Posted by Kriston

As Jesse Taylor puts it, these recently released Mexican stamps definitely look like some "racist-ass stamps." However—at the risk of sounding annoyingly counterintuitive—these stamps are not being read in context, and taken in context I don't think they necessarily qualify as racist expression.

6:25 PM | Link | Politics | Comments (0)

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Posted by Steve

The Times has published an interview with George W. Bush. Apparently several Instapundit readers have focused on this bit:

In person Mr Bush is so far removed from the caricature of the dim, war-mongering Texas cowboy of global popular repute that it shakes one’s faith in the reliability of the modern media.

Imagine that.

To me, however, the most surprising part was Bush's response to a question about global warming.

I believe that greenhouse gases are creating a problem, a long-term problem that we got to deal with. And step one of dealing with it is to fully understand the nature of the problem so that the solutions that follow make sense.

There’s an interesting confluence now between dependency upon fossil fuels from a national economic security perspective, as well as the consequences of burning fossil fuels for greenhouse gases. And that’s why it’s important for our country to do two things.

One is to diversify away from fossil fuels, which we’re trying to do. I think we’re spending more money than any collection of nations when it comes to not only research and development of new technologies, but of the science of global warming. You know, laid out an initiative for hydrogen fuel cells. We’re doing a lot of work on carbon sequestration. We hope to have zero emissions coal-fired electricity plants available for the United States as well as neighbours and friends and developing nations.

I’m a big believer that the newest generation of nuclear power ought to be a source of energy and we ought to be sharing these technologies with developing countries.

3:35 PM | Link | Politics | Comments (0)

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Posted by Greg

According to reports about the recent Supreme Court decision in Grokster, a decision I still haven't read yet, the intent of the software creator is apparently relevant to determining whether the software company can be held liable for copyright infringement. Although I don't claim to understand the nuances of the Court's decision, that seems logical. However, what do you get when you start digging up various internet writings by the software developer, which may or may not relate to the software? Wired News reports on such a situation for Bram Cohen, the developer of Bit Torrent.

Cohen said the agenda was written years before he started work on BitTorrent, and that it was written as a parody of other manifestos.

"I wrote that in 1999, and I didn't even start working on BitTorrent until 2001," Cohen said. "I find it really unpleasant that I even have to worry about it."

Undated and less than 200 words long, Cohen's "Technological Activist's Agenda" says he creates and gives away software in furtherance of laissez-faire political objectives.

"I further my goals with technology," the manifesto reads. "I build systems to disseminate information, commit digital piracy, synthesize drugs, maintain untrusted contacts, purchase anonymously and secure machines and homes."

Bit Torrent is seen as a likely target, especially after Grokster, for the entertainment industry. Because the software makes it much easier to download movies and tv shows, I don't think that there's any question that the program could be used for piracy, even if the company has never publicly encouraged unauthorized duplication. It doesn't help that its creator, parody or not, is on the digital record as declaring himself someone who "commit[s] digital piracy." On the other hand, it's sobering to think that the stuff each of us has posted on the internet over the years could be deemed relevant in later court proceedings unanticipated at the time. I have a suspicion that Cohen (or his lawyers) will be explaining exactly what he meant to a court of law sometime soon.

UPDATE: BTD Tom points out in the comments that there is no BitTorrent corporate entity and that the program itself is open-source. Of course, while I don't think this prevents the MPAA from going after Cohen personally, it may affect their incentive to do so. The Grokster decision and the discovery of "manifesto" may also affect Cohen's ability to enter into future commercial relationships based on BitTorrent, or others' willingness to enter into relationships with Cohen. It's also an open question whether the not insignificant amount of money that Cohen has made through PayPal donations relating to BitTorrent could be viewed as profiting from others' infringement.

1:45 PM | Link | Technology | Comments (0)

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Posted by Steve

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Posted by Steve

Democratic Party leaders were convicted of election fraud in East St. Louis.

What this means:

Five individuals committed crimes. They were tried and convicted.

What this does not mean:

The Democratic Party tolerates or encourages election fraud. John Kerry personally approved the vote buying scheme. The American electoral system is no better than North Korea's.

11:34 PM | Link | Politics | Comments (0)

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Posted by Venkat

It's funny although it's not a pretty sight. A sample:

The rhymes you make are a lame-ass joke,
Like those white-shoe punks from Davis Polk.
You're as weak as Olympic curling
Me, I'm scarier than Sherman & Sterling.

Yea yeah. I know. Linking to these goings on pretty much makes me a platinum card member of the "those who have too much time on their hands club." I guess I shouldn't worry because I have plenty of company.

Lawyers who listen to rap always have and always will seem incredibly dissonant (not just with respect to their rhymes, mind you). Listening to rap is (of our generation at least) the ultimate cliche cry of "I'm not the deskbound lawyer you think I am . . . [catch me in my car on the way home and my car is bumpin' . . . of course, as in Office Space, I may turn it way down and slink down in the driver's seat, depending on who I see.]"

I'm equally guilty.

6:49 PM | Link | Law | Comments (0)

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Posted by Kriston

Sally Jenkins, in the WaPo:

You can't help wondering what's behind the outrageous attack on Soros, who isn't even a major partner in the bid for the Nats. (Local entrepreneur Jon Ledecky is the real bidder.) Isn't it strange that rival bidder Fred Malek, the head of the Washington Baseball club, just happens to be a very big GOP fundraiser? And isn't it strange that, in a telephone interview, Davis went out of his way to praise Malek's bid? And isn't it strange that these attacks on Soros from Republicans came on the very day that Ledecky and his partners were being interviewed by MLB?

It's almost unfair to take a shot at the GOP over Davis's comically ridiculous threat and related suggestion that only Republicans can own baseball teams. Almost. It's alarming that none of his congressional colleagues has chided him publicly over his boasts. Especially after Davis took his criticisms in a very unfunny direction:

But Davis has another problem with Soros, too. He's an "out of towner." Listening to Davis, you wonder if he's next going to say Soros's Hungarian accent is too thick.

"I mean, to me, Soros is the guy who has so much money and wants to buy the world," Davis said. "I mean that's not what baseball's about. This is above all a fan sport. This is the Nationals, and they're going to give it to some multinational?"

2:58 PM | Link | Sports | Comments (0)

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Posted by Hei Lun

And yes, it's just like the episode of the Simpsons where Homer and Mr. Burns show Castro the trillion dollar bill:

It's no secret the Russian economy has been sucking wind for years, but few economists could have predicted that President Vladimir Putin might resort to swiping diamond Super Bowl rings.

In what may prove to be the Cuban Missile Crisis of Russian-Patriot Nation relations, the former KGB agent apparently misunderstood Pats owner Bob Kraft's offer to check out his gem-encrusted finger bling and instead pocketed it, according to media reports on both sides of the Atlantic.

Kraft walked away from a Kremlin meeting between Putin and American business executives without his 2005 Super Bowl ring for fear of creating an international incident, according to an account in the New York Sun.

UPDATE: Now Kraft has released a statement that he actually gave the ring to Putin. If Putin gets inspired by this gesture of goodwill and westernizes his country and government, I think it'd be fair for America and the NFL to gave the Patriots a few extra first-round draft choices, don't you think?

10:36 AM | Link | World | Comments (0)

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Posted by Kriston

Christopher Hayes's introduction to the particulars of "Coingate" for the Nation is worth a read. The long and short of it is that the Ohio state Republican government, tasked with overseeing the state's workplace employee compensation fund, privatized it by divvying up large accounts from the fund and distributing them to external managers. A large one of these accounts (summing $25 million) was given to Thomas Noe, a GOP donor and rare coin speculator, who proceeded to use state funds to buy his own coins then turn them around for another profit—at which point, apparently, some of the coins began to disappear. (Reading over the Toledo Blade account, one can only imagine the outrage among coin enthusiasts.) And it goes from there—gubernatorial golfing outings in violation of state ehtics, $215 million from state funds squandered on a high-risk hedge fund, and plummeting approval ratings for state Republicans scurrying to distance themselves from the state's purse.

What's truly appalling is that Ohio Democrats have not been able to exchange (if you will) Republican frustrations into opposition gains. The far-reaching scandal is being observed closely by Ohioans—L. Ron Hubbard could take the state for Scientology in 2006, if that were the alternative. Repealing the sales tax exemption for coins would make for an excellent redress if coin investment itself were the root of the problem. That, of course, is the lack of oversight and reform, and if Dems can connect to this, they'll also have tapped into base fears about Social Security privatization. Remarkably obvious stuff, but the Democrats can't see the road to victory for haggling over the spoils.

10:32 AM | Link | Politics | Comments (0)

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Posted by Tom

From The Corner:

By putting the president in front of a military audience, which ensured little if any interruptions for applause, the White House removed all semblance of political theater...

Funny, funny stuff, guys.

9:51 AM | Link | Politics | Comments (0)

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Posted by Greg

I've just returned from a vacation, of sorts—a trip to visit my extended family and that of my wife's on the occasion of my brother-in-law's wedding—during which my internet access was intermittent at best. The few minutes of online time I did have I spent posting motel and camel pictures. I feel dizzyingly out of touch. I'm wholly unqualified to add commentary on what Durbin or Rove did or didn't say, what Tom Cruise has been saying about his faith, or what the Supreme Court said about imminent domain and copyrights. Instead, I'll write about a regional fast-food condiment.

1:20 AM | Link | Food and Recipes | Comments (0)

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Posted by Hei Lun

• The latest word to be tagged politically incorrect: brainstorming. (†ASV) The reason? "[T]here was concern that the term would cause offence to people with epilepsy as well those with brain tumours or brain injuries." As always, it reminds me of an episode of Seinfeld. Reservations and scalpers and Indian givers, oh my!
• Three quick observations about the NBA draft:
  1. If Andrew Bogut turns out to be a turnover-prone bust, I guarantee the phrase "don't Bogut that ball" will enter the sports lexicon.
  2. Did Chris Paul's brother really say that when they were younger, his brother would sometimes pull a knife on him? Did I hear that correctly?
  3. I'm very uncomfortable with how often the analysts would describe a player as "long".
• I didn't see it, but according to David Adesnik's liveblogging, Nancy Palosi, responding to Bush's address tonight, "says we really have to turn the battle against the insurgents over to the Iraqis, have to internationalize the effort ..." How do we do both at the same time? If the point is to get the Iraqis more involved in their own future, how does that get accomplished by bringing in the U.N.?
• There's two new Miller commercials—in one, a man reacts calmly to news that his new wife had starred in some internet videos but then gets really angry when she tells him that she likes Miller Lite more than Bud Lite. The other commercial is similar, with another man being told by his mom that the old guy sitting next to her is his real father, and the father telling his son that Miller is better. So what's the point of these commercials? That Bud drinkers have no sense of proportion? Or that Miller drinkers are all morally bankrupt?
• Three reasons why you should make fun of your friends when they're stupid drunk:
  1. They deserve it.
  2. They probably can't think of a witty comeback.
  3. They probably can't remember your jokes at his expense the next morning.

11:47 PM | Link | Miscellaneous | Comments (0)

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Posted by Steve

New York Times, June 28, 2005: Senators Laud Treatment of Detainees in Guantánamo.

11:34 PM | Link | Politics | Comments (0)

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Posted by Hei Lun

A few days ago out at dinner the conversation turned to Hillary, and went something like this:

"I'd vote for her."
"Me too."
"Me too."

The fourth person at the table objects and wonder why anyone would vote for her, and I responded by asking him to name someone who is both a better choice and electable. He named McCain, but we all agree that he has no chance of getting out of the Republican primary, right?

Sure, Hillary's not my idea of the perfect candidate, but, I mean, come on, even John Derbyshire would consider voting for her. How bad could she be?

And she looks even better when compared to some of the riffraff that is her current competition. Kerry is still Kerry, Clark still seems like a fraud to me, and Biden is the perfect illustration of the saying that a hundred Senators look in the mirror each morning and sees a president staring back at them. On the Republican side, there's two more Senators, Bill Frist (or as I analogized in a previous comment thread, the Paul Pierce of politics) and Rick Santorum, and Newt seems to think he's still relevant. Ugh. Mitt Romney and George Allen both seem unobjectionable but unexciting. I'd love to have the opportunity to vote for McCain or Rudy, but I just don't see that happening.

Of all the people I named, the one I'm most baffled about is Bill Frist. I can't name a single good reason why he should be president. And I'm not just talking about my personal preferences; I don't think anyone in this country can come up with one good reason either. Besides that, there's no single Republican bloc that is behind him—he's not a religious conservative, he's not an economic conservative, and he doesn't have the support of party leaders. He appears to be trying to use his Senate leadership position to enhance his standing within the party, but mostly all he's done is show everyone of his lightweight status.

So, anyway, unless anyone can come up with someone better who's also electable, GO HILLARY.

10:27 PM | Link | Politics | Comments (0)

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Posted by Tom

Kevin Drum and Chris Nolan are pretty pleased with the Grokster decision. Nolan's downright snippy:

The Supreme Court has given geek determinism – the often adolescent belief that technology will triumph and that anything that stands in its way is lame, brain dead, foolhardy and stupid – a well-deserved smack upside the head.

I wouldn't call this a "well-supported argument," exactly. History is not exactly littered with examples of societies that managed to stuff technological genies back in their bottles. Drum is a little more circumspect but still unsympathetic toward the angry geek masses, whom he asks:

If profit-based movie/music distribution becomes essentially impossible, do you think the content industry will somehow adapt and get its revenue elsewhere? Or will content creators continue creating but just make a lot less money at it? Or what?

To which Matt Yglesias responds:

In response to Kevin Drum's challenge, I think the first thing to say is that it's worth distinguishing between the music industry and the film industry... Recording music is relatively cheap, being a rock star is cool, the vast majority of artists make very little money off CD sales, and musicians have alternative sources of revenue. Movies aren't like that. They're inherently expensive to make, many of the contributors have totally ungalamorous jobs, and broad categories of movies don't have real merchandising opportunities... A film industry without copyright... is hard to imagine.

Certainly, there's a valid point to be made here about the structural differences between film and music. But I think there are more similarities than most people would at first think. And, to be honest, I don't find it that hard to imagine a functioning post-copyright film industry.

12:55 PM | Link | Technology | Comments (0)

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Posted by Venkat

Today marks the one year anniversary of the handover.

12:30 PM | Link | Politics | Comments (0)

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Posted by Steve

My friends who are knowledgeable about property law tell me the Kelo case was a modest extension of existing precedent, not a groundbreaking dagger in the heart of property rights. They're probably right.

Nonetheless, the decision is giving people ideas:

Just hours after the Supreme Court's decision Thursday, Freeport officials began efforts to seize waterfront property from two seafood companies as part of an $8 million marina development, according to a report by Chronicle correspondent Thayer Evans.

The action was accompanied by the usual economic development blather. The marina will lure $60 million worth of hotels, restaurants and shops, create hundreds of jobs and revitalize downtown.

Leaving aside the esoteric principles of eminent domain, we must consider, "What is the business of government?" Nearly all of us agree that government is properly involved in transit, security, education, trash collection, water/sewer, social services and other aspects of social infrastructure. Generally, we think of public services as things we agree we need, but that the private sector cannot or will not provide.

We need the government to condemn land for roads, because no private company can do it. We need the government to police the streets, because the rule of law requires a government monopoly on violent force. We need the government to operate public schools, because universal free education is not an economically viable business model.

But what about the entertainment business? Should government be in the business of professional sports? The hotel business? Tourism?

All these industries are highly developed sectors of private enterprise. They already exist. They are already profitable. There are nothing preventing entry of new players in the market. Even if the City of Charlotte declined to build a new NBA arena, someone else could do it.

These public/private partnerships have long existed, but the Kelo case will certainly embolden their proponents. I am generally skeptical, on two grounds. First, I question whether a sports arena or other tourist trap ever genuinely "benefits the public" except in a tortured, attenuated way. The theory behind the new Charlotte Arena is that it will spur development in the center city, thus increasing tax revenue. More tax money, it is said, is a public benefit. Bigger budgets for the public libraries, the homeless shelters. It's for the children.

But is it?

I can see the argument that a few dollars here and there might trickle down to the taxpayer, but who stands to make hundreds of millions of dollars directly from this deal? Certainly the Charlotte Bobcats benefit (hey, free arena!) The big developers benefit. The downtown property owners benefit. Finally, the consumers likely to shell out for pricey tickets, meals and parking downtown will benefit from having another entertainment option.

Unquestionably, the main beneficiaries of the arena project are the wealthiest and most powerful citizens of Charlotte, the once-infamous "top 1%." We are taxing everyone (including the middle income and the poor) to give a handout to the rich. Somewhere Robin Hood is pulling out his hair.

My second objection to these arrangements is that they wager the public trust on dubious economic propositions. The typical argument for publicly funding a new sports arena or waterfront redevelopment is that "it won't happen without public support." This argument, which is probably true, immediately divides people into two camps. Many say, "We want this development, therefore we have to do what it takes to get it." These boosters are immediately susceptible to rosy economic projections, attendance estimates, and revenue goals. It'll make a lot of money in the long run, they think, and make us proud in the meantime.

Then there are people like me.

Tell me "it won't happen without public support" and I ask, "So why should it happen at all?" If it's a sure-fire economic success, then sports teams and hoteliers and restauranteurs will do it on their own. If they won't, there is no reason to believe the project is a sure bet.

You can't blame big business for loving these public/private partnerships. Why take a big risk if the taxpayers will take it for you? But we can blame our elected representatives for being wholly owned and operated by the moneyed elite. We can blame the courts for sucking all life out of the phrase "public use." And we can blame ourselves for taking civic pride in playgrounds for millionaires.

UPDATE: Scott of L-Cubed links to an interesting application of the Kelo doctrine.

11:03 AM | Link | Law | Comments (0)

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Posted by Venkat

Scalia's dissenting opinion in McCreary very much rubbed me the wrong way, probably because of his gratuitous 9-11 reference, but that's neither here nor there. (A link to the Court's opinion is here—scroll down to Scalia's dissent.) According to Professor Volokh, Scalia's dissent "suggests a dividing line (endorsement of monotheism is fine, endorsements of specific monotheistic religions is not), argues that this line is supported by original meaning and history, acknowledges that this may offend people who adhere to nonmonotheistic religions, but argues that this shouldn't pose a constitutional problem."

On the historical record I'm not sure where the wealth of evidence points. But I will say one thing. The evidence cited by Scalia is not really conclusive that the Founders endorsed the Judeo-Christian belief system. His opinion contained many citations to "God" (with a capital "G") in the context of government proclamations. The simple error in his analysis (regardless of his reading of the historical record) is that a reference to "God" is not necessarily evidence of incorporation of a Judeo-Christian standard. He gets here by citing to historical evidence that according to him "permits the disregard of polytheists and believers in unconcerned deities." However, even "religions" such as Vedic philosophy refer to "God" even though they are not really referring to one particular "god". Additionally, the fact that the Founders all more or less subscribed to Judeo-Christian belief systems but didn't specify that we were one nation "under Jesus Christ" (or under "Allah" or "Abraham" or "Moses") if anything undermines his view that the Founders were looking to incorporate the Judeo-Christian standard.

His opinion refers to "polytheists" without specifying any particular belief system. Most people (e.g., Volokh) look to Hinduism as one of the primary polytheistic religions. Any casual student of Hinduism will tell you, however, the many "gods" subscribed to by Hindus are all considered iterations or avatars of a single god. See, e.g., here ("A casual observer might thus consider Hinduism "polytheistic," but this is a superficial view."). Use of the word "God" or the "Almighty" is not something unique to Judeo-Christian religions. (He tries to inject the word "Creator" in there but he cites scant historical evidence in support.) At the end of the day, I'm not sure what polytheistic religions (or "nonmonotheistic religions") or "unconcerned deities" he uses to contrast the Judeo-Christian standards he claims the Founders impliedly permitted the government to endorse. Unfortunately, he doesn't specify.

More later.

3:38 AM | Link | Law | Comments (0)

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Posted by Kriston

The ethics surrounding the right of a reporter to spurn the justice system in order to protect a source are hopelessly confused, and I won't try to spell out a course for navigating the thorny issues regarding the Supreme Court's decision to decline the appeals of Matt Cooper and Judith Miller. That deserves greater exploration, of course, but I wanted to quickly note the heartfelt yet befuddling editorial plea by the Washington Monthly on Cooper's behalf:

Matthew Cooper is threatened with jail for refusing to reveal a source. The special prosecutor does not have to recommend jail, and even if he does recommend it, the judge can ignore it. Although we believe Matt is right in refusing to identify his source, that is not the argument that we make here. Our concern is to keep him out of jail. Matt is not only a fine reporter, he is a caring husband and father, a kind and thoughtful friend, and an all-round good citizen. And he has a marvelous sense of humor. Wait a minute, what relevance does his sense of humor have, you ask. Unlike many who share his comic gift, Matt laughs at himself. He is incapable of the self-righteousness that seeks martyrdom. If the prosecutor and judge can approach this case in the same spirit without self-righteousness, they will see that even if they disagree with Matt, he has good reason for taking his stand. There is a total absence of criminal intent on his part. He should not be put in jail. Criminals belong in jail, not Matthew Cooper. How about house arrest for a month—or, even better, a week? That way, the authorities can be loyal to their principle while respecting Matt's loyalty to his.

Second, what about Judith? Yeah, I didn't much care for her NYT stint either, but with the glaring omission, the Monthly seems to be saying, "Cooper? Such a nice guy, spare him the slammer. But between you and me, Judy's a real bitch." The hope is that the editors have done nothing more sinister than pen an unusually parental appeal for a favorite son, and the omission is born of zeal, not intention.

UPDATE: I see that Roxanne Cooper is of a similar mind. (No relation to Matthew, I'm fairly certain.)

5:50 PM | Link | Politics | Comments (0)

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Posted by Venkat

Prof. Lessig notes that the Register (of copyrights) is seeking to abolish the compulsory right granted under Section 115 of the Copyright Act—the right to "cover" songs. See more from Ernest Miller here; Copyfighter here.

As long as the right to Karaoke is not infringed we'll be OK. I don't think it affects it, but I'm not sure. Going after innocent file sharers is one thing, but once the industry starts targeting Karaoke there will be blowback.

4:29 PM | Link | Music | Comments (0)

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Posted by Kriston

According to the DCCC blog, Roll Call is reporting that congressional Republicans are threatening Major League Baseball with retribution should the Washington Nationals be sold to George Soros at the end of the season:

"I think Major League Baseball understands the stakes," said Government Reform Chairman Tom Davis (R), the Northern Virginia lawmaker who recently convened high-profile steroid hearings. "I don't think they want to get involved in a political fight."

Davis, whose panel also oversees District of Columbia issues, said that if a Soros sale went through, "I don't think it's the Nats that get hurt. I think it's Major League Baseball that gets hurt. They enjoy all sorts of exemptions" from anti-trust laws.

Perhaps posing a more likely warning to baseball and Soros than any change to the league's exemptions or muscle-flexing in the steroids trial, Congress ultimately controls the District's purse strings. If MLB sold the Nats to Soros, Congress could withhold public funding for a new stadium, approval by the District government notwithstanding, thereby combining two favorite Republican pastimes: demonizing Soros and royally screwing DC residents every chance they get.

Living in this town, it's alarming how frequently the case for home rule is made evident.

(† Josh Micah Marshall)

3:11 PM | Link | Politics | Comments (0)

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Posted by Tom

The Supreme Court has ruled unanimously in favor of the entertainment industry in MGM v. Grokster. Disappointing, to be sure, but the net's early IANAL consensus seems to be that the ruling is fairly limited. The decision states:

One who distributes a device with the object of promoting its use to infringe copyright ... is liable for the resulting acts of infringement by third parties using the device, regardless of the device's lawful uses.

Regardless of the specific contours of liability that emerge from this decision, it seems likely that there'll be a lot less investment in companies developing consumer media technology. In the hardware space, this is a real shame -- the next Tivo will take that much longer to emerge.

But for software, it's probably irrelevant. The open source movement is well-positioned to avoid this kind of liability, and doesn't need to find brave venture capitalists in order to ship a product. With private industry slowed by litigation, open source offerings already dominate P2P. This decision will probably cement that position.

(crossposted at unrequited narcissism)

12:15 PM | Link | Technology | Comments (0)

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Posted by Tom

With Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes' bizarre relationship grabbing headlines, Scientology is in the news. I've been intermittently railing against the Church of Scientology on my own site -- my friends are pretty sick of it, to be honest. But I can't help it -- between Cruise and Travolta's appearances on Oprah and non-judgmental articles like this one and this one, an inaccurately even-handed picture of this dangerous cult is entering the popular discourse.

I feel that I ought to use what soapboxes are available to me to let others know that the CoS is much more than a charmingly silly collection of new-age nonsense. So if you're already sick of all this, I apologize. But if you don't know what Scientology is really about, read on for a quick rundown of pertinent facts. And for a more complete discussion, head over to Operation Clambake, at http://www.xenu.net. It's the single best source of information about Scientology on the internet.

12:01 PM | Link | Religion | Comments (0)

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Posted by Steve

With Tom Cruise apparently having lost his mind, Scientology is in the news again. More on that later. For now, the Smoking Gun has an amusing collection of documents from L. Ron Hubbard's FBI file.

10:24 AM | Link | Religion | Comments (0)

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Posted by Hei Lun

God's Debris: A Thought Experiment, by Scott Adams

The Religion War, by Scott Adams

Adams is the creator of the Dilbert comic strip, but these two books have nothing to do with the comic. Instead, they're his attempt to come up with an original vision of God and the universe, and a fictional account of how the only man on earth privy to this knowledge tries to stop an all-out war between Christians and Muslims three decades into the future. (Interestingly, Adams came up with the latter idea before 9-11.) Both are short and can be completed in one sitting, but they're so dense that I had to read each of them twice.

The first book is a conversation between an old man who knows everything, and some random guy. It tackles some of the classic philosophical conundrums, like the paradox of God's omnipotence, and combines them with the current understanding of advanced physics to come up with an idea of God that I'm pretty sure is original to him. There's much to disagree with but also much to think about.

"Clever" is the best word I can think of to describe the second book, as the protagonist runs circles around the other characters, using his logic to get them to do things they would never do. His vision of the fictional war is also surprisingly deep, and while I don't think our future will devolve into total war between Christians and Muslims, if it did it there would be a lot that would be similar to what Adams imagined. Apart from the philosophy, as fiction it's fast-moving and a page-turner with developed and interesting characters, though it makes a lot more sense if you already read the other book.

12:18 AM | Link | Fifty Book Challenge | Comments (0)

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Posted by Greg

5:02 PM | Link | Photography | Comments (0)

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Posted by Steve

Michael Totten gets it right. However, as Tom notes below (and Instapundit agrees), the Democrats' indignation gives the media an excuse to review the record all over again, just when everyone thought the patriotism wars were over.

1:03 AM | Link | Politics | Comments (0)

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Posted by Hei Lun

So according to recent Supreme Court decisions, the government has no business in your bedroom (unless you're growing marijuana), but they can drive a bulldozer right through it?

Mr. Prosser said, "You were quite entitled to make any suggestions or protests at the appropriate time, you know."

"Appropriate time?" hooted Arthur. "Appropriate time? The first I knew about it was when a workman arrived at my home yesterday. I asked him if he'd come to clean the windows and he said no, he'd come to demolish the house. He didn't tell me straight away of course. Oh no. First he wiped a couple of windows and charged me a fiver. Then he told me."

"But Mr. Dent, the plans have been available in the local planning office for the last nine months."

"Oh yes, well, as soon as I heard I went straight round to see them, yesterday afternoon. You hadn't exactly gone out of your way to call attention to them, had you? I mean, like actually telling anybody or anything."

"But the plans were on display..."

"On display? I eventually had to go down to the cellar to find them."

"That's the display department."

"With a flashlight."

"Ah, well, the lights had probably gone."

"So had the stairs."

"But look, you found the notice, didn't you?"

"Yes," said Arthur, "yes I did. It was on display on the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying 'Beware of the Leopard.'"

12:22 AM | Link | Law | Comments (0)

Trackback URL: http://www.beggingtodiffer.com/mt/mt-tb.cgi/2004

Posted by Steve

8:42 PM | Link | Photography | Comments (0)

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Posted by Greg

5:38 PM | Link | Photography | Comments (0)

Trackback URL: http://www.beggingtodiffer.com/mt/mt-tb.cgi/1998

Posted by Tom

I'm as angry and eager to froth at the mouth as anyone over Karl Rove's recent statements. But after reading back-to-back posts over at TAPPED working up a chorus to that effect, I got a sinking feeling. Turn back. It's a trap! (UPDATE: be warned, that link goes to a page with sound)

The "does 9/11 prove liberals hate America?" argument has been well-tread. It seems a little strange that it's suddenly been resurrected. I suspect we'll get 12 or 18 hours worth of satisfying fury out of it, plus a surprisingly contrite apology. Then the news cycle will turn to analysis: "Are we all getting too sensitive about the war on terror?" The co-headliner, of course, is the Durbin fiasco. Symbolic reconciliation will occur, and the national mood will tilt toward calming down, shutting up and sending cookies to the troops for a bit. Senator Durbin's largely-neutralized but also widely-heard criticism of our nation's treatment of its prisoners will fade into the background noise that supports a bland media powow about how we all just have different ways of showing our love for America.

No doubt some commenters will call me paranoid. But Karl Rove is not an idiot, nor are his quotes frequently in the news. At the moment Google News shows 211 hits for this utterly inconsequential story.

5:34 PM | Link | Politics | Comments (0)

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Posted by Kriston

As you can see from the comments section, there's some ambiguity to the Karl Rove quotation Venkat pulled for his post below. Let's go to the tapes and see whether we can suss out Rove's meaning:

Conservatives saw the savagery of 9/11 in the attacks and prepared for war; liberals saw the savagery of the 9/11 attacks and wanted to prepare indictments and offer therapy and understanding for our attackers.

[. . .]

Let me just put this in fairly simple terms: Al Jazeera now broadcasts the words of Senator Durbin to the Mideast, certainly putting our troops in greater danger. No more needs to be said about the motives of liberals.

Entirely coincidentally—and in no sense in keeping with the leitmotif expressed by the White House deputy chief of staff—House Republicans have responded forcefully to the horrific recent spate of flag desecrations with a timely proposal to tailor the First Amendment. A proposal that has been criticized and defeated in better times for its inherent divisiveness, it now serves to dramatically expose the fault between conservatives and liberals. Possibly with examples, should some Ward Churchill-type emerge from his sleeper cell during the coming debate. All the better for conservatives to finally smash this anti-American bloc (some time in 2006, perhaps).

4:55 PM | Link | Politics | Comments (0)

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Posted by Hei Lun

A new poll from Rasmussen found that only "20% of Americans believe prisoners at Guantanamo Bay have been treated unfairly". Almost twice as many people (36%) believe that they get "better than they deserve". More surprising are the numbers from self-identified Democrats: only 30% believe the treatment was unfair, and almost as many (28%) believe they're treated better than they deserve. Maybe 70% of Democrats are partisan Republican hacks who don't care about torture, but I doubt it.

9:57 AM | Link | Politics | Comments (0)

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Posted by Venkat

He lives up to his billing, and captures the essence. As expected, Karl Rove captures the split in reactions to 9-11:

Conservatives saw what happened to us on 9/11 and said we will defeat our enemies. Liberals saw what happened to us and said we must understand our enemies.

5:26 AM | Link | Miscellaneous | Comments (0)

Trackback URL: http://www.beggingtodiffer.com/mt/mt-tb.cgi/1999

Posted by Greg

11:29 PM | Link | Photography | Comments (0)

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Posted by Venkat

This article about the US Ambassador to Iraq expressing horror at Iraqi (civilian) deaths is troubling, to the extent Iraqi civilian deaths matter:

US Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad, who arrived from Afghanistan, said yesterday that militants are using Iraqis as “cannon fodder” in a quest to dominate the Islamic world.

follow up: Kevin Drum has more in this post, and links to the Brookings Institution's monthly "Iraq Index" summaries (here's June (.pdf)): "in addition to the increase in Iraqi civilian deaths, Iraqi troop casualties are up, car bombings are up, and the number of daily attacks by insurgents is up."
___

8:52 PM | Link | Politics | Comments (0)

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Posted by Steve

My esteemed co-bloggers Tom and Kriston are, in their words, outraged and apoplectic over Senator Richard Durbin's recent comparison of American soldiers to Nazis and Soviets. They're not upset about the comments, mind you, rather because Durbin apologized for them. Tom refers us to Andrew Sullivan and Matthew Yglesias.

Durbin's defenders are standing up for a charitable interpretation of what they think he meant. His critics are concerned about what he said. Let's roll the tape.

3:31 PM | Link | Politics | Comments (0)

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Posted by Kriston

From the Department of Precrime († Unfogged):

Now, in a language she barely understood, unfamiliar aunts and uncles lamented her fate: to be forced to leave the United States, her home since kindergarten, because the F.B.I. had mysteriously identified her as a potential suicide bomber.

"I feel like I'm on a different planet," the girl, Tashnuba Hayder, said. "It just hit me. How everything happened—it's like, 'Oh, my God.' "

The story of how it happened—how Tashnuba, the pious, headstrong daughter of Muslim immigrants living in a neighborhood of tidy lawns and American flags, was labeled an imminent threat to national security—is still shrouded in government secrecy. After nearly seven weeks in detention, she was released in May on the condition that she leave the country immediately. Only immigration charges were brought against her and another 16-year-old New York girl, who was detained and released. Federal officials will not discuss the matter.

But as the first terror investigation in the United States known to involve minors, the case reveals how deeply concerned the government is that a teenager might become a terrorist, and the lengths to which federal agents will go if they get even a whiff of that possibility. And it has drawn widespread attention, stoking the debate over the right balance between government vigilance and the protection of individual freedoms.

12:37 PM | Link | Politics | Comments (0)

Trackback URL: http://www.beggingtodiffer.com/mt/mt-tb.cgi/1994

Posted by Venkat

Tom DeLay compares Baghdad to Houston, or rather uses Houston as a standard by which to judge Baghdad:

"You know, if Houston, Texas, was held to the same standard as Iraq is held to, nobody'd go to Houston, because all this reporting coming out of the local press in Houston is violence, murders, robberies, deaths on the highways." DeLay said.

† Atrios.

12:25 PM | Link | Miscellaneous | Comments (0)

Trackback URL: http://www.beggingtodiffer.com/mt/mt-tb.cgi/1993

Posted by Kriston

What Tom said. I'm greatly disappointed to see Dick Durbin back down. These are the comments in question:

If I read this to you and did not tell you that it was an FBI agent describing what Americans had done to prisoners in their control, you would most certainly believe this must have been done by Nazis, Soviets in their gulags, or some mad regime—Pol Pot or others—that had no concern for human beings. Sadly, that is not the case. This was the action of Americans in the treatment of their prisoners.

God help us if leaders like Durbin stand down from saying precisely how wrong our actions are in the face of barking mad dogs like Hewitt and the conservative media. America, torturing people? It's madness and Durbin shouldn't apologize for saying so.

12:20 PM | Link | Politics | Comments (0)

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Posted by Tom

Sen. Durbin has apologized again, and more visibly. And with that, I'm finally ready to join the chorus of people infuriated with him.

Go read what Matt Yglesias said. Go read what Andrew Sullivan said. Rather than splitting hairs over exactly how bad the gulags were, could we just stop torturing people and avoid the controversy altogether?

Instead of correcting our country's occasional misdeeds, we seem to be content to attack those who point them out. Comparisons between America and the world's most morally despicable regimes are not justifiable. But if we keep this up, someday they will be.

11:26 AM | Link | Politics | Comments (0)

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Posted by Steve

The American Film Institute has released a list of the Top 100 Movie Quotes. Some of it is obvious ("Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn," comes in at #1) but there is plenty to hate.

"May the force be with you," makes the cut from Star Wars rather than the geekier "I've got a bad feeling about this," or the memorable, "Laugh it up, Fuzzball."

From E.T. we get, "E.T. phone home," instead of, "It was nothing like that, penis breath!"

But that's why lists are fun, right? For criticizing what is included and what is not. Have at it.

10:05 AM | Link | Movies | Comments (0)

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Posted by Steve

Netflix brought me the 9/11 documentary by Jules and Gedeon Naudet, French brothers who set out to trace the journey of a new recruit to the NYPD, but happened to be present for the attack on the World Trade Center. I have just finished watching the movie and am somewhat at a loss for words. The images are all familiar: the planes crashing, the burning towers, the shocked onlookers, the dust, the recovery efforts, tears and anguish and exhaustion and confusion. The themes are all familiar: the heroic selflessness of firefighters, the importance of family, the magnitude of destruction, disbelief, duty, shock, fear. Still, despite their familiarity, the images and themes retain the power to carry us back to that day, to the way we experienced it, to the way it changed us and the things we learn. We might as well get used to it, I guess, this experience of being reminded. We'll always recall it with clarity, all of us, all our lives.

I have no words of wisdom, no points to score, no pithy aside. I have nothing to offer about 9/11 that everyone reading these words doesn't already know. Instead I'll just make a few disjointed observations about this particular documentary, and mention a few things I did not know.

I did not realize that people on the ground floor of the WTC had been burned to death by the initial explosion. Jules Naudet arrived at Tower 1 with the first firefighters to respond and captured their reactions as they came upon burning bodies in the lobby. Apparently the initial blast traveled down the elevator shafts. The windows in the lobby were all blown out.

I knew people had jumped, but I had no idea it was so many. By the time the firefighters arrived minutes after the crash, a steady stream of jumpers were already crashing down from above, causing serious physical danger in addition to a horrifying scene. (No bodies are shown in the film). Throughout the rescue operation in Tower 1, which lasted until Tower 2 collapsed, bodies kept crashing down on the roof above the NYFD's temporary command center at a rate of about one per minute. Every time it happened there was a thunderous crash, and everyone reacted, and everyone knew exactly what it was. The cool efficiency of the NYFD leadership is astonishing considering the conditions in which they worked.

No one at the scene had any idea of the overall situation. Everyone knew only what he could see and hear. Many of the firefighters had no idea Tower 2 had collapsed until long after they had escaped the collapse of Tower 1. They came out after the evacuation order to a scene that was completely obscured by smoke and dust. Then, before there was time to learn what happened, Tower 1 came down and everyone focused solely on survival. Those of us watching on TV knew much more about what was happening than the firefighters on the scene.

At some point, every one of the firefighters thought he was going to die. Even after they made it out, they had to run away from the collapsing building. The Naudet brothers captured the dust cloud as it caught up and engulfed the fleeing crowd. Camera running, Jules Naudet they dove under a car as the debris surrounded him and swirled around. There are several seconds of silence, the camera's spotlight shining into blackness, everyone around thinking his life was over. Then, one by one, they realize they are still alive. They get up, call out to each other, and get moving again.

Miraculously, both Naudet brothers and all the firefighters from the firehouse nearest the WTC survived the attack. Survival was often a matter of seconds and inches. The NYFD Chaplain is shown in the lobby with everyone else just before Tower 2 collapsed, then, just seconds later, he is dead. Each passing minute brought on something unspeakable and unfathomable, nonstop, for two hours.

There's no danger of our forgetting 9/11, but the Naudet brothers' documentary is an astonishing vehicle for remembering.

12:39 AM | Link | Movies | Comments (0)

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Posted by Hei Lun

This post I saw from Instapundit prompted me to ponder the recurring question about gays—is it a choice, is it genetic, or is it something else? On one level, of course it's not a choice, in that gay people can't suddenly choose to be straight any more than I can suddenly choose to be gay. But if it's genetic, then not everything would make sense either. If it's all genetic, then all gay people should know that they're gay by the time they reach adulthood. However, there seems to be many, many people who "discover" that they're gay in their twenties or later. Did these people know they were gay all along and were just acting straight the whole time? Did the gene simply chose to manifest itself later in life? What about the people who were gay then defected to the other team? Did the gene become defective? And wouldn't a "gay gene" be an extraordinary evolutionary disadvantage that should have been selected out a long time ago?

One possibility is that many of these gays who discover their homosexuality later in life are actually bisexuals. But if that's true, then wouldn't they be choosing to act gay or straight, depending on the sex of the person they happen to be with? From a societal standpoint, there's no difference between a straight married person and a bisexual who's married to someone of the opposite sex.

These questions might sound really stupid to people who actually know some gay people, but I don't, and I'm looking to be enlightened.

12:37 AM | Link | Science | Comments (0)

Trackback URL: http://www.beggingtodiffer.com/mt/mt-tb.cgi/1987

Posted by Hei Lun

The issue of thimerosal (mercury) in vaccines and its link to autism has been bubbling for a while and is likely to become a major public issue in the upcoming months. Recently, Robert Kennedy, Jr. wrote a piece for Salon (the same piece appears in Rolling Stone sans registration) arguing that there is a cover-up by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to prevent the public from knowing about the link between thimerosal and autism and the dangers that this poses. The piece has been much talked about and criticized in blogs. The most cogent refutation of Kennedy's article comes from Richard Rockley of Skeptico, who showed that Kennedy had many of his facts wrong to support his theory of a cover-up. But the most important part of the post is the summary of the CDC report of the conference on the subject that Kennedy alluded to. According to Rockley, who has actually read the whole 286-page report,

On day two, the experts each get a turn giving their view on whether there is a causal link between thimerosal and autism. The participants were asked to rate the possibility of a causal link on a scale of one to six: one being a weak causal link, six strong. From page 189 to 222 you can read of one attendee after another (with just one exception) grading the likelihood of a causal relationship as being either a one or a two out of six. The mean value given by the group (page 253) was 1.8 - very little evidence for a causal link.

If this is true, then why is this a story at all? So far, there seems to be almost no evidence of a link between thimerosal and autism at all. The CDC, backed by an FDA review, have said repeatedly that there is "no evidence of harm" of thimerosal in vaccines. Most of the studies come to the same results. No causal mechanism has been discovered. Other countries have stopped using thimerosal in their vaccines, yet the rates of autism in those countries are still increasing.

The anti-thimerosal activists, composed mostly of well-meaning parents of children with autism, people who dislike pharmaceutical companies, and some opportunistic trial lawyers, argue that "no evidence of harm" is not the same as its being as safe. This, of course, merely sets a target that their opponents cannot reach. When scientists perform studies on this subject, all they can do is try to find correlations and possibly causation. If enough studies fail to find a correlation, then it's reasonable to conclude that their is no correlation at all. But that's not good enough for the anti-thimerosal side. They acknowledge that there have been many studies that have failed to find a correlation, but they refuse to come to the logical conclusion. For example, on the website for the book Evidence of Harm, the author David Kirby writes,

But “no evidence of harm” is not the same as proof of safety. No evidence of harm is not a definitive answer; and this is a story that cries out for answers.

I don't know about you, but "no evidence of harm" after multiple studies is pretty definitive to me.

There's also the "pharmaceutical companies gave a lot of money to politicians who tried to give them immunity from lawsuits" angle, but pharmaceutical companies, like all other special interests, give a lot of money to a lot of politicians, and it's likely that they gave the most money to the politicians who already agreed with them most in the first place. If you think that campaign contributions is evidence of wrongdoing, then you either need to start paying more attention to politics or stop altogether.

No one really knows whether thimerosal in vaccines cause autism. But so far, the evidence seems to be lacking.

11:37 PM | Link | Politics | Comments (0)

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Posted by Tom

The LA Times' brief experiment with "Wikitorials" seems to have come to an end. Folks started inserting profanity faster than editors could remove it.

This project was doomed from the start. It might have been a little hard to make out this in my initial post on the subject (buried as it was under a landslide of sarcasm) -- but wikis work because they allow authors to work toward a common goal: the creation of better content. When what constitutes "better" becomes uncertain, the whole enterprise falls apart. And nowhere is that concept more murky than in the realm of opinion writing.

Which is exactly where editorials lie. Although frequently written collaboratively and published without a specific byline, editorials are not objective reference works. They're opinion journalism. And whether a revision to an opinion makes it better or worse -- well, that's another opinion.

If the editors of the LA Times didn't understand that wikis are best suited to creating objective reference documents, they're guilty of stupidity. If they did, and simply thought that editorials are such documents, they're guilty of considerable arrogance.

1:16 PM | Link | Media | Comments (0)

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Posted by Hei Lun

Bringing Down the House, by Ben Mezrich

Is card counting in blackjack cheating? The subject of this book want us to think it's not, since he and his cohort made millions off casinos in the nineties by combining card counting and team play to avoid detection from casinos. In one respect this is true, since a card counter is technically not breaking any of the rules of blackjack. But if cheating is defined as not following the rules as set forth by the hosts of the game, then card counting is definitely cheating. There's a reason these MIT kids did everything possible, from fake identities to physical disguises, to prevent the casinos from catching them in the act—the casinos stop them from playing once they do.

Somewhat relatedly, there's several good posts on cheating last week from PG, Will Baude, and Raffi Melkonian, all originating from this post by Professor Bainbridge on the use of "bots" in online games. I think I agree with PG, responding to Will's suggestion that cheating is itself a game with in the game, that the problem with these cheaters is that the people they're beating aren't the game's creators, but the other players who they're victimizing.

Since in non-tournament blackjack the player is only playing against the house, however, card counting is a good example of Will's idea. The game is no longer about blackjack, but about whether the card counters can keep themselves hidden in the crowd. While the card counters do their best to act like spoiled rich kids spending daddy's money in various disguises, the casinos try to find them using security cameras, face and trot-recognition technology, and body scans that seem to belong more in airport security than in a casino. When the casinos do catch one, they do their best to intimidate, sometimes with threatened or actual physical violence, or worse. One might say that the casinos are cheating in this cat-and-mouse game by doing something illegal, but the card counters do the same with their fake identities and Social Security numbers.

Anyway, reading this book further diminishes my already lacking desire to go to Vegas.

11:18 PM | Link | Fifty Book Challenge | Comments (0)

Trackback URL: http://www.beggingtodiffer.com/mt/mt-tb.cgi/1984

Posted by Tom

The courts struck down the FCC's ability to implement the broadcast flag. That didn't stop Hollywood's lobbyists, though, and now the EFF is warning that it's likely to be introduced in an appropriations bill tomorrow, and voted on Thursday. 48 hours -- plenty of time for citizens to make their voices heard, right? Er, right.

Anyway, check out the EFF's page on the issue -- if your senator sits on the appropriations committee, please take the time to send an email letting them know that that you prefer your consumer electronics to be un-crippled.

10:51 PM | Link | Technology | Comments (0)

Trackback URL: http://www.beggingtodiffer.com/mt/mt-tb.cgi/1983

Posted by Tom

It would be hard to call this post's contents "news". In fact, this stuff has been debunked for quite a while. But so long as news outlets like the Washington Post are content to parrot the RIAA's patently false doomsaying, the rest of us will have to stay in broken-record mode:

[Music sharing] behavior is being blamed by the industry for a dramatic drop in sales of CDs and other forms of recorded music. Over the past five years, shipments of music to retailers have dropped by 21 percent, according to the Recording Industry Association of America.

"There is no question that piracy -- in its various, ugly forms -- is the primary reason for that decline," said Mitch Bainwol, chairman and chief executive officer of the association, in a written statement. "In the face of such devastating and ongoing harm, it is appropriate that record companies find ways to facilitate the continued investment in new art."

The magic word is "shipments". Have a look here. Music retailers tightened up their ordering methods using a system called SoundScan that tracks CD sales on a per-disc basis. This greatly increases efficiency -- a clearer picture of demand means fewer unsold albums have to be returned to the label. Yes, fewer discs are being shipped, but sales are up. Revenues are, too -- although of course that was bitten into by the industry coming to a large settlement over price-fixing.

Despite the industry not yet being in crisis, I've no doubt that digital technology will ultimately force the music industry to completely reinvent itself. The culling of its newly obsolescent parts will no doubt be painful for a lot of people. I'd love to participate as a consumer in the transformation of their business to a new form that benefits everyone. But so long as these entrenched corporations opt to spew propaganda, cheat, lie to and generally treat their customers like idiots, it's hard to summon much sympathy. Shame on the Washington Post for spreading their nonsense.

10:27 AM | Link | Music | Comments (0)

Trackback URL: http://www.beggingtodiffer.com/mt/mt-tb.cgi/1982

Posted by Hei Lun

Coach: Lessons on the Game of Life, by Michael Lewis

I almost feel guilty listing this because it took me less than an hour to read. The people who really should feel guilty though are the publishers who're charging $12.95 for this Saturday Evening Post-type essay. I guess you can't blame them for capitalizing on the fact that there are absolutely no good Father's Day gifts that doesn't cost at least three figures.

I probably should say something about the book itself. Lewis, the author of Moneyball and Liar's Poker, writes about the high school baseball coach who changed his life as well as those of many others he coached. But even as the school is naming the gym after the coach, he's facing endless complaints by the parents of his current players who want more playing time or feel that the coach is too tough on them. It's nothing you haven't read a dozen times already, and it's no different from all the other coach-who-changed-my-life stories, except that a lot of people, especially the targeted demographic for this book, have heard of Michael Lewis.

3:29 PM | Link | Fifty Book Challenge | Comments (0)

Trackback URL: http://www.beggingtodiffer.com/mt/mt-tb.cgi/1981

Posted by Hei Lun

Dick Durbin, the second highest ranking Democrat in the Senate, said something stupid a few days ago. You've probably seen it, and if you haven't, it's not really important—politicians say stupid things all the time, and if I get outraged at politicians who say stupid things all the time I'd be thinking about Howard Dean, Bill Frist, etc. all day every day. But what is outrageous is his statement he released yesterday:

I have learned from my statement that historical parallels can be misused and misunderstood. I sincerely regret if what I said caused anyone to misunderstand my true feelings ...

In other words, he's sorry that those nasty Republicans had the gall to criticize him, he's sorry that people weren't smart enough to realize what he really meant, and he's sorry that a bunch of thin-skinned people got all offended and all. What he's not sorry about is saying something stupid. Pathetic.

7:21 AM | Link | Politics | Comments (0)

Trackback URL: http://www.beggingtodiffer.com/mt/mt-tb.cgi/1980

Posted by Tom

A few stories about how the powers that be intend for you to use your computer:

• EMI and Sony BMG are poised to begin releasing copy-protected CDs with embedded WMA files that can only be moved off the disc three times, and can't be distributed any further than that. Quite an innovation! Look for it to join previous DRM schemes, which have taken advanced hacker techniques to defeat. Like, uh, writing on the disc with a magic marker. Or pressing the shift key. In fact, because the system doesn't work with Apple's iPod, the companies are already distributing a workaround to disgruntled customers. Count this one as broken already.

  The fact is that the CD redbook audio standard is inherently insecure -- there's only so much you can do to it without breaking millions of existing CD players. So audio DRM efforts will continue to fail -- as does most DRM, actually. Over at BlogMaverick, Mark Cuban wonders why companies keep pushing doomed DRM schemes: pirates usually beat them, limiting copy protection's effect to irritating paying customers.

• The Patriot Act may have been weakened, but the DOJ will find other ways to keep its eye on you: it's pushing for ISPs to track their customers' internet habits. Right now ISPs keep as few logs as possible -- subpoenas are royal pain, especially when the majority of cases are civil actions from sometimes-overreaching copyright holders.
• Guilty by surfing? A Georgia court is being asked to decide whether having cached images on your hard drive constitutes legal possession of those images. Just goes to show the problems inherent to criminalizing certain types of information in a nominally free society. Not that we have any appealing alternatives, in the case of child porn -- but in the internet age, this stuff becomes extra tricky. Decide one way and installing a subpar pop-up blocker becomes a felony. Decide another and a gaping loophole in the law has been opened -- and not just for pornographic material. This decision could shift the burden of proof from showing what a computer did to what the user meant for it to do. Hackers, spammers and identity thieves must be ecstatic.

9:54 AM | Link | Technology | Comments (0)

Trackback URL: http://www.beggingtodiffer.com/mt/mt-tb.cgi/1979

Posted by Steve

Somehow Jump Little Children came out with a new album a year ago, and I missed it. I just picked it up last week, and I think it's their best yet. More on that in a minute, right after I make a dismissive comment about the band's new name and then detail my discursive journey toward full Jump Little Children fandom.

First, the name. I see from their web site that they now refer to themselves as Jump. As in, no Little Children. Might as well call themselves The Artists Formerly Known As Jump Little Children. I'll just spare everyone the confusion and call them Jump Little Children.

Next, my personal saga.

I first heard of them in the mid 1990s, when I was in college. They played around the usual North Carolina clubs. I'd see their flyers, overhear someone saying they played a good show. I was always curious because of the band's strange name, but I was never moved to see a show. For some reason (I think because of the word "Jump") I assumed it was a dance/house act. I envisioned something lighthearted and frivolous (I think because of the words "Little Children") that, while I might enjoy it, never motivated me to go to a show.

Dude... Jump Little Children rocked the Cat's Cradle last night. Did you catch it?
No.

12:05 AM | Link | Culture | Comments (0)

Trackback URL: http://www.beggingtodiffer.com/mt/mt-tb.cgi/1978

Posted by Greg

I stumbled across the One.org web ads while scrolling through the breaking news stories at Wired.com. The ads (here's a sample) feature a revolving cast of celebrities and entertainers (Brad Pitt, Cameron Diaz, Edward Norton, Susan Sarandon, Bono, Al Pacino, etc.) speaking out about poverty and AIDS. It's hard to disagree. Either you're for them, or you're for poverty and AIDS. Each of the ads ends with the same tagline: "We're not asking for your money. We're asking for your voice."

That got me curious. What could they want that wouldn't involve my money, only my voice? It turns out that the "One" campaign is geared toward getting the U.S. government to committing to allocate "an additional ONE percent of the U.S. budget toward providing basic needs like health, education, clean water and food, would transform the futures and hopes of an entire generation of the poorest countries." In case you're wondering, the annual U.S. budget—meaning the amount that Congress spent (which was about a half-trillion "over budget"), assuming I'm reading the CBO's chart correctly—is somewhere in the neighborhood of $2.3 trillion dollars. The One Campaign, then, seems to be saying that it wants the United States to pledge around $23 billion. Sure, it's only 1%, but a billion here, a billion there, as the saying goes. And, by the way, that's about $81 per person, using the population figures from the 2000 census.

Of course, if you think of the U.S. government's money as your money, then the One Campaign's tagline doesn't make much sense. Somehow, I don't think those A-List entertainers look at it that way. And, to cap off my little fit of cynicism, I'm doubtful that $23 billion dollars could really cure poverty or AIDS. Not that we shouldn't do something (of course we should), but there are political and social issues that won't just be solved by the U.S. government spending a little (or a lot) more money.

UPDATE: Via Wonkett (naturally) comes more fodder to feed my cynicism: HBO films and the Council on Foreign Relations (no, seriously) are bringing us "The Girl in the Cafe," a film written by Richard Curtis. ("Four Weddings and a Funeral" I liked okay. "Love Actually" not so much.) Wonkette says it best:

We can hear it now, "Oh, and that part where he told her that he loved he more than all of Africa's health care costs combined!?!? I died!" And while it sounds improbable, but you can tell by the poster it's not your typical romantic comedy. Nothing says "I care about debt relief" like a beret. Oh, and a protest sign that says "End debt." That says it too.

For the record, I do like Bill Nighy (especially when he plays a zombie) and Kelly MacDonald was in one of the best newspaper/political thrillers ever made.

10:12 PM | Link | Media | Comments (0)

Trackback URL: http://www.beggingtodiffer.com/mt/mt-tb.cgi/1977

Posted by Greg

Count 'em up:

Police stopped David A. Blundell, 43, in his ice cream truck a short time after the homeowner complained last Thursday, according to the criminal complaint. Blundell first denied drinking but then admitted that he had a beer for breakfast, the complaint said.

Blundell, who authorities said is also a registered sex offender, was charged Tuesday with repeat drunken driving. Tests showed his blood-alcohol level was more than twice the level considered evidence of intoxication, which in Wisconsin is .08 percent.

It's hard to know where to start.

9:43 PM | Link | Miscellaneous | Comments (0)

Trackback URL: http://www.beggingtodiffer.com/mt/mt-tb.cgi/1976

Posted by Hei Lun

The Zombie Survival Guide: Complete Protection from the Living Dead, by Max Brooks

This is what happens when someone has a good idea for a booklet and tries to stretch it to a 247-page book. It's very funny in some spots but it's also very repetitive, especially the 66 pages of the history of recorded zombie attacks. The best part of the book is probably the goofy illustrations that accompany the text.

Humor books, I think, are generally tough to write. While it's not hard for someone to be funny for an article or a blog post, few people have the ability to keep an audience laughing for a whole book. I think it's less difficult if the author writes about a subject and happens to be funny while doing it, rather than have the point of the book be on humor. I tried reading another humor book, David Sedaris's Me Talk Pretty One Day, but I didn't find it very funny and really couldn't get into it, and gave up after two essays. Not my kind of humor, I guess.

12:47 PM | Link | Fifty Book Challenge | Comments (0)

Trackback URL: http://www.beggingtodiffer.com/mt/mt-tb.cgi/1975

Posted by Hei Lun

Eugene Volokh has some criticisms of the end of this David Dobbs piece in Slate that discusses efforts by scientists to come up with a set of tests that can measure consciousness, called the "consciometer". Dobbs writes,

As leading neuroscientist Michael Gazzaniga, a member of President Bush's Council on Bioethics, describes in his book The Ethical Brain, current neurology suggests that a fetus doesn't possess enough neural structure to harbor consciousness until about 26 weeks, when it first seems to react to pain. Before that, the fetal neural structure is about as sophisticated as that of a sea slug and its EEG as flat and unorganized as that of someone brain-dead.

The consciometer may not put the abortion issue to rest—given the deeply held religious and moral views on all sides, it's hard to imagine that anything could. But by adding a definitive neurophysiological marker to the historical and secular precedents allowing abortion in the first two-thirds of pregnancy, it may greatly buttress the status quo or even slightly push back the 23-week boundary. There is another possibility. The implications of the consciometer could create a backlash that displaces science as the legal arbiter of when life ends and begins. Such a shift—a rejection of science not because it is vague but because it is exact—would be a strange development, running counter to the American legal tradition. Should a fundamentalist view of life trump rationalist legal philosophy? Roe v. Wade considered this question explicitly and answered no. For nonfundamentalists, that probably still seems right.

Volokh responds,

What rule we should use for deciding when someone should have the legal right not to be killed is not a scientific question. Applying the rule may be a scientific question; if we decide that only entities that have consciousness have the right not to be killed, then science can tell us whether John Smith has consciousness. But deciding on the rule is simply not a scientific issue: It's a matter of moral judgment, which science isn't equipped to provide. Science can't tell us whether the legal right not to be killed vests at conception, at viability, at consciousness, or at birth; nor can it tell us when the right dissipates.

... it makes little sense to say to someone who believes that the right not to be killed begins at conception: "You are a fundamentalist who wants to displace science as the legal arbiter of when life ends and begins, rather than the rationalist legal philosopher you ought to be — see this conscionometer that clearly proves that this fetus doesn't have consciousness, has never had consciousness, and currently lacks the physical equipment needed for consciousness, even though in several months it is nearly certain to have consciousness." The conscionometer answers a particular question, but it tells us nothing about why this should be the right question. And if you've concluded that "does it have consciousness?" (or some variant of that) is the right question, that's a moral conclusion, not a scientific one.

This strikes me as a sound criticism, but even if we grant Dobb's implied premise that consciousness should be used to determine a person's right to life, I don't think that everyone would reach the same conclusions as Dobbs did in the article.

11:43 AM | Link | Politics | Comments (0)

Trackback URL: http://www.beggingtodiffer.com/mt/mt-tb.cgi/1974

Posted by Venkat

Life of Pi was sitting on my bedside table for about what seemed like a year. I bought it on the recommendation of a friend, and either a blurb about the book (that made it seem fantastic, with talking animals and all) or the cover art (that gave it the Oprah book club vibe) turned me off. Maybe it was something about the title. At any rate, the other night, I was sitting at home when I couldn’t go to the bookstore and I was forced to rummage around to see what was available. Life of Pi was all there was.

Upon reading the prologue, I became immediately engrossed in the book. I generally enjoy reading prologues, but no prologue has engendered my interest in a book more than this one. I think I blazed through the book in 4 days (and a few semi-sleepless nights).

The book follows the story of a young Indian boy who lives in Pondicherry, a former French colony in South India. The boy, like all other young Indian boy characters, is likeable and sympathetic (maybe too simple). He deals with the usual travails of Indian adolescenthood, such as getting picked on by schoolmates, parental woes—no teenage romances here! His perspective on life is pretty interesting and is typical of this brand of protagonist (e.g., A Fine Balance). He is resigned to the predestination dictated by his deeply held cultural and religious beliefs. At the same time, he doesn’t take things too seriously. He firmly believes that things are designed for and will work out for the best. Martel conveys this mentality that is typical of many Indians perfectly and plays around with it. I was reading the book and was constantly reminded of my parents and other elders.

The second half of the book is about the boy’s will to survive. A series of events puts him in survivor mode. Martel explores the psychology of survival and survivors through Pi. Martel explores this mentality as well as the he does the resignation/belief in good in the first half.

Life of Pi is a page turner. Don’t be turned off by the cover art.

follow up: markus in comments points to a negative review. Unlike that reviewer (who seemed to be unduly bothered by "PC" statements in the book—that I was oblivious to), I didn't get riled up by the religious / magical realism / metaphysical aspects of the story. It was just a good story. The rest was gravy.

9:59 PM | Link | Culture | Comments (0)

Trackback URL: http://www.beggingtodiffer.com/mt/mt-tb.cgi/1973

Posted by Steve

12:20 AM | Link | Photography | Comments (0)

Trackback URL: http://www.beggingtodiffer.com/mt/mt-tb.cgi/1971

Posted by Steve

Free outdoor symphony concerts are a tradition in Charlotte. For years the local orchestra played its "Pops In The Park" series in a picturesque amphitheater in Freedom Park. It was a low key affair, and for teenage music lovers like me, the price was right.

Eventually the performances moved to a lawn outside the upscale South Park Mall. The performances grew in popularity, causing logistical hassles and a distinctly different vibe. I went a few times, but even if I showed up an hour before showtime, I found the lawn was literally packed with thousands of young professionals munching brie. The only available sitting spaces were in the mall's vast parking lot. No amount of wine made it worthwhile to sit on pavement listening to poorly amplified sound, so I gave up on what was by then known as the "Summer Pops Concert."

Now, barring widespread civil disobedience, I am certain I will never go back. The concert has relocated to a snazzy new lawn on the other side of the mall, but the brie eaters have gone completely out of control. As of this week, the symphony will post signs discouraging concertgoers from marking their territory with tarps and blankets more than twelve hours before showtime.

You read that right. The Sunday land rush officially begins at 8:00 a.m. You come, mark your spot, and then are free to stroll around for 10 or 12 hours. Maybe grab a bite to eat. Maybe catch three or four movies.

I can't decide which is more ridiculous: that people presume to mark their spots twelve hours in advance, or that Charlotte's meek citizenry doesn't wad up those empty blankets and throw them in the lake. The 8:00 a.m. "rule" (which the symphony admits it does not intend to enforce) is absurd. There is only one place-holding rule that meets the globally acknowledged standards of human decency: if you want to keep your blanket space, you sit on the blanket. Period. Wanna come at 8:00 a.m.? No problem! Just bring some sun screen and an extra wheel of cheese, because it's going to be a long day.

This situation screams out for creative chaos. If I didn't value my weekend sleep more highly than sticking it to the man, this is what I would do...

I would find the biggest tarp in town, maybe fifty feet square. I would stretch it out right in the middle of prime viewing space at 4:00 a.m., with handmade signs on all four sides announcing, "This space is reserved for BTD Steve and guests." Then I'd drive away and never set foot at the Summer Pops Concert again. Not that night. Not ever.

12:12 AM | Link | Culture | Comments (0)

Trackback URL: http://www.beggingtodiffer.com/mt/mt-tb.cgi/1970

Posted by Tom

Via Kevin Drum I see that the LA Times' online version will be offering a feature called "wikitorials", which will "will empower [readers] to rewrite Los Angeles Times editorials".

I think that the concept of wikis -- which encompasses a number of different collaborative online content creation and editing systems -- is a great one. They're becoming the de-facto means of documenting open source projects, and I probably link to the wikipedia more than any other site. But are they suited to opinion pieces?

Hey, why not? I just tried my hand at it, and the results are encouraging. A little copying, a little pasting, a little editing in MS Word and suddenly this piece of Krauthammer-authored Gitmo apologism has become 500 words calling for Noam Chomsky's appointment to an ambassadorship. I think the LA Times is right: this internet thing is going to be big.

12:45 PM | Link | Media | Comments (0)

Trackback URL: http://www.beggingtodiffer.com/mt/mt-tb.cgi/1969

Posted by Hei Lun

If you've seen an NBA game on television recently, you've probably seen one of the versions of the NBA commercials in which various players act as if the championship trophy is a woman they love. While not the worse idea in the world for commercials, you got to wonder about their choice of which athletes the NBA picked.

In one commercial, Indiana Pacer Jermaine O'Neal shows up at the house of Pacers general manager Larry Bird to pick up the trophy for a date (I feel stupid just typing this). The scene plays out as if the trophy were Bird's daughter, with O'Neal promising to Bird that he loves the trophy and would take care of her, and Bird playing the disapproving father. I supposed the league picked O'Neal and Bird for this commercial because Bird is one of the few instantly recognizable general managers and O'Neal is a very good young player. However, those familiar with Bird's biography will remember Bird's history with his daughter Corrie, and how for much of her life he was an absent father. With how NBA players are especially notorious even among athletes for fathering illegitimate children, I don't think the NBA wanted to remind anyone of that in one of their own commercials.

Another ad features Jason Kidd talking on the telephone with the trophy. Anyone familiar with his biography will know what a bad choice it was to put Kidd anywhere near a phone. In 2001, even though Kidd was the best point guard in the league, the Phoenix Suns traded him to the New Jersey Nets for the vastly inferior Stephen Marbury. The trade didn't have anything to do with Kidd's on-the-court play; rather, it was because the people in Phoenix didn't want someone like Kidd playing on one of their teams. Earlier that year, he was involved in a domestic abuse incident with his wife in which he was arrested and later plead guilty to hitting her with a phone. Even if the NBA didn't have any problems with using a wife beater in one of their commercials, like the Bird commercial, they probably should have put Kidd in a story that doesn't have anything even remotely related to his indiscretion.

Lastly, there's one particular commercial among several that stars Julius Erving as a radio talk show host. While it has nothing to do with Erving's off-field activities, it does have a really unfortunate line, in which Erving tells one of the players who called his show, "you got to let her know that she's your trophy." I can imagine that for thousands of people, every time they see that they're going to hear him say, "you got to let her know that she's your trophy wife." Or maybe that's just me.

11:20 PM | Link | Sports | Comments (0)

Trackback URL: http://www.beggingtodiffer.com/mt/mt-tb.cgi/1968

Posted by Kriston

On a point related to Tom's post on parenting policy, I have to say that I'm always disappointed by how quickly the left reverts to form in this discussion. Who didn't see the ghost of Tipper Gore and the Parents' Music Resource Center (PMRC) in Amy Sullivan's recent discussion of entertainment content? And while I hesitate to brand Matthew Yglesias the Ice-T of the blogosphere, the discussion does seem to fall between two camps: 1) coastal elites who think (rightly, as I see it) that policy isn't necessary to protect parents and children from entertainment content and 2) coastal elites who see an electoral advantage to Sista Souljah-ing camp #1. If there's a grassroots of actually concerned parents on the left demanding policy intervention, I'm not aware of it. And if you read the genuinely positive responses to Yglesias's deadpan, entirely sarcastic excoriation of Fantasia Barrino's "Baby Mama", you'll see that the tactical camp isn't without support.

4:37 PM | Link | Culture | Comments (0)

Trackback URL: http://www.beggingtodiffer.com/mt/mt-tb.cgi/1961

Posted by Vance

For most of my career in the investment business, I've followed a pretty simple rule in making sure that I am well within the parameters of securities law; I follow my own ethical standards. For every non-reporting issue that comes up, I've found that my ethical standard is so far beyond the rule of law that I never come close to the legal dividing line. (Note that I don't see that as necessarily being a positive reflection of me but rather of how low the legal line is drawn in the securities business.)

New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer has apparently not familiarized himself with my little rule, because yesterday he found out that just because someone crosses an ethical line that Spitzer personally wouldn't cross doesn't mean that person is breaking the law. Spitzer had made his prosecution of Ted Siphol the centerpiece of his crusade against mutual fund timing. (I gave a short primer of what mutual fund timing entails in this post a year and a half ago.) There are instances that mutual fund timing can be illegal, such as the case against Richard Strong, founder of the Strong Capital Management. In that case, Strong had a fiduciary duty to look out for the mutual fund shareholders. Instead, he personally profited at the expense of those shareholders, a clear breach of fiduciary duty.

No such fiduciary duty existed for Ted Siphol. As a broker, his job was to execute trades for his client, in this case Canary Capital Partners and the partnership's chief investor, Edward Stern. Siphol performed this task admirably, leading Canary Capital to excellent performance. Was this trading unethical? In my mind, unquestionably so. I recall looking into mutual fund timing three years ago, but ruled out trading in that fashion because it clearly crossed an ethical line that I didn't want to cross. Many other friends in the hedge fund business came to the same conclusion, even though their attorneys advised that this was clearly a legal method to generate trading profits. Once you eliminate those ethical but legal actions, Spitzer was left with just a few charges that consisted solely of Siphol's word against Stern's word, and given that Stern was ethically questionable and had been given immunity in exchange for his testimony, it wasn't as if Stern was a wholly credible witness.

Spitzer would do well to forget about right and wrong and concentrate on the law instead. Alternatively, maybe he's just getting a head start on what he hopes is his new job and in the process he's forgotten about the law.

2:04 PM | Link | Law | Comments (0)

Trackback URL: http://www.beggingtodiffer.com/mt/mt-tb.cgi/1967

Posted by Nick

For the first time since 1918 (why does that number sound familiar?) the Red Sox and Cubs are playing nine. Here's a question: Not if but when the Red Sox fans who have invaded Wrigley this weekend sing "root, root, root for the Red Sox" how do the Cubs fans respond? Typically when Red Sox Nation gets a "Let's go Red Sox" chant going on the road, and you haven't lived until you've heard your team serenaded in a dozen different ballparks, the hometown fans will muster enough boos to mostly drown out the Sox fans, but given the going rate for Sox - Cubs tickets on e*Bay will there even be enough Cubs fans in attendance to defend Wrigley from this RSN breach of protocol? I mean, could there possibly be a worse offense to tradition in sports than the Cubbies being out rooted in the ivories?

(I'm not the only person who wonders about stuff like this, right?)

2:02 PM | Link | Sports | Comments (0)

Trackback URL: http://www.beggingtodiffer.com/mt/mt-tb.cgi/1966

Posted by Venkat

I used to be deathly (and I mean deathly) embarassed when my mom wore sarees to pick me up at school. Now all sorts of people are wearing them. They seem to be popular wedding attire.

Here's a CSM article on a particular type of Saree.

4:40 AM | Link | Culture | Comments (0)

Trackback URL: http://www.beggingtodiffer.com/mt/mt-tb.cgi/1965

Posted by Greg

12:24 AM | Link | Photography | Comments (0)

Trackback URL: http://www.beggingtodiffer.com/mt/mt-tb.cgi/1964

Posted by Steve

Andrew Sullivan links to the unfinished but amusing web site featuring Passed Out Wookies. In order to fullly appreciate the site, however, some context is required. A short history of the Wookie phenomenon follows, with a special tribute to its icon, the legendary Wook #17.

12:01 AM | Link | Culture | Comments (0)

Trackback URL: http://www.beggingtodiffer.com/mt/mt-tb.cgi/1963

Posted by Venkat

Stewart Buck posts on his first oral argument. He describes it as:

very similar (on a meta-level) to that of performing a musical instrument before an audience. Most importantly, both are performances in every sense of the word: In both situations, you are displaying your skill and knowledge in a live high-wire act before an audience that you deeply want to impress. Both invoke alternating feelings of eager anticipation and abject fear beforehand; and during the performance, both invoke some initial trepidation that dissolves to (relative) comfort as you realize that you can handle the situation.

12:06 AM | Link | Law | Comments (0)

Trackback URL: http://www.beggingtodiffer.com/mt/mt-tb.cgi/1960

Posted by Steve

12:01 AM | Link | Photography | Comments (0)

Trackback URL: http://www.beggingtodiffer.com/mt/mt-tb.cgi/1959

Posted by Vance

The Senate Finance Committee spent two and a half hours yesterday morning with various airline executives. They mostly spent that time complaining about the sad state of major airline pension funds, occasionally peppering their complaints with various and often misleading populist quips. Much of the debate centered around Senate Bill 861; this bill mostly just decreases the amount of money that companies would have to contribute to their pension funds if the pension fund is deemed underfunded. In the process, it completely ignores the real problem we've got with pension funds in general and specifically defined benefit funds. That problem is centered in the rules of GAAP accounting.

2:52 PM | Link | Economics | Comments (0)

Trackback URL: http://www.beggingtodiffer.com/mt/mt-tb.cgi/1958

Posted by Tom

Kevin Drum goes after Matt Yglesias' dismissal of culturally-motivated parental anxiety as an issue Democrats should pursue.

The point is not that we shouldn't make arguments based on research and statistics. Of course we should. The problem is that too often liberals aren't making cogent arguments at all. Instead, they're simply mocking parents who are nervous about this stuff as troglodyte knuckle draggers, without offering so much as a shred of sympathy for the way they feel. That's a pretty guaranteed vote loser.

But here's the thing: we've tried sympathy. We have v-chips that no one uses, videogame ratings that are ignored, channel-blocking capabilities that we can't be bothered with, and by and large, the continued freedom to not purchase entertainment that we find objectionable. And yet, inescapably, older people are still discomfited by the way the way those Damn Kids are acting.

2:47 PM | Link | Politics | Comments (0)

Trackback URL: http://www.beggingtodiffer.com/mt/mt-tb.cgi/1957

Posted by Steve

12:01 AM | Link | Photography | Comments (0)

Trackback URL: http://www.beggingtodiffer.com/mt/mt-tb.cgi/1956

Posted by Kriston

Catherine is perplexed over the release of John Kerry's decision to release his full military records, which reveal nothing we didn't already know—meaning that the records refute the disinformation campaign that the conservative commentariat launched against him during his presidential campaign. The Boston Globe:

The lack of any substantive new material about Kerry's military career in the documents raises the question of why Kerry refused for so long to waive privacy restrictions. An earlier release of the full record might have helped his campaign because it contains a number of reports lauding his service. Indeed, one of the first actions of the group that came to be known as Swift Boat Veterans for Truth was to call on Kerry to sign a privacy waiver and release all of his military and medical records.

The call for me to sign a 180 form came from the same partisan operatives who were lying about my record on a daily basis on the Web and in the right-wing media. Even though the media was discrediting them, they continued to lie. I felt strongly that we shouldn't kowtow to them and their attempts to drag their lies out.

12:38 PM | Link | Politics | Comments (0)

Trackback URL: http://www.beggingtodiffer.com/mt/mt-tb.cgi/1955

Posted by Greg

Radio program directing seems like a job just about anyone could do. After all, what kind of talent does it take to play music people want to hear? And yet, it seems like no one I know really listens to music on the radio any more—especially not broadcast radio. Most of the old-standby formats (country, rock, Top 40) have been fading in recent years.

Enter the iPod (or the mp3 player of your choosing), and enter Jack. All across the country, Jack-FM stations have been popping up, playing a mix of older songs (a heavy 80s rotation, along with some classic rock) with a few recent songs mixed in for good measure. The playlist consists of songs one might expect to find on the average 30-something's iPod (as this Wired News article points out). The gimmick: no repeat workdays. Listen all day, and you won't hear the same song twice. In other words, rather than programming a carefully-crafted and demographically-targeted set of twenty to thirty heavy-rotation songs, they just set the station's recorded music to "shuffle/no repeat." Minimal DJ or PD required.

The format seems to be working, as more and more stations are becoming Jack. It can't hurt. The quality of broadcast music stations has been so abysmal of late that anything's better. And Jack does have its appeal. Even a music snob like me gets a certain thrill out of hearing New Order alongside Bruce Springsteen, David Bowie, Jimmy Eat World and Ratt, in any given hour of programming. Of course, even the Jack stations might eventually succumb to some combination of mp3 player and satellite, especially if car stereos start broadly supporting the new technologies, something that seems far overdue.*

1:04 AM | Link | Music | Comments (0)

Trackback URL: http://www.beggingtodiffer.com/mt/mt-tb.cgi/1954

Posted by Greg

11:47 PM | Link | Photography | Comments (0)

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Posted by Tom

(crossposted from unrequited narcissism)

Most folks agree that Firefox is a great browser, but there are other worthy contenders out there. Safari's Mac partisans seem pretty enthusiastic about it, and it's probably got the best standards compliance around. Opera's got ads, but its CEO claims he'll swim across the Atlantic, and that has to count for something.

No, it wasn't until this weekend that I became completely convinced that Firefox ought to be the browser. The reason is GreaseMonkey.

3:38 PM | Link | Technology | Comments (0)

Trackback URL: http://www.beggingtodiffer.com/mt/mt-tb.cgi/1952

Posted by Steve

12:30 AM | Link | Photography | Comments (0)

Trackback URL: http://www.beggingtodiffer.com/mt/mt-tb.cgi/1951

Posted by Nick

Stephen J. Dubner and Steven D. Levitt, known around here as the authors of Freakonomics, debuted a column in the New York Times Magazine this week. Their question: Can monkeys learn to use money? Read the article to find out or, if you're really curious, skip ahead to the extended entry.

In case you missed it, you can read Hei Lun's review of Freakonomics here.

11:07 PM | Link | Economics | Comments (0)

Trackback URL: http://www.beggingtodiffer.com/mt/mt-tb.cgi/1950

Posted by Venkat

The Buck Stops Here

Freespace

10:02 PM | Link | Blogosphere | Comments (0)

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Posted by Hei Lun

Maximum Ride: The Angel Experiment, by James Patterson

A review in six words: Okay story, bad writing, no closure.

A slightly longer review: I'm not usually a reader of contemporary fiction, and I only decided to pick this one up because it's targeted to young adults, and these books to me usually have better writing. The book is written mostly from the perspective the fourteen-year-old winged protagonist, but there's just too much of it that either sounds as if it came from an adult, or couldn't possibly come from a teenager who's been isolated from society for much of her life. The number of pop culture references are just unforgivable, considering that she's been living in either a lockdown facility or the forest in the middle of nowhere her whole life.

From other reviews of Patterson's book, I guess people read them for the stories, and it does have an interesting one about six kids who's been genetically engineered and now are being hunted by the people who created them, and the six's attempts to learn more about their history and their parents. But the book quickly goes downhill after about halfway through. Along with the bad writing that doesn't get better, Patterson resorts to too many deus ex machina solutions to problems the kids have to solve, mostly by inventing odd superpowers that the characters have had no indication of having earlier in the book. And the ending is very unsatisfying, because the answers that I was looking for as the reward for enduring though the book simply aren't there. It's like the last episode of Lost, but worse. At least with a television drama you expect some cliffhangers at the end, but with a book you expect some resolution and closure, and those just aren't there. I guess Patterson expects me to read the sequel, but no thanks.

12:25 PM | Link | Fifty Book Challenge | Comments (0)

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Posted by Hei Lun

1776, by David McCullough

This is extremely readable, and I mean it in a good way. Usually history books are rather dry, but McCullough manages to make one mostly about troop movements very interesting and vivid. Part of it has to do with the desperation of how Washington and his army were always one misstep away from losing the whole war in the precarious first full year of the Revolution, but McCullough deserves credit for illustrating the drama of battle, the disagreements between the higher-ups of both armies and the consequences of the decisions and those not made, and for sprinkling offbeat and humanizing tidbits about the principal characters.

In a previous post, Venkat talks about how "McCullough ultimately comes down on the side of divine providence" from excerpts of the book, and he does convey that sense throughout the book on how luck played a large part in the survival of the rebels in that year. In one battle, they're aided by deep fog; in another, the wind; and in another, the inexplicable decision of the British not to go for the decisive blow. I also have to include my favorite fact learnt from the book, which is that at the beginning of the year the army had only enough gunpowder for each soldier to fire nine shots.

Highly recommended, even for those like me who are already familiar with the history.

12:04 PM | Link | Fifty Book Challenge | Comments (0)

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Posted by Venkat

Charles Krauthammer writes† a meandering and lame column about why we shouldn't close Gitmo, why we should not apologize for trashing any Korans, and why it doesn't matter anyway, because all the people in Gitmo were responsible for killing a bunch of Americans. And yes, although we are locking people up without any sort of process whatsoever, we should feel good about ourselves because AT LEAST WE ARE GIVING THE PRISONERS KORANS!! Why the Muslims locked up in Gitmo are getting more sympathy than our own downtrodden Christians in this country!

I'll tell you why we are doing the Gitmo Grovel. We have no other choice. If we could, we would be spinning Krauthammer's argument and telling people that since we allow people to burn the American flag, people shouldn't get agitated if the Koran is desecrated. Or we would be telling people that they are stupid for rioting because someone desecrated a book. We obviously can't say that. And then there's the whole problem of Gitmo. We're trying to carve out a lawless middle ground where people aren't subject to American laws or international conventions. People aren't going to buy the concept in a million years. [There's the whole government secrecy thing but that's another story. No one except for the administration knows what's going on in Gitmo. Sure, we can talk about how Al Queda prisoners are trained to allege Koran abuse. But we're not even letting people look around in Gitmo. So that will not really fly.]

To restore its credibility in this area rather than adopt the strategy Charles Krauthammer advocates it can do one thing: open up Guantanamo.

Also the whole Newsweek incident can leave a bad taste in one's mouth. It would be nice to see the administration reap what it sowed. Hopefully it will have to do so.

† Pandagon.

3:57 AM | Link | Miscellaneous | Comments (0)

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Posted by Venkat

A friend of mine was asking me some general advice about his summer law internship. He also asked me to read a memo he drafted. One thing I told him (and this is probably true in other situations as well) is that formatting documents is extremely important. Firms and institutions are picky about their formats and all have their own styles. It's best to find the appropriate style in the given institution and follow it. Don't feel the need to vary it at all. Even the slightest variations throw people off. Some people go so far as to flip out if you buck convention and fail to include their middle initial in the "TO" line in a memorandum. Others lose it if you abbreviate the month in the "DATE" line, rather than spelling it out.

Along those lines, How Appealing links to advice [pdf] about typography offered by the Seventh Circuit. It makes for good reading, and serves as a wake up call about how picky some people are about formatting and typefaces/styles (and justifiably so). One suggestion cleared up some doubts I had:

Avoid bold type. It is hard to read and almost never necessary. Use italics instead. Bold italic type looks like you are screaming at the reader.

One of my colleagues is a master formatter, and over time I have grown to appreciate his skills. Armed with WordPerfect and Acrobat, he churns out some extremely clean looking documents. It matters. Even if it doesn't, it feels better to sign your name to a nice looking document.

3:36 AM | Link | Law | Comments (0)

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Posted by Hei Lun

I usually don't do this, but think of this as a belated welcome back for the Return of the Milbarge:

1. "How about your favorite TV show when you were a kid, and why hasn't it been remade into a movie, or if it has, how was that movie, or maybe it shouldn't be remade at all?"

   I lived in Hong Kong until the age of 8, and don't really remember much of the cartoons I watched there, except for Dragonball and another one with a kid as a master chef. The first American show I watched regularly was Married ... With Children, probably because it was on all the time on the one channel I got clear reception on (you can't get cable in Chinatown in Boston, and I doubt my parents would have gotten it anyway). The reason it hasn't been made into a movie is that the show miraculously was on the air for a decade making the same four jokes, and there's really only so many ways for Al to tell Marcy she looks like a chicken.

2. "Tell us about your favorite vacation or your fav place to go on vacation."

   I keep telling my friends I want to go to Oklahoma. They think I'm kidding ...

3. "Are you a fan of Get Fuzzy?"

   Yes.

   And I like the comic too.

   (Thank you, I'll be here all night.)

4. "[Which] celebrities [do] you think are most likely to pose in Playboy and why[?]"

   Jennifer Love Hewitt only has so many years before she can't get away with being a bad actress in B-movies. This is true of many actresses, but I can't come up with any of their names right now.

   The more interesting, and still unsolved, question is, "Who would sell more copies of Playboy, the Bush twins or the Olson twins?"

5. "Why don't you write about which one [Fitz-Hume or Milbarge] is a huge liar?"

   Fitz-Hume replies,

   Milbarge isn't so much a liar as he is more of "standards over rules" kind of guy. He's also of the Costanza frame of mind, "It's not a lie if you believe it." Thus, I don't think he would consider himself a huge liar."

   George Costanza was also the one who said, "My whole life is a lie." So if Milbarge is anything like Costanza, I'd go with Milbarge.

11:09 PM | Link | Blogosphere | Comments (0)

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Posted by Kriston

You're (2.718) (3.141)

(† Julian Sanchez, who offers some thoughts on chess, Snowcrash, and Gabriel Orozco.)

8:33 PM | Link | Miscellaneous | Comments (0)

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Posted by Kriston

Courtesy of Clutch Pearls, it appears that the Internets will go through with a plan to extend a top-level domain to the porn industry: dot-xxx. ICM Registry—the part of the Internets, apparently, that sprouts new domains—lists the benefits to the .xxx registry. Dot-xxx is voluntary but is leveraged by incentives: By agreeing to the best practices guidelines (mandatory for the use of the registry), adult content producers become more appealing to major credit card companies, who sometimes refuse to enable transactions for online pornographers due to shady practices. Porndogs benefit from .xxx, which ensures minimum confidentiality and identity-protection standards. And an online red light district is a major victory for parents, who may soon be free from the fear that Precious Tot will visit whitehouse.com while writing a report on Sox the Cat and find, instead, Soxxx the Stripper. Here's hoping that everyone involved—family groups, pornographers, and porn aficionados—realizes this and plays ball.

11:56 AM | Link | Culture | Comments (0)

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Posted by Kriston

The blogosphere has been humming about the online confessional art project, PostSecret. Over the long weekend Sarah Boxer chimed in with a NYT piece that clued into the most interesting observation about the site: the increasingly streamlined style of the entries. If you've checked in on the site before (or if you scroll from the bottom forward) you'll note the sine qua non to the appeals, an "I give you x—in defiance of y social expectation!" no less requisite than the "Forgive me Father" preface to the more traditional testimonial.

12:08 PM | Link | Culture | Comments (0)

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Posted by Tom

John Edwards is doing a good job guest-blogging over at the newly-launched TPMCafe. He'll be there through Friday -- be sure to check him out.

One particular section of this entry struck close to home:

we need to crack down on the abuses by those credit card companies: their ability to raise your interest rate on money you’ve already borrowed, even though you haven’t missed a single payment; those advertisements that promise you one thing but then deliver another; and their refusal to disclose even the most basic information to borrowers, like how much it will cost to repay your loan if you make only minimum payments.

In fact, I was the recipient of the first kind of abuse just last week.

11:00 AM | Link | Economics | Comments (0)

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Posted by Venkat

A ways back on my solo blog I blogged about my first trial. Next week (in a different case) I argue my first appeal. I'm arguing in front of a three judge panel of the Washington Court of Appeals (Division II).

I'm incredibly excited. Part of the drudgery of "civil litigation" is that rarely do the parties focus on the key legal issues. Much time is spent ducking and dodging and posturing. I imagine an appeal to be quite different. Regardless of the court you're arguing in front of, on appeal you are much more likely to face pointed questions about the nuances of law and policy. This makes it much more fun in one respect. Additionally, this case presents some meaty First Amendment issues so that's an added bonus. (Incedentally, we cited a blog in our reply brief. I may or may not mention it further, depending on the outcome.)

I've handled the case at the lower levels so I'm pretty familiar with the facts. I'm writing up an outline that I'm using in front of a mock panel tomorrow. I've reviewed a few helpful articles. (See here and here.) I'll report back shortly. I'm jazzed.

4:31 AM | Link | Law | Comments (0)

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Posted by Hei Lun

Lindsey Lohan.

While I'm probably not as big a fan of Lohan as some people, it really is a shame what has happened to her appearance. Whereas before she looked like a well-endowed girl next door, now she looks like a crack addict who's fifth in line for the porn audition. Adding insult to injury, Disney is denying America a chance to see the full Lohan in her last hurrah. My friend Chris told me that Disney spent over a million dollars on this († Amber Taylor):

Test screenings for HERBIE: FULLY LOADED, the fourth sequel to the 1968 film THE LOVE BUG about a VOLKSWAGEN BEETLE car with a mind of its own, indicated that some parents felt Lindsay Lohan's character MAGGIE PEYTON was too hot for a children's film reports Contact Music.

Disney technicians were forced to go through numerous scenes - especially those showing the actress jumping up and down at a motor racing track, reducing her breasts by two cup sizes and raising revealing necklines on her T-shirts.

If Disney wanted a teenage blonde without big breasts for the movie, why didn't they just cast Hilary Duff?

P.S. On a similar note, why did Lohan decide to dye her hair blonde? Doesn't she realize that natural red hair is much more attractive than obviously dyed blonde? The same applies to That 70's Show's Laura Prepon.

12:16 AM | Link | Culture | Comments (0)

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Posted by Nick

J.S. Mill's On Liberty: one of the deadliest books ever published. Read through to discover which books are the deadliest of the last 200 years. Gotta catch 'em all!

(† ASV)

6:42 PM | Link | Politics | Comments (0)

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Posted by Tom

Today's Washington Post has an encouraging article about the prospects of federal action to regulate data-aggregation firms like the now-infamous ChoicePoint. I'd be glad to see this kind of legislation enacted. But wouldn't a broader approach to protecting consumer privacy be more appropriate?

5:15 PM | Link | Law | Comments (0)

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Posted by Hei Lun

John Tierney follows up on his column on women CEOs with one on the top Scrabble players in the world, making the point that men are more competitive than women, especially the ones at the top of their field. († Viking Pundit) To become a top Scrabble player, players "have to spend hours a day learning words like "khat," doing computerized drills and memorizing long lists of letter combinations, called alphagrams, that can form high-scoring seven-letter words," and most of the people willing to devote thousands of hours to this rote memorization are men. Tierney attributes the ultra-competitiveness in these men and others to evolutionary psychology, which argues that competitiveness is a greater evolutionary advantage for men than for women.

12:20 AM | Link | Miscellaneous | Comments (0)

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Posted by Steve

In his post below, Kriston considers the Bible as literature and explores how it might be taught in public schools. Bible as literature and Bible as Word of God seem to be the most common appproaches to the book, but there are others. You might read the New Testament, especially, as philosophy. You might read it as a self-help guide to healthy, happy living.

However you approach the New Testament, every educated person ought to give it a look. If you're pressed for time, just knock out the Gospels (the books that tell the story of the life of Christ: Matthew, Mark, Luke and John). And when you do, you should consider Richard Lattimore's translation (available via Amazon by clicking the blox on the left).

Anyone who has attempted to read the King James version of the Bible will immediately notice the absence of "thee" and "thou" from the Lattimore translation. The book is also blessedly free of intrusive numbers, markings, symbols and footnotes that make so many Bibles look like turbo-charged law review articles. There are no columns. The book looks, refreshingly, like a regular book, with sentences and paragraphs reading clearly from left to right. The chapters and verses are noted in ranges at the top of each page, like the guidewords in a telephone book. It is a book for reading, not just for study.

The translation itself is elegant and simple. Lattimore, a long time professor of Greek at Bryn Mawr, provides a direct translation of the original Greek (itself apparently a translation of the original Aramaic), unadorned and unadulterated. In his own words:

I have held throughout to the principle of keeping as close to the Greek as possible, not only for sense and for individual words, but in the belief that fidelity to the original word order and syntax may yield an English prose that to some extent reflects the style of the original. The aim of at least some contemporary translators has been, avowedly, just the opposite: to be faithful to the sense but to render it in contemporary idiom. This is, of course, a perfectly legitimate aim, and is part of the reason why there is room for a number of modern translations.

The effect is beautiful and profound. The Lattimore translation retains the style of an ancient text, while being eminently readable and refreshingly comprehensible. It's a strange sensation actually reading the stories you've heard a million times. Having already digested the Sunday School version, the preacher's version, the Hollywood and Broadway versions, and various pundits' versions of the Bible, it's a heck of a thing to read the actual words in the actual book. Every other page contains some cliche or figure of speech that, if you thought about it at all, you might have assumed was Shakespearean. Reading Lattimore's translation is like finally seeing the movie after you've read a hundred reviews.

For a sense of Lattimore's appproach, consider the following translations of the Lord's Prayer, Matthew 6:9:

Lattimore: Our father in heaven, may your name be hallowed, may your kingdom come, may your will be done, as in heaven, so upon earth. Give us today our sufficient bread, and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And do not bring us into temptation, but deliver us from evil.

King James: Our father which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdome come. Thy will be done, in earth, as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil: For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever, Amen.

Modern English (Phillips translation): Our Heavenly Father, may your name be honored; May your kingdom come, and your will be done on earth as it is in Heaven. Give us this day the bread we need, Forgive us what we owe to you, as we have also forgiven those who owe anything to us. Keep us clear of temptation, and save us from evil.

12:10 AM | Link | Religion | Comments (0)

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Posted by Steve

12:03 AM | Link | Photography | Comments (0)

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