QTVR pano: Ice Climbing.Very nifty image. I love QTVR. [A Man with a Ph.D. - Richard Gayle's Weblog]Photographer and QTVR enthusiast Hans Nyberg says:
"Ice Climbing in the Pyrenees was shot by Ignacio Ferrando Margeli. To make it, Ignacio hanged on for 2 hours in -8 C , 17 F."
Link to Quicktime panorama, Link to more great QTVRs in this month's issue of VRMag. (Thanks, also, Michelle!) [Boing Boing]
- Posted by Richard Chlopan - 5:48:24 PM -
Sunday, March 14, 2004
Valdis Krebs' neat chart showing how people who read books by Joe Conason and people who read books by Ann Coulter don't tend to overlap much in their choice of reading was a useful reminder of how polarized our political culture has become, and it coursed quickly through the blogosphere when it was first published.
It made the New York Times today. In the accompanying article by Emily Eakin you will read the following:
| [Krebs'] finding appears to buttress the argument made by Cass Sunstein, a law professor at the University of Chicago, in his influential study "Republic.com" (Princeton University Press, 2001) that contemporary media and the Internet have abetted a culture of polarization, in which people primarily seek out points of view to which they already subscribe. |
This sounds good until you think for a nanosecond. Yes, Krebs' chart is a vivid indication that our culture is divided. But it doesn't offer much help figuring out how we got there. Sure, it's possible that "contemporary media and the Internet" are at fault, but how does Krebs' chart buttress that argument? (Note, also, how two very different forces are lumped together in that phrase. "Contemporary media" includes Fox News, which does its share to polarize America; but when it comes to the Internet, I lean more to David Weinberger's argument, which points out that the Net provides more opportunity for cross-camp dialogue than any other medium, even if we don't use it as much as we might.)
The logical fallacy in the Times piece is a simple one: Krebs' chart is about book purchases. Books are wonderful things, but they don't exactly fit under the rubric of "contemporary media and the Internet." If we're blaming media technologies for political polarization based on the Krebs study then we'd better start pointing fingers at the dreaded printing press. Let us restrict the flow of ink! Or, more sensibly, we should stop blaming technology and start looking at the content of our communication. It may be that our readership of books today is polarized because our nation is deeply and fundamentally split about very basic subjects and ideas.
Last night on Fresh Air I heard Terry Gross interview the lunatic Tim LaHaye, author of the appallingly popular "Left Behind" novels about the apocalypse and the end days and the coming of the Antichrist. LaHaye believes I'm going to burn in hell because I don't believe in his god. It's very hard for me to think that there is any overlap between his idea of America and mine. But he sells many more books than Salon ever has, or probably will. We're beyond polarized -- we're living in parallel universes that happen to share the same continent and electoral system.
[Scott Rosenberg's Links & Comment]
- Posted by Richard Chlopan - 6:03:36 PM -
Infosys said all the walls have been blown away in the world, so now we, an Indian software company, can use the Internet, fiber optic telecommunications and e-mail to get superempowered and compete anywhere that our smarts and energy can take us. And we can be part of a global supply chain that produces profit for Indians, Americans and Asians.
Al Qaeda said all the walls have been blown away in the world, thereby threatening our Islamic culture and religious norms and humiliating some of our people, who feel left behind. But we can use the Internet, fiber optic telecommunications and e-mail to develop a global supply chain of angry people that will superempower us and allow us to hit back at the Western civilization that's now right in our face.
A couple decades ago I read a study (I wish I could find it online) that examined how certain nations were genetically incapable of working within the international system. Their internal dialogue led them to lie, cheat, and steal in order to avoid paying debt, abide by international rules of behavior, etc. A large part of this internal dialogue was grounded in an overweening pride and a feeling of unfair treatment by powerful, arrogant 'enemies.' [John Robb's Weblog]
- Posted by Richard Chlopan - 11:38:31 AM -
Saturday, March 13, 2004 - Posted by Richard Chlopan - 11:22:12 PM -
In Stupid Fucking Liberal, Sean Bonner explains why he started Americaforsale.org. Among other things, he wonders why people would rather call each other fucktards than talk about stuff that matters. Or talk at all, since the precipitating insult in this case was hurled, as they almost always are, from behind an anonymity shield. Sez Sean,
I'm sick of people from both sides not being able to make their point without insulting the other side. Why is that required? Obviously because your facts are strong enough to stand on their own. Now, the topic that is being covered on AFS is highly critical of the Bush administration, but there's no editorializing. It's all factual, with proof, and links to solid news sources. It's not opinion based, and it's not insulting. I would LOVE to read a site with the same respect, and the same dedication to basking up with their claims but with an opposing viewpoint - unfortunately one doesn't exist. Maybe because the facts aren't there to support it, which is why the sites I've found arguing the other side all resort to name calling.
I would love to start a website with several bloggers from the left, and several from the right who were committed to discussing the issues at hand, rationally, with intelligent back and forth, and facts to back up their claims but I don't know if I can find people to do it. I would love to read a blog like that, but where is it?
I guess the point of all this is that it's a pretty sad state of affairs that the default response to hearing something you don't agree with is to insult whoever said it, rather than talking to them to find out what makes them feel that way, and trying to explain what makes you feel the way you do.
Many years ago I made an acquaintence with a mens room wall in North Carolina that so perfectly put insults in perspective that just thought of it still brings me back to a state approaching serenity.
It was a conversation, something of a debate, between two intelligent gentlemen making good use of time served in the same stall. The whole thing was written in tiny lettering, and stretched far down the wall. It was good reading, too; deep and provocative. Near the end of the dialog, somebody else wrote, "Why do people feel compelled to argue their differences on mens room walls?"
Came the reply, "Because you suck my dick."
[The Doc Searls Weblog] - Posted by Richard Chlopan - 2:41:30 PM -
 It's the weekend. Relax and unwind. Discover some: Great Art: E-Den is the site of Hong Kong artist Mok E-Den. Mok has been schooled in classical Chinese painting by some of the masters of the art. He's also a remarkable photographer. Not only does he put many of his paintings (like the one above) up on his website, he offers many of them as desktop wallpaper, and even (check this out) shows you stroke by stroke how to paint some of the more common icons in Chinese painting. Beautiful, and educational. Great Music: A while ago I mentioned the Classical Music Archives, which lets you listen on demand to a huge sampling of classical music. It was recently down for a few days, so I went browsing for other sources and discovered Classical Live Online, a directory of over 100 classical music radio stations from all over the world that stream over the Internet. You can link either to the station website (most of the stations show their current and upcoming playlist) or directly to the stream. Great Fun: Blogger Davezilla, whose cat recently graced the pages of this blog, has a weird sense of humour. And a lot of fans. Some of his stuff is hit and miss, but his Alien Cartoons are silly and wonderful. |
- Posted by Richard Chlopan - 2:38:44 PM -
Friday, March 12, 2004 - Posted by Richard Chlopan - 11:21:09 PM -
Posted by Candidia Cruikshanks 
- Posted by Richard Chlopan - 10:08:34 AM -
Fallows provides a detailed account of how well researched pre-war plans for a post-war Iraq were cast aside. One of the major drivers of this is Rumsfeld's belief in uncertainty:The lack of a plan is still a plan. Of course, it means you can never be wrong. At least in theory since we can now all see that not having a post-war plan was a horrible plan, one that is exacting a huge cost in lives and money. It should now exact a huge cost in this Administration, one that results in the loss of their jobs. [A Man with a Ph.D. - Richard Gayle's Weblog]The limits of future knowledge, Feith said, were of special importance to Rumsfeld, "who is death to predictions." "His big strategic theme is uncertainty," Feith said. "The need to deal strategically with uncertainty. The inability to predict the future. The limits on our knowledge and the limits on our intelligence."
Uncertainty is different from risk in that there is no mathematical predication that can be made based on historical behavior. However, in Rumsfeld's mind, it seems that a belief in uncertainty only applies to negative outcomes and not upside opportunities (ie. don't prepare because we don't know what the outcome will be):
In the immediate run-up to the war the Administration still insisted that the costs were unforeseeable. "Fundamentally, we have no idea what is needed unless and until we get there on the ground," Paul Wolfowitz told the House Budget Committee on February 27, with combat less than three weeks away.
The way military planning accounts for uncertainty is to build contingencies. While the precise risk can't be calculated, broad categories of uncertainties can be anticipated and contingencies can be built around them. That requires lots more resources than the core plan requires. In business the logic is exactly the opposite. If you fund every contingency based on unquantifiable uncertainty, you will lose money. This, in combination with the heavy emphasis on corporate mercenaries currently in place, leads me to conclude that "business" logic is at the core of Rumsfeld's transformational military. [John Robb's Weblog]
- Posted by Richard Chlopan - 9:09:30 AM -
- Posted by Richard Chlopan - 8:58:04 AM -
Wednesday, March 10, 2004 - Posted by Richard Chlopan - 11:38:22 PM -
<Link [Boing Boing Blog]Bush is against campaign finance reform; then he's for it.
Bush is against a Homeland Security Department; then he's for it.
Bush is against a 9/11 commission; then he's for it.
Bush is against an Iraq WMD investigation; then he's for it.
Bush is against nation building; then he's for it.
Bush is against deficits; then he's for them.
Bush is for free trade; then he's for tariffs on steel; then he's against them again.
Bush is against the U.S. taking a role in the Israeli Palestinian conflict; then he pushes for a "road map" and a Palestinian State.
Bush is for states right to decide on gay marriage, then he is for changing the constitution.
Bush first says he'll provide money for first responders (fire, police, emergency), then he doesn't.
Bush first says that 'help is on the way' to the military ... then he cuts benefits
Bush-"The most important thing is for us to find Osama bin Laden. Bush-"I don't know where he is. I have no idea and I really don't care.
Bush claims to be in favor of the environment and then secretly starts drilling on Padre Island.
Bush talks about helping education and increases mandates while cutting funding.
Bush first says the U.S. won't negotiate with North Korea. Now he will
Bush goes to Bob Jones University. Then say's he shouldn't have.
Bush said he would demand a U.N. Security Council vote on whether to sanction military action against Iraq. Later Bush announced he would not call for a vote
Bush said the "mission accomplished" banner was put up by the sailors. Bush later admits it was his advance team.
Bush was for fingerprinting and photographing Mexicans who enter the US. Bush after meeting with Pres. Fox, he's against it.
- Posted by Richard Chlopan - 3:48:05 PM -
- Posted by Richard Chlopan - 11:30:19 AM -
Edward Tufte is one of the leading thinkers in how to visually present information. His latest stuff, on Sparklines, is showing up on lots of the feeds I'm reading tonight. This is meaty reading, so gotta come back to it this weekend.
[Scobleizer: Microsoft Geek Blogger] - Posted by Richard Chlopan - 10:05:30 AM -
Tuesday, March 09, 2004