Doggedly searching for the crux of the biscuit.
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Guess who's coming for dinner.
"We were eating in the kitchen when a bulldozer came in," Reyes said. "He came in through the back, and he just took the ceiling down. He almost came through my son's bedroom."
[...]"My operator by mistake lifted the roof a little. It's minor. I can fix it in two days," said George Zaragozi, president of Zara Inc. "He made a mistake and thought it was supposed to be demolished."
Little trick I've learned, friend: Look inside before demolishing a house.
To the Apostropher.
35 years young and getting better each day. Happy Birthday, Russ.
Very few holidays have resisted the onslaught of commercialization as well as this one; turkey motifs, thanksgiving cards, and the Lions - Cowboys tradition notwithstanding. I suppose that’s the main reason this old-before-his-time cynic finds it the most meaningful of the commonly accepted ‘holy days’ in our culture.
Almost 400 years ago white folk like me… well, actually, not too much like me come to think of it, but… splashed ashore in Massachusetts with empty bellies and desperate hopes. The promised-land images of their mythology shouted so loudly that it reinforced an unrelenting faith that all they found was theirs, and they gave thanks. But within a year half of our colonists were dead. Not to mention the locals who succumbed to the viral hitchhikers that accompanied our seafaring pioneers from the ‘old world’.
When reading accounts, specifically letters, of people who lived more than a century ago or so, I’m struck by the preoccupation with their correspondents’ health. The technology of daily living - and the standards of protection from disease it can provide - had not advanced but at a snail’s pace since time immemorial. A season’s bad weather meant poor crops meant going hungry. An infant making it to adulthood was a 50-50 shot. A less than serious wound could lead to death. Life is fragile and perhaps that fragility was a little more apparent in days past.
In this harsh reality, in some ways more than in our own, the ritual of giving thanks to powers beyond our understanding or influence has been a common, central feature in cultures from around the globe. Are we less “thankful” now? I can’t answer for sure because of my lack of experience living in any century other than this one (and to be technically accurate the latter part of the last). I can, however, think of a few things that I would say aren’t appreciated enough.
The humanity in the role is one. Our society is so hyper-specialized in its economic development that interactions with other people are incredibly specific. One person sells me stamps at the post office and plays no other role in my life. Another processes my ATM card at the grocery store and yet another bags my provisions; that is, as long as I don’t use the cashier-less automated line. There I’m not directly interacting at all with the person who designed, built, delivered, or maintains the damn thing. This acute specialization has a dehumanizing effect and I think it takes more empathy to appreciate the human being on the other side of the interaction.
The services of the bounty are another. Economic analysis is woefully inadequate. I’ll paraphrase Paul Hawken. Economic figures describe only a partial picture, like actors putting on a play: (Enter stage right: natural resources), insert your performance here, (exit stage left: waste). There’s no account of the constant replenishing of oxygen by the seas and forests. There’s no account of the water-cleansing services of wetlands and the atmosphere. And there’s no account of the productivity of that unimaginably complex system - flesh of living organism Earth – the soil. As the planet's ability to provide these ecological services is degraded, only a faint shadow of their deficit is discernable in GDP, corporate balance sheets, and employment forecasts. Again, I think our culprit here is similar: a dislocation from and unfamiliarity with the rest of the natural world.
Third is, for lack of a better word, fate. And perhaps we’re not as bad at this; each person has their own take on it. But by and large ours is a culture of personal initiative, control of destiny, and individual freedom. We are uncomfortable with forces outside our influence. The random tragedy seems more dreadful, more unfair. This is a faulting of fate. But no matter how well we control our surroundings, insulate from dangers, and throw money at the insurance industry, life takes totally unpredictable twists every day. I try to remember this on Thanksgiving, and hope I can keep it in mind every day for another year.
As my 4 year old son, for whose health I am unfathomably thankful, volunteered when asked to say grace (same root as gratitude):
Thank you Earth, for all this food,
For creatures we love, and all things good.
Happy Thanksgiving
In case gastric absorption is just too damn slow for you, now you can just breathe your booze.
Dominic Simler, 30, discovered that by mixing spirits with pure oxygen, a cloudy alcohol vapour can be created which can be either snorted or inhaled. He is marketing it as AWOL, or Alcohol With Out Liquid, and says it can be used to consume any spirit. [...] Once inhaled, the alcoholic gas goes straight into the bloodstream to give an instant 'hit.'
The inventor claims this method of ingestion eliminates hangovers. Sounds to me like a one-way ticket to alcohol poisoning.
Pennsylvania roadkill managed nature's way.
Under a new program in Lehigh County, deer carcasses would be taken to a compost facility and turned into raw material for fertilizer to nurture plants along the roads.
The carcasses are now hauled to private landfills or pits on state game lands, and the roadkill recycling plan could save the state money as well as provide fertilizer.
To sum up:
"You can compost anything," said environmental engineer Bill Prince of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. "You can compost me and you."
You bring the liver, I'll bring the fava beans and Chianti.
A German accused of killing and eating a man he met on a website for cannibals has expressed regret for his actions. [...] Mr Meiwes, a computer expert, met 43-year-old Bernd-Jurgen Brandes in early 2001, after Mr Meiwes advertised on websites for "young, well-built men aged 18 to 30 to slaughter", the German daily newspaper Bild reported at the time of his arrest.
Mr Meiwes told investigators he took Mr Brandes back to his home, where Mr Brandes agreed to have his penis cut off, which Mr Meiwes then flambeed and served up to eat together. Mr Meiwes says he then killed Mr Brandes with his consent - recording the two-hour event on video.
I'd offer you a little kraut to go with that, but that would be redundant, wouldn't it? Yeah, it's plenty weird alright, but the real kicker comes at the end of the article: "He said he believed there were about 800 'cannibals' in Germany. Prosecutors are seeking a conviction of murder for 'sexual satisfaction', as cannibalism is not technically illegal under German law."
Shouldn't be too hard to round up the votes for that one, I would think. All opposed to outlawing cannibalism, say "Nein."
(tip: TrickL-D)
...the world's only known albino gorilla died from skin cancer yesterday in Barcelona after forty years and over twenty children.
You have to love seeing headlines like this: Pornography foe arrested on prostitution charge.
Police took John W. Riddle, 65, into custody after seeing him in a car at 17th and Rowan streets with a "known prostitute," according to the arrest report. Riddle, of Clay Avenue in Okolona, is a vice chairman of the anti-pornography organization COMPASS. The organization, whose full name is Citizens of Metro for Property and Safety and Security, has been trying to stop adult bookstores and sex shops from opening near residential neighborhoods.
Riddle resigned his post yesterday, "and we have accepted," said Barbara Davis, another vice chairman of the group. [...] "I've known Mr. Riddle for a long time, and this is the last thing that we would have expected to happen," Davis said, adding that if the allegations prove true, "it just goes to show that even good men ... can get pulled into this pornography stuff."
Yeah, just goes to show. Goes to show that the folks who get the most worked up over such things tend to have some pretty big issues of their own in that area.
What in God's name could you talk about for that long?
More than half of the 18 to 24 year-olds interviewed had credit card or personal loan debts of more than $14,000, while a quarter had debts over $20,250. The study found 34 per cent of young people also had telephone debts, with 78 per cent of these owed to mobile phone companies. The typical telephone debt for a quarter of this age group was $5000.
Five large in cell phone bills? I'm sorry, but nobody is that interesting. Unless, of course, they're calling you from the great beyond.
I've made no secret that I think Bush is a major-league asshole. So it is with sophomoric chuckles that I give you the George W. Bush Asshole Mosaic. Technically not safe for work, but they'd have to be looking pretty closely. Somebody has lots and lots and lots of time on their hands. Eighteen bucks plus shipping and you can get a 30"x40" print suitable for framing.
(tip: t-melt)
Sheesh, but life can get busy. I've barely had time to sit down and read, much less write anything. I've been painstakingly QC'ing a couple hundred summaries of scientific articles examining the effects of certain classes of pharmaceutical compounds on dog hearts, rat aorta with and without endothelium, and the like. (Don't ask. Please.) I still have many yet to go.
And that's just work. Non-work life has been packed as well, including finishing up my Wines of Italy class. By the way, the 2000 barolos and barbarescos are just hitting stores, and the vintage got Wine Spectator's first ever 100 rating. They will need to age for a decade to let the mighty tannins work themselves out, but come 2010 or so, they will be among the best wines ever made. If you can stomach dropping $50+ for a wine you won't taste for seven years, scrape together your loose dollars. By the time these are ready to drink, a bottle will be worth hundreds of dollars.
I'll be flying down to Florida for the Thanksgiving holiday for the extended family gig - and taking the junior apostropher to Disney World for the first time - so I'll be mostly gone over the next week, when I'm not checking to make sure that the increase in relaxation of noradrenaline-induced contractions in 3 mm rings of guinea pig mesenteric arteries exposed to study drug as compared to control was 17.5+/-2.1% and not 17.5+/-1.2%. I may get a post up here and there, but for the most part I'll see you middle of next week.
Happy Thanksgiving, everybody.
3. Quantum mechanics is the girl you meet at the poetry reading. Everyone thinks she's really interesting and people you don't know are obsessed about her. You go out. It turns out that she's pretty complicated and has some issues. Later, after you've broken up, you wonder if her aura of mystery is actually just confusion.
And as long as you're at mcsweeneys, Dennis DiClaudio is pretty pissed at his brother-in-law.
From Uber-philanthropist George Soros. Apparently a teaser for a book due out in January which I will almost certainly read in its entirety. Thought I'd share.
Motor Trend magazine, the world's #1 automotive authority and part of the PRIMEDIA Consumer Automotive Group, today announced the selection of the Toyota Prius as the 2004 Car of the Year. Now in its 55th year, the title of Motor Trend Car of the Year is the most coveted and most recognized award in the automotive industry.
"We realize the selection of a hybrid vehicle is going to stir controversy, but we believe the performance, engineering advancements, and overall significance of the Toyota Prius merits the distinction of Motor Trend's Car of the Year," said Kevin Smith, editor-in-chief of Motor Trend.
Sure took them long enough.
If photovoltaic panels on your roof are too unsightly for your precious little sensibilities but a suspended spiderweb of wires, huge coal and nuclear power plants, and rising sea levels aren't, folks, you've got a seriously distorted sense of aesthetics.
California's generous incentives for solar energy are just one of the reasons why Akeena Solar recently installed a solar electric system on their office's roof. Practicing what they preach was certainly another. In an ironic twist however, it seems the town (of Los Gatos, California) would rather not allow any solar panels to mare the landscape in town.
[...]The installation was completed in December 2002; but the town refused to finalize the building permit since three of the solar panels were partially visible from the street.
Get over it.
UPDATE: Here's a photo of this horribly imposing ancillary structure. Sheesh. Thanks, Tripp, for the reminder. Note the wires; then note the title of this post.
The religious belief that homosexuality is a choice, embodied by pseudo-science front groups like NARTH, is becoming increasingly difficult to defend by anybody with an appreciation for the completely freaking obvious. Researchers at the University of Chicago have published yet another study demonstrating neurochemical differences between heterosexual and homosexual men.
[The study] shows differences between exclusively homosexual and exclusively heterosexual men in glucose metabolism in the hypothalamus and other brain areas following the administration of fluoxetine, a drug commonly called Prozac. [...] The heterosexual men had a much stronger response in the hypothalamus to the Prozac than did the homosexual men, a finding that suggested that men with strong sexual preferences have differences in the ways in which the neurotransmitter serotonin works in their brains.
Of course, none of the ever-larger mountain of evidence is going to change any minds in groups like Homosexuals Anonymous, who apparently believe that a "broken" sexual orientation can be cured through exceedingly crappy web design.
Aiyeee, my eye!
"I really didn't know there was a chopstick in my eye," Ng said. "I am feeling better now."
He should form a club with this guy, though recruiting new members is going to be tricky. All in favor, say aye...
How long until we regret making synthetic viruses that eat living cells.
For only the second time, scientists have used segments of dna to construct the genetic blueprint of an organism. Bits of DNA were assembled and spliced together to make the genome of a virus called Phi-X - which normally infects bacteria.
Even though it has some tempting immediate consequences.
Secretary of Energy Spencer Abraham and president of the Institute for Biological Energy Alternatives (IBEA), J. Craig Venter, PhD., will announce a significant advance in synthetic genomics research. The Department of Energy is funding IBEA to develop a "synthetic" chromosome as part of DOE's Genomes to Life program. The program seeks to understand how life functions at the microbial level, so the capabilities of these organisms can be used to help meet many of our national challenges in energy and the environment. Researchers hope to develop new, biological methods to capture carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, produce hydrogen as an energy source and clean up the environment.
So this is the approach to climate change? I dunno, I just figure we can do plenty of other things we know work and avoid engineering incredibly quickly evolving synthetic microorganisms and sticking them in industrial facilities where they'll, ahem, stay forever.
As a result of the scientists' progress, Abraham said it is now "easier to imagine in the not-too-distance future a colony of specially designed microbes living within the emission-control system of a coal-fired plant, consuming its pollution and its carbon dioxide, or employing microbes to radically reduce water pollution or to reduce the toxic effects of radioactive water."
Radioactive water... OK... It's about terrorism. I see. And the department of Energy. Hmm.
Lead scientist was Nobel Prize winning Dr. Craig Venter, the man behind the commercial Human Genome Project.
What our time will be known as to future historians, is merging with the information age.
A conducting plastic has been used to create a new memory technology with the potential to store a megabit of data in a millimetre-square device - 10 times denser than current magnetic memories. The device should also be cheap and fast, but cannot be rewritten, so would only be suitable for permanent storage.
The device sandwiches a blob of a conducting polymer called PEDOT and a silicon diode between two perpendicular wires. Substantial research effort has focused on polymer-based transistors, which could form cheap, flexible circuits, but polymer-based memory has received relatively little attention.
The key to the new technology was the discovery by researchers from Princeton University, New Jersey, and Hewlett-Packard Laboratories in Palo Alto, California, that passing a high current through PEDOT turns it into an insulator, rather like blowing a fuse. The polymers two possible states, conductor or insulator, then form the one and zero necessary to store digital data.
I just want to say one word to you...just one word...
...the very best teacher EVER.
A Burton High School teacher is facing charges of furnishing alcohol to minors and displaying harmful content to minors after being arrested at her Brenham residence Sunday morning, police say. Shelly Dean Lowery, 28, of Brenham was discovered early Sunday morning at her residence with both opened and unopened beer cans, pornographic material on display and seven minors ranging in ages 14 to 19.
(link: fark.com)
There were three winning tickets for the MegaMillions lottery $70 million dollar jackpot and this guy managed to buy TWO of them.
This is starting to sound familiar.
Japan has said it will postpone sending troops to join the US-led coalition in Iraq until next year because of the worsening security situation. Tokyo had hoped to deploy the first troops before the end of the year, but now says conditions are too unstable.
Lost among all the hand-wringing and teeth-gnashing about Gregg Easterbrook's sorta kinda but not really anti-Semitic remarks was the fact that his cancelled gig at espn.com, the Tuesday Morning Quarterback column, was easily the best writing on that site. I'll give an honorable mention to Hunter S. Thompson, though as with all the rest of his work, sometimes it is fantastic and sometimes it is, well, Hunter S. Thompson. Honestly, I didn't much care if Easterbrook was hawking the Protocols of the Elders of Zion in his column (especially since he wasn't), I just wanted my TMQ back on Tuesday afternoons. And lo and behold, it just appeared at footballoutsiders.com.
Major, major props to My Ro-bot Life for pointing me thither.
CNN: Do-not-call list revives door-to-door sales
I am this close to moving to a cave.
I had been thinking for a long time about making cement filled teddy bears. I wasn't exactly sure why. At first it was just a perceptual curiosity I wanted to experience, and I wanted others to experience: the idea of being handed what appeared to be a fluffy stuffed animal, only to have it go tearing through your relaxed fingers like a lead meteor.
The Christmas shopping season seemed an ideal time to get them on the shelves of Los Angeles toy stores, so late in November, members of the Los Angeles Cacophony Society gathered in my backyard to gut several dozen plush toys and replace their innards with Portland's finest. We called them "Cement Cuddlers."
Hilarity ensues.
Or at least he's trying to. But bless his folksy little heart, he's having a few technical difficulties.
Last month, the council approved purchase of a security camera for the recycling center with hopes of reducing or eliminating the problems caused by citizens who slyly sneak trash, televisions and old appliances into the blue and green bins. But the effect has been minimal, due largely to problems with the camera...
Police chief Archie Manning said that the camera has been functioning sporadically at best. "At this time, there's no picture on the camera," he said. "For a while, you could make out a person and a vehicle, and you could almost make out a vehicle color, but it isn't working at all right now.
In other news, the US Air Force's entire fleet of stealth aircraft has been indefinitely grounded due to a lack of rubber bands. Sources close to the emerging scandal who wished to remain anonymous told Apostropher News Service that Air Force Secretary James G. Roche has circulated a strongly-worded memo instructing all staff that if something is running low in the supply closet, to let the office manager know so that she can order more.
New York's attorney general said Thursday he wants to take over investigations of possible clean air violations that stand a good chance of being dropped by the Environmental Protection Agency under new rules for older power plants, refineries and factories.
"By saying they won't proceed, they're saying, 'Never mind.' They're saying, 'Get out of jail free,"' Eliot Spitzer said in an interview with The Associated Press. "I'm saying, 'We're happy to do your work for you. If you don't wish to bring these cases, we will.' These are good cases. We'll take the cases they've let slide."
As long as, of course, the people who are SUPPOSED to be doing it refuse to.
If you really want to grumble, read the whole article.
Here's some cool R&D into maximizing effiency of locomotives (largely funded with your tax dollars) with a computer system that constantly monitors track, engine, and load conditions to automatically keep the trains running and the highest fuel eficiency.
Already the most environmentally friendly way to move freight, railroads could grow even greener if a pilot program being tested on Norfolk Southern Railway pans out. During an 18-month pilot, NS will test the Locomotive Engineer Assist Display and Event Recorder (LEADER). LEADER® is a computer system that helps engineers determine the best train handling for fuel efficiency, scheduling and safety. The NS pilot project is a partnership with New York Air Brake Corp., General Electric Transportation Systems and the Federal Railroad Administration research office, which provided a $615,000 grant.
The patented LEADER system, which was developed by New York Air Brake Corp., will be installed on 15 GE Dash 9 locomotives, owned by NS and equipped with General Electric's LocoComm® technology. The locomotives will be assigned to trains operating over the 104-mile Winston-Salem line, which runs from Roanoke, Va., to Belews Creek, N.C.
LEADER works by continuously logging the operating state of the train in its memory. Over a number of trips the software accounts for all energy used in moving the train and creates a statistical profile of the operation. That data is then used to develop the highest energy-efficient trip - called a "Golden Run" - and help engineers repeat it on subsequent trips by prompting them in real-time to adjust locomotive throttle and brakes for optimal performance.
But what's still the best way to keep moving with ease?
Lots of beans or plenty of lubrication... or both.
Me or your ears? Eric Rosenberg notes that the administration lying just reached a new plateau of brazenness, and Donald Rumsfeld is leading the charge.
February 20, 2003:
"Do you expect the invasion, if it comes, to be welcomed by the majority of the civilian population of Iraq?" Jim Lehrer asked the defense secretary on PBS' "The News Hour."
"There is no question but that they would be welcomed," Rumsfeld replied, referring to American forces. "Go back to Afghanistan, the people were in the streets playing music, cheering, flying kites, and doing all the things that the Taliban and the al-Qaeda would not let them do."
September 25, 2003:
"Before the war in Iraq, you stated the case very eloquently and you said . . . they would welcome us with open arms," Sinclair Broadcasting anchor Morris Jones said to Rumsfeld as the prelude to a question.
The defense chief quickly cut him off. "Never said that," he said. "Never did. You may remember it well, but you're thinking of somebody else. You can't find, anywhere, me saying anything like either of those two things you just said I said."
September 18, 2002:
Saddam "has amassed large clandestine stocks of biological weapons, including anthrax and botulism toxin and possibly smallpox. His regime has amassed large clandestine stockpiles of chemical weapons, including VX and sarin and mustard gas." Saddam "has at this moment stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons," he later added, repeating the charges the next day before the Senate Armed Services Committee.
October 2003:
A reporter at a Pentagon news conference asked: "In retrospect, were you a little too far-leaning in your statement that Iraq categorically had caches of weapons, of chemical and biological weapons, given what's been found to date? You painted a picture of extensive stocks of Iraqi mass-killing weapons."
"Wait," Rumsfeld interjected. "You go back and give me something that talks about extensive stocks. The U.N. reported extensive stocks. That is where that came from. I said what I believed to be the case, and I don't - I'd be surprised if you found the word 'extensive'."
March 30, 2003:
"We know where they are. They're in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south and north somewhat."
September 10, 2003:
"I should have said, 'I believe we're in that area. Our intelligence tells us they're in that area,' and that was our best judgment."
Make your own Baptist church sign.
(link tunnel: Unfogged via My Irony via Pale Blue Dot via jwz, wherein reside many winning entries)
My family (going up the patrilineal line, anyhow) has lived in the South since they arrived from England in 1700. My grandmother was a Stephens before she married my grandfather, and a descendant of Alexander Stephens, the Vice President of the Confederacy. I was born in Kentucky, where my father was in graduate school after growing up in Alabama, then moved to North Carolina when I was three, where I've lived ever since. I take a back seat to nobody in loving this part of the country. I love the landscape, the accents, the literature, the food, the music, the yes sirs and yes ma'ams, the churning blend of black, white, and Latino cultures, the fact that strangers look each other in the eye and smile when they pass on the street. I may live elsewhere some day, but I know I would come back here to die.
I say that only to flesh out my context with the Howard Dean Confederate flag flap. As to the remarks themselves, I doubt that Dean as a wealthy, patrician New Englander realized the minefield he was planting when he invoked that particular symbol. He could have put it behind him easily by just saying, "Look, it was a very poor choice of words, and what I meant was..." But his handling of it during the debate amounted to chugging tequila, putting on warpaint, and running pantsless through that minefield. It pissed me off, and don't think for a minute that Edwards' indignation was manufactured. I spent a decent chunk of my childhood living below the poverty line as a white Southerner and found being conflated with racists deeply and personally offensive.
You will hear some argue that the Confederate flag is a symbol of regional pride and heritage. Yes, but. Take almost any of Dr. Dean's flag-flying pick-up drivers, get them good and drunk, and ask them how they feel about blacks. Sure, sure, I know there are a few folks out there that display it simply out of pure contrariness and teenagers will do all manner of offensive things without any real underlying philosophical commitment, but it is a symbol of white power and everybody here knows it, whether or not they will say it in public. I'll believe it's about regional pride when I see Southern blacks flying it.
That flag does not represent the South; it represents a specific historical moment and social construct in the South, and a deeply shameful one at that. Southern heritage is about a hell of a lot more than a 140-year-old war or the following century of rear-guard defense of racist institutions. Alabama and Mississippi aside, the South is not lost to the Democratic Party or progressive politics in general, but the guys with the Stars and Bars in their trucks are. Permanently. And you don't want them back - they are diametrically opposed to the ideals of the Democratic Party.
I don't want my party's nominee to be the candidate for those guys. My party stood up for fairness and equality several decades ago and the Strom Thurmonds and Jesse Helms left for the other side. Good riddance to them all and their voters - I oppose their vision of society and would rather lose with my ideals intact if that's what it means. Their America is not the America I want to leave to my children. It isn't the South I want to leave to my children. There is a long and storied history of Southern progressivism and it involves standing up to those very people. The folks with American flags on their trucks (which outnumber Confederate flags a thousand to one down here) can be won back. Be their candidate.
That said, I hope the other campaigns let Dean put this issue behind him, because it is a distraction from the real issues at stake in the election. I'm glad that Dean apologized and I think it was absolutely necessary. I believe that he hadn't the faintest idea what he was walking into with the statement, and that is why he would have trouble in the South as the nominee. On some level, he just doesn't connect with me, and I'm the very sort of Southern voter with whom he should have the easiest time. It's a gut feeling that I can't back up with any polling data, but I'm just about certain that Dean would lose the independent vote all over the South, not on policy, but on personal style.
The Republican templekeepers are awfully wound up about accuracy in presenting Ronald Reagan's legacy, as evidenced by their pained and pitched howling over the cancelled CBS miniseries. So as long as we're truth-squadding the evil liberal media on Ronnie Christ, how about we retire the lie that Reagan cut taxes?
Reagan may have resisted calls for tax increases, but he ultimately supported them. In 1982 alone, he signed into law not one but two major tax increases. The Tax Equity and Fiscal Responsibility Act raised taxes by $37.5 billion per year, and the Highway Revenue Act of 1982 raised the gasoline tax by another $3.3 billion.
According to a recent Treasury Department study, TEFRA alone raised taxes by almost 1 percent of the gross domestic product, making it the largest peacetime tax increase in American history. An increase of similar magnitude today would raise more than $100 billion per year.
In 1983, Reagan signed legislation raising the Social Security tax rate. This is a tax increase that lives with us still, since it initiated automatic increases in the taxable wage base. As a consequence, those with moderately high earnings see their payroll taxes rise every single year. The following year, Reagan signed another big tax increase in the Deficit Reduction Act of 1984. This raised taxes by $18 billion per year or 0.4 percent of GDP. A similar sized tax increase today would be about $44 billion.
The Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1985 raised taxes yet again. Even the Tax Reform Act of 1986, which was designed to be revenue-neutral, contained a net tax increase in its first two years. And the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1987 raised taxes still more.
The year 1988 appears to be the only year of the Reagan presidency, other than the first, in which taxes were not raised legislatively. Of course, previous tax increases remained in effect. According to a table in the 1990 budget, the net effect of all these tax increases was to raise taxes by $164 billion in 1992, or 2.6 percent of GDP. This is equivalent to almost $300 billion in today’s economy.
I'll be waiting for the Republican keepers of the flame to howl in protest the next time somebody calls Reagan a tax-cutter.
(link via Daily Howler)
And the viewership of the Reagan miniseries, when it actually does go on-air, will now be even higher.
Unfogged provides several links to a horrifying story of an Arab-Canadian that the US government snatched up at JFK airport and sent off to Syria. There he was tortured for 10 months before being returned to Canada uncharged and unconvicted of any crime in the United States, Canada, or Syria. Even Josef K., the protagonist of Kafka's The Trial, got fairer treatment than this.
And please note, whether Mr. Arar in fact had any ties to Al Qaeda is irrelevent to whether his "rendering" is outrageous. First, because his rendering occurred without even minimal due process. Second, because our government hasn't been authorized in any democratic way to use torture--it hasn't even asked for permission.
Also note, there is no need to make a slippery slope argument here. What happened is already at the bottom of any reasonable person's slope. The government of the United States grabbed someone and, without charge or conviction, sent that person to be tortured for almost a year.
At the end of his post Ogged provides contact info for the House and Senate Intelligence committees. Please do write your representatives and press for a thorough investigation. I have no idea whether there are any criminal laws covering this sort of situation (somehow I doubt it), but everybody involved should at the very least be drawing unemployment immediately. This is repulsive.
Umm, no thanks. I must say, though, it certainly makes giving up chocolate for Lent seem mighty half-assed by comparison.
(link via freakgirl)
Aside from Carol Moseley-Braun refusing to answer whether she'd smoked marijuana (I'll take that as a yes), the biggest laugh of last night's debate came at the end of Wesley Clark's 30-second video. I certainly didn't see that coming. In case you were wondering, Edwards, Kerry, and Dean admitted to inhaling. Kucinich said he never had, but supported decriminalizing it. The mostly college-aged crowd cheered lustily at every yes.
One further observation: if Dean can't do a better job than he did handling the bitch-slaps Edwards and Sharpton delivered over the "Confederate flag" remarks, he will get utterly demolished by the Bush/Rove machine in a general election. And would somebody in that campaign please get him to quit rolling his sleeves up past his elbows?
UPDATE (3:34 pm): Digby gives an excellent explanation of why Dean is setting himself up for big trouble with the Confederate flag issue. Dean needs to get a handle on this quickly. I suspect that as a New Englander, he may not quite realize the minefield he is walking through when he starts invoking that particular symbol, however innocently or obliquely.
But the shrinking has accelerated dramatically over the last few decades.
So maybe they'll plow a canal through from the Red Sea? Egads. All that effort just to fight dry skin.
GLASGOW - Football supremo David Taylor dressed up as Saddam for a joke hours after 19 US troops were killed in Iraq. The SFA chief executive and seven other VIP guests appeared dressed as the deposed dictator at a charity event. But the top-table stunt at the event for celebrity football team Dukla Pumpherston prompted a walkout by some offended guests. One said: "It was outrageous. There was nothing funny about dressing like the Iraqi dictator when so many soldiers had been killed."
But, but, but... Oy.
It had to happen, sooner or later.
Banking on the consumer convenience factor, a Florida-based startup has entered the prepaid use-and-toss phone market with what it calls "the next-generation disposable cell phone."
In fact, the company will offer a "travel fun kit" featuring both a phone and disposable camera for the tourist set.
But wait, Froz, this isn't news; that article is a year and a half old!
Yeah, but there's always a complication:
If predictions hold true, millions of cell phones will be put out to pasture starting in late November under a new rule allowing people to keep their phone numbers when switching cellular carriers.
Though many of those phones will find a dusty home in a cluttered desk drawer, millions could wind up in landfills, leaking toxic metals and chemicals into the ground.
Many old phones get refurbished or recycled under donation programs that help charities, but it's a tiny fraction of the 100 million or so handsets that are already "retired" each year in this country, according to a new estimate from the environmental research group Inform Inc. And now, the number of retired cell phones is expected to grow sharply.
Some communities are fortunate enough to have legitimate recycling programs available. The vast majority don't. And some 'recycling' can be pretty horrific.
California's recalled Governor, as one of his final acts as such, just signed an electronics waste bill that will help somewhat. But if ever there was a case to be made for cradle-to-grave product liability, the electronics industry is it. There is a plethora of rapidly obsolete, incredibly cheap-to-produce, and highly toxic electronic products moving into the waste stream, and the quantity is not going to go down anytime soon.
Because there are still a few aspects of the computing/internet experience that Microsoft hasn't turned ugly, insecure, unreliable, and filled with invasive advertising, now they want to buy Google.
No, no, no, no, no, no. For the love of god, somebody throw a wrench into this...
Going to the moon is not. Kevin Drum reports on the gathering rumors that Bush will announce his intention to restart manned expeditions to the moon, but then closes the post with this bit of odd logic: "Better yet, maybe he could actually do something genuinely conservative and privatize the whole mess." Umm, I almost sort of see your point, except that there isn't any profit to be made in sending men to the moon, so best of luck finding any buyers. At least, no potential profit exists that would be realized within the next fifty or sixty years, which in private industry terms may as well be a million. That's why we have a federal government - to take care of important things that private industry will not.
However, despite my innate enthusiasm for all things extraterrestrial, I don't really see the advantage to be gained by blasting humans toward the moon or any other celestial body. The shuttle program is astronomically (nyuk nyuk) expensive, and we have learned vastly more from the various unmanned probes we have sent hurtling through space. Just applying 1/4 of the shuttle budget toward more smart, small probes would represent an enormous increase that would pay off in new knowledge much, much sooner. Not to mention that extended times in zero gravity wreak havoc on the human body.
So, aside from trying to attract otherwise liberal-leaning spacegeeks or jockeying with China for dominance in the space-based weapons field, I can't see Bush's logic in pushing for new manned moon missions. Then again, given his track record on nearly every issue for which he pledges money, it is entirely likely that six months after he makes the announcement (assuming he does), he'll just up and totally defund NASA.
And they don't like jokes about their butt either.
Police say Emmanuel Nieves, 23, and Erik Saporito, 21, were hanging out with friends at a Mansfield apartment complex on Nov. 13 when the conversation turned to hairy buttocks. The discussion grew heated when Nieves got angry over accusations that he had the shaggiest of behinds. A scuffle ensued, during which Nieves allegedly grabbed a knife and slashed Saporito in several places. Authorities are unsure if the injuries were a result of Nieves trying to shave his friend's buttocks. Nieves is now awaiting a court date on charges of aggravated assault, terroristic threats, weapons offenses and criminal mischief, according to the Warren County court clerk.
Emphasis mine. I have to believe that is the first time that particular sentence has ever been uttered. They charged him with terroristic threats? Has the War on Terror grown so broad that "I'll hold you down and shave your hairy ass, punk" counts as a terrorist threat? I also wonder whether at any point during the altercation or its lead-in anybody bandied about this adjective.
David at Blackboxvoting fires back at the lawyers of those behind the curtain to whom you should pay no attention:
Three minutes after I posted the previous story, in pops and email from Sequoia's lawyers full of the usual menace. I'd like to share that with you along with my repsonse, but first I'd like to put out a shout to all my peeps at Sequoia, Diebold, ES&S and all the rest of the BBV Yakuza.
Dudes! Go Home! Spend some time with your family. Except for the lawyers, none of you are getting overtime.
Adolph A. Romei wrote:
Our office is legal counsel to the parent company of Sequoia Voting Systems Inc.("Sequoia").
Damn, Adolph. I posted my story at 9:10, and here comes your little missive at 9:13. What took you so long?
Sequoia has advised us that you are a person who may have accessed and obtained software which is owned by and proprietary to Sequoia, including without limitation, WinEDS software.
And exactly how would Sequoia know that? Do they have me under surveillance? Should I check my phone for illegal wiretaps?
If in fact this is the case, please be advised that such software is subject to copyright and trade secret protection, and that publication or distribution of this software may subject you to liability for damages and injunctive relief as provided by law.
Please don't quote copyright law to me. I am a publisher, after all, and am somewhat familiar with the concept. If your point is to "frighten" me with the law, it ain't happening. You know, if your client was as scrupulous in their security measures as they are with keeping tabs on me and my web site, they wouldn't be scrambling to close the barn door after the horse is long gone.
All copies of the software in your possession in tangible form must be immediately returned to Sequoia. If you have provided a copy of the software to any third party, please advise us immediately of the identity of any persons to whom the software was transferred.
If I did, you folks would be the last people I'd tell. But I didn't, so tell your client to stuff it.
Please contact me, or have your counsel contact me, if in fact you are in possession of the software.
I have no intention paying a lawyer $300 an hour to bandy words with another lawyer making $300 an hour. So, unless you have any further specious and vague threats,
Good evening.
David Allen
Publisher, CEO, Janitor
Plan Nine Publishing
All humor aside for a moment. This scandal is absolutely horrific. Why doesn't the mere scent of a corporate takeover of the most basic mechanism of democracy -coupled with their offensive against accountability on the basis of corporate trade-secrecy, no less - get the entire national presscorps into a feeding frenzy?
More in the New York Times today. Hopefully they're starting to circle.
Building upon his earlier foray into surrealist prose poetry, Donald Rumsfeld returned to his familiar "known unknown" theme on Friday.
"Is Rumsfeld Losing His Mojo?" was the headline in Time magazine above a story about Rumsfeld's recent difficulties concerning Iraq policy and differences with U.S. lawmakers. "Have you lost your mojo?" a reporter asked Rumsfeld during a Pentagon briefing.
Rumsfeld said he did not consult a dictionary — as he has for words including "slog," about which he has sparred with reporters — but he spoke with an aide who had. "And they asked me that, and I said, 'I don't know what it means.' And they said, 'In 1926 or something, it had to do with jazz music.' [...] And I guess the answer is that beauty's in the eye of the beholder. I don't know enough about mojo to know."
Heading off any potential follow-up questions, the Defense Secretary warned the reporter to "check yourself before you riggedy wreck yourself."
If you're interested in broader geopolitical and historical context surrounding unfolding events in the Arab world, Iraq in particular, do not read anything else before taking in this article by Azmi Bishara in the Egyptian newspaper Al Ahram.
Immediately beneath a crystal clear surface you can discern the perplexing conundrum faced by intellectual Arabs regarding the political mechanisms by which this historically continually (often self-) stifled Nation hopes to stand on its own feet.
A commonly held piety has it that nations create states: that in the beginning there was nationalism, which gave rise to nationalist movements, which gave birth to states - in that order [...] It hardly bears saying that reality is much more complex than that. Moreover, the process proceeds in the opposite direction: the state creates the nation, at least in the modern sense of the term, not the reverse.
Right. The Nation creates State model is an accurate analysis of history in Europe, where the modern State was invented. Invented, remember, in the absence of outside economic, political, or military pressures. But also remember that the State, in the vast majority of instances on Earth, grew directly from seed (boundaries and, to a varying and generally lesser extent, institutions) planted by external powers.
So we're left with our first pair of choices: a State for the Nation that is; or a State for the Nation to develop. For the former, although Azmi doesn't mention them I will, I give you the Kurdish situation. For the latter, he argues, the States of the Arab world. And he argues for the concept of "Nation Building", although not in the sense, I think, that most folks conceptualize it.
The modern state builds a nation by establishing the foundations for a common economy or by enhancing economic cohesion if the foundations of a common economy already exist: unifying, for example, the national market and the tax system. (It also) establishes a variety of national institutions of which individuals become members solely by virtue of their affiliation as citizens. The army is such a national institution ... So, too, is the concept of the rule of law, in accordance with which all individuals are considered equal and subordinate to a single collective will as expressed in the corpus of national statute.
Sound like anyplace else you can think of? Amzi continues by connecting some dots regarding affiliations formed and then broken (often violently) across these organizational tiers. Nationalism as a force within the Ottoman, Holy Roman, and Soviet Empires is quite thought provoking, although I take every reference to Sovietism as a religion, even of sorts, with a wheelbarrow's worth of salt. In this context, the analogy holds better than in most; trust me - go read it.
So how, then, does all this lead us towards insights into Iraq?
Are we to believe that, after decades of a nationalist party's rule in Iraq, we have to prove that an Iraqi's identity as an Iraqi prevails over his being Shi'ite, Sunni, Kurd or another such affiliation? Must we prove that the majority of the Iraqi people perceive themselves as Arabs and that this cultural and political bond is sufficient cause to keep Iraq undivided?
Juxtaposed to Israel and the Jewish Nation, of course! The guy's Egyptian, after all. Or Arab. Or Muslim (statistically probably anyway).
The European left, including the Jewish left, has claimed, along with the Arab left and Arab nationalists, that the Jews do not comprise a nation by any modern standard.
Don't wince. Read what he has to say; it's hardly inflammatory. And you can follow him to a question that is obviously deeply rooted in the political psyche in not just the lofty towers of Arab academia, but of regular folk with two bits of sense:
Certainly, denigrating the legitimacy of the Arab nation-state has been fundamentally instrumental in obviating the collective participation of social forces in a process that was condemned as a heresy to the Arab nationalist ideology on the grounds that it contributed to sanctifying colonial partitions. Has not elevating Arabism and Arab identity to an article of allegiance above the state created an insurmountable obstacle? Has the insistence upon the overriding legitimacy of the broader Arab nation as a framework for citizenship hampered the process of state building?
Which would, of course, be a precursor to Nation building. Damn. And:
Arab nationalist forces ... have lost, with the collapse of the Nasserist project, the opportunity for a Bismarckian mode of unification whereby a strong central state becomes the vehicle for imposing unification, as was the case in Germany and Italy.
But we're all familiar with the stability of the manifestations of nationalism fitting into the civil structures of those States by the time they were, oh, 3 generations old. Either he's brilliantly subtle or he could've chosen a better example. But maybe there are none - I can't think of one offhand.
Arab nationalists are thus left with no alternative but to demand unification through a democratic process on the model of the EU. There is a certain historic injustice in this, to be sure. The Arabs have much more in common between them, in terms of culture, civilisation and political aspirations, than the Europeans have. However, Arab nationalism will have no chance of survival without democracy, regardless of the extent to which it thrives in the minds and hearts of the people. Once the sense of Arab identity, which is shared by the vast majority of people in every Arab country, converges with a democratic project, it will be able to contribute, alongside the state, to the process of nation-building. This implies, simultaneously, that that majority must not attempt to obstruct the expansion of the concept of citizenship to embrace non-Arab minorities and their rights. This is the only way that it will be possible to achieve Arab integration and eventual federation.
I can think of one "democratic project".
Of course all this downplays the fact that Kurds (20% of Iraq's population) are not Arabs and that the Shi'a of Southern Iraq, while they largely identify themselves as Arabs, are intertwined with a (long pent-up) cultural influence from non-Arab Iran because of religious ties. I suppose it's just evidence of an Arab ethnocentrism certainly of no greater degree of blindfolding than you would find in any American intellectual center, including the Anthropology or PoliSci Departments at our most progressive Universities and, of course, the leftist blogosphere.
His concluding argument is compelling, if not slightly distasteful for one who has long argued the value of persistent, but not agressive, downward pressure on the political center of gravity, under any circumstances.
It is one proffered that Pan-Arabism and tribalism should be neglected in favor of almost artificially constructing democratic state institutions to nurture a sense of national identity at the existing state level as some sort of precursor to a greater goal of broader Arab unity. With the disproportionally low influence the Arab world accurately or inaccurately perceives itself to have in global affairs (as compared to what it should have, given its size, geo- and demo-graphically, mineral wealth, unmatched history, and cultural distinctiveness) you can readily see the causes of frustration and haste.
I still find the EU comparison interesting. Largely because Europeans drew the boundary lines in the Middle East that now separate these distinct yet interdependent segments of the Arab nation. Additionally because It was also Europeans that formulated - under widely underestimated influence of its Injun Bride eastern Indigenous Tribes - this first post-advent-of-nationalism State effort at Nation building called the ol' U. S. of A. And so, naturally, it's Europe's attempts to Pan-Nationalize that are seen as the most pertinent example for evolving sustainable democratic Arab institutions after the immediate task of cultivating basic State institutions at existing recognizable levels.
So it only (Ahem) makes sense that one State (still building its own sense of nationhood - with predictable troubles) that exists in its present form largely as a consequence of European state-then-nation-building launched a preemptive attack in order to decapitate and bleed the most institutionally developed (if not significantly psychotic) civil society organized at the state level in the entire Arab world - in its own way, another. And the Europeans, by and VERY large, screamed: "Wait! Wait! WAIT! WAI! WAIWAI... Ah, Shit."
Now we have those lateral and vertical conflicts bubbling up all over the place.
If that isn't irony stacked on itself like layers in an onion, I dont know what is.
