CNN Knows Irony

Well, they publish it, anyway. From Cheney:

"For Amnesty International to suggest that somehow the United States is a violator of human rights, I frankly just don't take them seriously," Cheney said. The vice president also said he believes the insurgency in Iraq is "in the last throes."

OK, now that's just kinda funny, really. We're supposed to trust a man's statement that Amnesty shouldn't be trusted, when he goes and says about the least believable, least serious statement in the whole show? Brilliant liars, this lot.

Why war won't stop terrorism

This, from a Plastic quicklink, points to the problem:

Much of the discussion has focused on how to deal with the rise of a new generation of terrorists, schooled in Iraq over the past couple years. Top government officials are increasingly turning their attention to anticipate what one called "the bleed out" of hundreds or thousands of Iraq-trained jihadists back to their home countries throughout the Middle East and Western Europe. "It's a new piece of a new equation," a former senior Bush administration official said. "If you don't know who they are in Iraq, how are you going to locate them in Istanbul or London?"

Exactly. The real solutions to international terrorism may involve police work and peace-building, or any number of other strategic actions. They most certainly do not begin with conventional warfare and occupation, which we've seen is best at fomenting rebellion from the norms we seek to spread.

SGAC

Working on a individual-membership structure to replace our current system which keeps track only of chapters. Should help us stay in better contact, and coordinate advocacy. Considering minor dues in exchange for benefits like conference discounts. Any suggestions are welcome.

Hello again

Just got back from Columbus, where I spent part of the weekend visiting my brother. On a tour of Ohio State's campus, he told me about the partisanship that marked his first semester, leading up to the election. He charachterised the atmosphere as like that around a football game, which at a school like OSU is saying something. I think the election was an experience of great meaning for our generation, and I think we can make a lot of that during the midterms. Dems in Ohio got pumped last time. When walking through an art building, we passed a collage depicting Kerry's election-eve visit to Cleveland; if that had such lasting effect on the artist, surely there's room for fostering more grassroots excitement if we start soon.

And lets not forget about taking down Taft. He's weak now, after the coin scandal, the non-responsive economy, and every other degenerating aspect of this state. Please, please lets pick up a governorship for the Dems.

Brilliant

In the PD today - it seems $12 Million is missing from Ohio's rare coin collection. Now, that alone is a significant story. What makes it the kind of over-the-top foolishness that we're getting used to from our Republican government is this:

Wednesday, state auditors were stunned to discover that a large portion of the coin funds' assets was being held in collectibles. The items include autographs, artwork, original Lincoln campaign buttons and presidential Christmas cards.

That's right, the Ohio Bureau of Workers' Compensation invested in Christmas cards. And we might not know where they are. Ha. Ha. Ha.

Wal*Mart

One wonders who Maryland Governor Ehrlich's campaign contributors may have been. Last Thursday he vetoed a bill aimed at the retail baron, which required companies employing over 10,000 people to spend 8 percent of their payroll on healthcare or send it to the state's healthcare funds. Not unreasonable, considering that some Wal-Mart employees are forced to rely on Medicaid because they're paid so poorly. Seems the state has some interest in ensuring that companies operating within its borders treat its citizens fairly, given that the state is accountable for those healthcare costs eventually.

Oh, and democracy watch:

He was greeted by a high school band playing on a blocked-off downtown street lined with American flags. About two dozen protesters turned out, but were forbidden from displaying signs.

Speaking as someone who's been forbidden to display signs, I must ask: what possible reason could there be for not permitting such free speech on this occasion? What in the world was used as justification for violating these folks' rights?

More reasons why the agreement in the Senate is good

James Dobson, via Kos, tells us why:

"Justice Clarence Thomas, Justice Antonin Scalia, and Chief Justice William Rehnquist would never have served on the U. S. Supreme Court if this agreement had been in place during their confirmations."

Wouldn't that have been nice! Now, Mr. Focus on the Family is certainly not arguing that this is a good thing, but many of us can see where it would be.

DeWine

OK, so I do have to give credit to Senator Mike DeWine (R-OH), who was one of the 14 Senators to work out the filibuster deal. Good going, Mike. It'll be interesting to see if this hurts his reelection bid in '06, since so many conservatives seem so pissed off that any member of their party would even think of compromise. Mike tries to make it clear that he's no sissy, though, saying in the Plain Dealer:

"I was going to be a 'yes' vote [on the nuclear option], and made that clear to the appropriate people."

So, Mike was willing to destroy the senate. I guess he gets credit for not doing so, which is probably more than can be said for most in his party, but it still strikes me as a precarious middle ground DeWine is straddling. It'll be interesting to see where he's going for votes next year.

An interesting thought - we've been working on his office with AIDS, and this kind of bipartisanship might be an indication that he'll be more willing to be a team player than he's already been.

Deal

So, some folks in the Senate have some sense. Who knew?

14 Senators got together their marbles - 7 Dems and 7 Repubs. That's enough to both break a filibuster and pre-empt a rules change. Lets take a look at the deal:

- Three Bush appointees get a vote (Janice Rogers Brown, William Pryor and Priscilla R. Owen), while two may not (William Myers and Henry Saad).

- Democrats (and all Senators) retain the right to filibuster judicial appointments in "extraordinary circumstances," which is a handy deterrent to Bush nominating an arch-conservative to the Supreme Court when Rehnquist retires, probably this summer.

Via Eschaton, filibuster busters' heads a splode.

This is trouble for Frist. I'm almost as glad to see this failure hurt his imminent bid for president as I am that the Senate's ability to defend the minority is secure. In the words of that wily ole' Robert Byrd, "We have kept the Republic."

OK, this is really interesting

Go read the intriguing and mind-expanding lecture by Yale's Prof. Gaddis, to which I was directed at Eschaton. The characterization of the Bush administration is an uncommon one, and worth considering. I've never been a big fan of the Bush-is-a-monkey school of political debate, and we ought to consider that our political and ideological enemies should be attacked on the grounds of their mistaken assumptions and poor solutions, rather than personal issues which might not even be true.

Also, this passage strikes me as especially funny:

That “Washington’s policy of pre-emption has created the image of a global policeman who reports to no higher authority and no longer allows locks on citizens’ doors.” (This echoes a point made by John Ikenberry).

That “Bush’s decision to invade Iraq [in the absence of multinational consent] provoked complaints that great power was being wielded without great responsibility. (This echoes a point made by Spiderman).

Spiderman? Is that really the only source? I know I've tried (and failed) to find someone else saying that (though, it is actually Uncle Ben who says it first), but it just seems like it's from somewhere else too.

Cleveland

My exile begins.

Out of it

So, I basically have no idea what's going on. I haven't had internet access for two days, and the process of moving has kept me from reading the paper or wathcing the news. If anything I should know about has happened since Wednesday, please send me an email or something.

Class

In his comment, Noah tipped me off to a really fascinating chart created by the NY Times. The amount of info there is astounding. I'll try to post later once I've digested it a bit.

Geek stuff

I think my OS woes are mostly solved. Apple released 10.4.1, which addresses umpteen issues I've been having, and some I never experienced. Kudos on the quick turnaround.

Cisco, meanwhile, fixed their VPN client's 10.4 compatibility issue. Now, I didn't hear about this from GW's tech people, naturally. Instead, I found UCLA's download.

I'm still unable to create a whatis database in terminal since upgrading to 10.4. Yes, I know to login as root first. Still, I'm left with "nothing apropos" more times than I can count. Ah, well, maybe I can pester the apple folks about it.

Ownership society

President Bush tonight, on home ownership:

"When you own something, you have a vital stake in the future of this country"

Now, this was the standard private-land-is-good lead-in to a social security stump speech, and attention largely goes unpaid now. But I think it's worth remembering that this logic, which I first heard from Newt Gingrich days after the election, hinges principally on demeaning the value of renters. Now, that's probably a safe bet for Republicans to call people who rent their homes immoral or irresponsible, but is that really where we want to take this? I mean, surely they're used to blame-the-victim politics and poor-hating, but come on! Now it isn't enough just to have a job and raise your kids, but you actually have to live in the suburbs to be acceptable?

Difference

This (via BoingBoing)might be an interesting reference in any study of novelty.

Shameless appeal for stuff

Ok, so I'm not really expecting that anyone reading this has this kind of money to throw at me. Still, I want me some of this:

I agree with Pat Buchanan

WHAT!?

Oh, and get this - a Washington Times link!

Ok, don't worry. I haven't gone crazy, and my agreement with Mr. Buchanan is limited to certain statements. For instance, I don't cotton to his anti-imigrant views. However, his position that old-school conservatism is dead or dying rings true. What the hell happened to fiscal prudence, anyway?

A quote from a C-SPAN caller:
"I'm always appalled by how much I agree with him"

Ditto.

Newsweek

So, Newsweek has retracted its story about Koran desecration, a story based largely on anonymous sources. Over at Eschaton, folks are spending time trying to deflect attacks on Newsweek for its article causing riots and subsequent deaths. I think such defense of Newsweek is a bit misguided here. Atrios has been railing against the use of anonymous sources for some time, and Newsweek should be accountable in some respect for the ill effects of irresponsible stories.

If there is a defense to be made, it is that Newsweek's retraction represents a rare occurrence among today's media, one that ought to be seen more often given the number of poorly-sourced ambiguities and patent falsehoods published.

Finals

Nearly over, so I should be posting more often soon. I may be without internet for a few days, though, so posts would have to be made in the library.

Shit.

I hadn't checked this in a while. Depressing.

Easier downloads

Big changes at Flickr:

We'll we've gone and done it. In answer to countless requests, photo pages no longer use a Macromedia Flash wrapper to display photos; instead we are using an old technology called "DHTML."

In addition, the "Send to Group," "Add to Set," and "Blog This" buttons above photos now allow you to perform relevant actions right there on the page!

And also, links now work in notes! (And we'll soon be adding some more cool auto-linking features when the links point to Flickr pages.)

Also rolled into this release are a whole lot of little tweaks and fixes that should make your photo page viewing more enjoyable all around.

Finals and Papers

bogging me down. I need a break - if you have in your possession a working time machine, give me a call.

Procrastination

Reading a lot of things I don't need to while not reading what I should.

Rising Up and Rising Down, by William T. Vollman - a fat tome excised from fatter tomes. Vollman's abridged addition caught my eye on the bathroom shelf, and kept me enthralled for half an hour at least. His section on the moral calculus of violence is mind-boggling in scope and detail, and setting it down was damn nigh impossible.

Krugman has his past writings up on his site, one of which caught my eye - it describes supply-side economics as a virus. Fascinating stuff, and interesting to read his predictions of future supply-side resurgences written from the time of Dole.

And that lead me to the wiki on Richard Dawkins, creator of the metameme (or meme about memes - he coined the term meme). This in turn brought me to his essay "Viruses of the Mind," an interesting if somewhat bonkers read.

On to Arendt.

Krugman, my other favorite economist

His column today sets the record straight on Social Security. A choice introduction with a pointed but veiled retort to David Brooks' last column is followed by sound arguments:

Mr. Bush isn't calling for small sacrifices now. Instead, he's calling for zero sacrifice now, but big benefit cuts decades from now - which is exactly what he says will happen if we do nothing. Let me repeat that: to avert the danger of future cuts in benefits, Mr. Bush wants us to commit now to, um, future cuts in benefits.

He sets up the current proposal against Bush's tax plan in the easiest to understand argument I've so far seen:

Let's consider the Bush tax cuts and the Bush benefit cuts as a package. Who gains? Who loses?

Suppose you're a full-time Wal-Mart employee, earning $17,000 a year. You probably didn't get any tax cut. But Mr. Bush says, generously, that he won't cut your Social Security benefits.

Suppose you're earning $60,000 a year. On average, Mr. Bush cut taxes for workers like you by about $1,000 per year. But by 2045 the Bush Social Security plan would cut benefits for workers like you by about $6,500 per year. Not a very good deal.

Suppose, finally, that you're making $1 million a year. You received a tax cut worth about $50,000 per year. By 2045 the Bush plan would reduce benefits for people like you by about $9,400 per year. We have a winner!

Well done, Dr. Krugman.

SGAC website

I'm working with Cameron to revamp the SGAC site. Here's a mock-up I did of the skin:



Any suggestions would be most welcome.

Template changes

I'm thinking of shifting some of the things to the right around a bit. Any suggestions? I've recently added some friends' blogs, and Flickr has updated their zeitgeist offering, renaming it a badge and making it more customizable. Which do you prefer?

... added an XML feed. Happy birthday, Noah.

Are you ready to rumble?

If there was any doubt that the culture war is at our doorstep, I offer two examples from the bogosphere of late:

On Kos (via Atrios via the Poor Man), we learn that at least one Baptist church has kicked out all of its Democratic members, on the grounds that non-support for Bush equals endorsement of sinful gay marriage and abortion. Excommunication from such a place might not seem that atrocious for you and me, since we probably would have left ages ago, but I really feel for those who tried to stick up for what they believe in, only to be ejected from a community they've been part of for years. On a grander scale, a purge of Baptist congregations of their political dissenters will leave the churches as perfect instruments of socialization for the remaining members and children; they'll be left in a state that Durkheim termed mechanical solidarity, bound together by sameness. That's all well and good, except the rest of us don't think like them. Defining self by sameness is cohesive if everyone is relatively similar, but in a pluralistic society it tends to be disruptive if some subgroup are doing so. Moreover, in the US, defining a religion on political grounds is bordering on illegal. I'm uncomfortable, generally, with the swelling interest in revoking tax-free status for religious congregations, but I don't see an alternative if this sort of thing becomes the norm. Otherwise, conservadox churches will be free campaign organizations for Republicans, giving them a huge advantage in tight races.

Second, via Atrios and BoingBoing, Nicholas Weaver informs us of proposed changes to Export Control Rules that would limit people born in certain countries from using controlled computers. Not foreign citizens, mind you, but people born in named countries. Seems there was a change of an "or" somewhere in the arcane language of the law. Anyway, this is further redefinition of what defines people. No longer are people free to chose their destiny by choosing their country, but are now to be forever bound to that land in which they were born.

Both of these shifts seem fundamentally anti-American to me.

Video

SGAC should get a video production studio together for the office. I think we can do it in under $2,000, depending on camera.

Mac Mini - $500
Final Cut Express - $200
USB keyboard & mouse - <$40
Firewire Cable - ~$20

That would leave over $1200 for a camera, which won't buy anything pro, but will get an Optura Xi with significant manual controls. I think that'd be acceptable. A camera case might add $30.

Optional bits:
extra hard drive - ~$1/GB
monitor (the office's are pretty poor) - $200-500
RAM - $100

Still thinking this over. I need to find funding for it. Graphic design software might take precedence, though - I should look into that.

C2EA March

The Campaign to End AIDS got its running start today, with thousands of HIV infected and affected protesters joining in the fun. I'm working on getting the pictures up.

This day just won't end

I can't believe I got up at 7:40 and I'm just now getting the time to sit in front of my computer. A surprise exam, an AIDS march and several classes, not to metion a couple errands, have kept me on the run all day. Ah, but it will make relaxing that much sweeter. Pictures of the march will be up soon.

Metro is beautiful

In case you forgot.

AIDS Demo

Meet at 11 am today at the Navy Memorial, whence we'll march to the Whitehouse. The Campaign to End AIDS (C2EA) has gotten this all together, and they expect up to 3000 people. Which means it might look something like this:



And we'll be dropping thousands of pairs of shoes on the President's doorstep to remind him of over 8000 needless AIDS deaths each day. That looks a little like this:

I hate school sometimes

I have an exam in 20 minutes that, until noon today, I though was on May 16th. At least it's on stat.

Reason #263 why I don't own a car

Sick of waiting in traffic because you're too antisocial to drive with a friend (or because the suburban paradigm that you live in was so poorly planned that you work hours from where you live, and so do everyone else you work with, yet none of you live near the same neighborhood or even highway system)? Well, salvation is at hand! Yes, you too will be taking advantage of the unrestrained bliss that is the HOV lane, even if you're not an ecofanatical, vegan prius-driver. All that you need to do to get your 6,413 pounds of hummer (plus and average 180 pounds for you, its sole occupant) into the fast lane is pony up some cash.

That's right, pay lanes are coming to a highway near you! Already in use in Texas and California, pay express lanes promise a faster commute for drivers of sufficient means. The transportation bill making its way through congress allows stats to transform once-free lanes into pay ones, accorting to the NY Times. For most states, this involves charging congestion-dependent tolls for single-occupancy vehicles using HOV lanes. And it'll only cost up to $8 in heavy traffic.

Wait. $8? ONE WAY?! Count me out. I'll either find some friends or a hybrid zipcar, thank you.

It seems this has more than class-differentiating effects, however - folks are increasing their carpooling, say California highway officials. Well, I don't have a car, so why not.

Wal-Mart

Article in the NY Times Business section this morning about the retail giant. Nice chart:

Not a shocker, I hope. the important information, though, is that the chart represents full-time workers, not all workers. In the house that Sam Wal built, 74 percent of workers are full time, leaving a lot of people without benefits. Health insurance is the biggie: only 48 percent of Wal-Mart employees are insured, versus 82 percent at Costco.

Wal-Mart spokespeople and supporters claim that the company has no responibility to treat workers better than the law requires, and that retail, always a low-paying sector, shouldn't be expected to provide the same kind of middle-class lifestyle that GM did during the last century. But if not Wal-Mart, who? We're transitioning into a service economy, in America and, soon to follow, the world as a whole. Big manufacturing is out. IT and retail are in. If we can't figure out a way for those to support our expectations, we're in trouble.

Whitehurst Madness

Ah, the crazies strike again.

So, it seems that some DC councilman has got serious ants in his pants about the Whitehurst Freeway, a big ugly artery that bypasses Georgetown. $400,000 has already been allocated to study the issue (I can think of a few better places around here to put that...). Jack Evans, who represents Ward 2, is thoroughly behind the change:

"One of my fondest dreams is seeing the Whithurst torn down during my lifetime."

What can we say of such a man? Certainly he seems dedicated. Possibly overly so - who cares that much about a freeway? Well, a local politician whose friends own the Georgetown waterfront property thought undervalued because of the highway, for one.

Lets talk about those property values. Property in the Whitehurst study area, according to the West End Guide, is valued at over $1.3 Billion; that represents a 100 percent increase over 7 years. Now, to me, that seems sufficient. The owners may be blubbering because they aren't seeing the rocketing increases that areas like Arlington and Columbia Heights have shown, which were up 24 and 25 percent last year. Those areas have a lot more room for inflation, though, especially the latter as it gentrifies. The Post explains:

Some pricey neighborhoods such as Georgetown, Kalorama, Wesley Heights and Palisades, where values have risen 94 percent or more over the last three years, showed a below-average increase in the latest assessments. But Braham noted that the increases in those neighborhoods still were roughly 12 to 14 percent.

"They are still increasing by 1 percent a month or greater," Branham said. "And they were growing at 20 percent or 30 percent when other areas weren't."

Interesting. Puts a few holes in the claim that taking down the freeway will garner the District so much tax revenue that it'll pay for itself - since the neighborhood overall is experiencing less growth, the dearth can't be explained by Whitehurst alone. And there is still growth there, so the District will get more money even if they don't spend the millions it'll take to remove the freeway.

Oh, one more bit. 42,200 cars use Whitehurst each week day. M Street, from which the freeway was built to divert traffic, carries only 26,000. M is a parking lot now. Without the freeway, I can't imagine how Georgetown will be accessible at all.

I think Jack Evans ought to get his priorities straight; the same goes for misguided residents who favor cosmetic appeal over practical considderations. We don't need this.

School should be outlawed

Seriously, why do we allow anything that has such deleterious effets on student activism? I spend all my time attending classes or studying, none of it actually getting anything done. AIDSWatch, the biggest AIDS advocacy shindig all year, is going on right here in DC, yet I'm stuck preparing for finals. I say, cancel school and let students do important things. While this may just be a roundabout excuse for my not updating this blog, my complaint still stands.

Tiger works

Well, we'll see if it does, anyway. I'm using a dashboard widget to post this, so I guess this will show one way or the other whether the whole kit works. I suppose I'll be the only one to know if it doesn't work.

...and here's a screenshot, just because it's so pretty: