No Questions, Please

Here's McCain campaign manager Rick Davis explaining why Sarah Palin isn't giving any press conferences.

So until at which point in time we feel like the news media is going to treat her with some level of respect and deference, I think it would be foolhardy to put her out into that kind of environment.

Wow. I didn't realize she was running for queen.

This is serious

McCain seems to think his medical records are on a need-to-know basis, and that we don't need to know.

He's wrong. We need to know.

Evacuate

Off to Mississippi again.

Fucking Hell

Yet another hurricane? It's looking more and more likely that Hurricane Gustav is going to chase us out of uptown New Orleans. Again.

I mean, it's good, very good, wonderful even, that we were able to set up a place in Jackson, MS, we can evacuate to. But this running for your life thing is getting pretty tedious. If we have to do it this time, that will make three.

Or four, if you count the Northridge Earthquake.

Some Things Never Change

It seems that some battles have to be fought, some lessons learned, over and over again. Carl Schurz (1829-1906) was a German revolutionary who at 19 fled Germany after the unsuccessful Revolution of 1848. He wound up in America and threw himself into anti-slavery politics. During the Civil War he served in the Union Army, rising to the rank of major general, fighting in the Second Battle of Bull Run, and the battles of Gettysburg and Chattanooga.

After the war he was elected Senator from Missouri, served as Secretary of the Interior for Rutherford B. Hayes, and then retired to New York to write. He always had very strong opinions and no reluctance in expressing them, in letters, speeches, and articles that were forceful (if you agreed with him) or vitriolic (if you didn't).

Two things of his I've stumbled across seem worth quoting. The first is from remarks he made during debate in the Senate on February 29, 1872

The Senator from Wisconsin cannot frighten me by exclaiming, 'My country, right or wrong.' In one sense I say so too. My country; and my country is the great American Republic. My country, right or wrong; if right, to be kept right; and if wrong, to be set right.

The second is from the article, "About Patriotism" that he published in Harper's Weekly on April 16, 1898:

The man who in times of popular excitement boldly and unflinchingly resists hot-tempered clamor for an unnecessary war, and thus exposes himself to the opprobrious imputation of a lack of patriotism or of courage, to the end of saving his country from a great calamity, is, as to "loving and faithfully serving his country," at least as good a patriot as the hero of the most daring feat of arms, and a far better one than those who, with an ostentatious pretense of superior patriotism, cry for war before it is needed, especially if then they let others do the fighting.

Some things never change.

Prurient Interest.....

...it gets me every time. McMurdo Station is the largest permanent outpost in Antarctica, and its purpose is scientific research. During the summer it can house around 1,250 residents: scientists and their assistants, station staff, the odd reporter.

When winter comes, everyone leaves except the core staff needed to keep the Station functioning and intact until spring, and a few scientists to look after the equipment, about 125 people. When the coldest place on earth starts blasting storms around, the Station becomes the most isolated place on earth. Nothing can get in or out, so the last supply shipments have to contain everything the base staff might need until the thaw. [Note: As this is the Southern Hemisphere, winter lasts roughly from March to September.]

I'm sure they have a large library of books and DVDs, and as much internet access as they can get from satellites during breaks in the storms. Still, this has to be the top hardship post on earth, and one has to wonder how the staff gets through the storms and the months of night and remain sane.

Well maybe we just got one big honking clue.

According to this news report from the Saskatoon Star-Phoenix, the last supply delivery this year was made in early June, so winter's coming late to Antarctica this year. If winter is short and ends sometime in September or so, that's 120-150 days of isolation before resupply can arrive. And included in the last supply shipment was 16,500 condoms. For 125 people.

Shall we do the math? 16,500 condoms distributed among 125 people comes to 132 condoms per person. Now, we know what condoms are used for, and nobody ever uses one alone. (At least, no one I care to know about.) This means that in each, mmm, incident in which a condom is used, it provides protection for both of the two participants. So, in effect, that 16,500 condoms amounts in practice to 264 condoms per person.

For 120-150 days. And nights.

How DO they pass the time? Do we know now, maybe? And just what IS the m/f ratio of the staff down there?

(h/t: Because No One Asked)

Truth Revealed

Do you remember the State of the Union speech President Bush gave in 2003 to justify his planned attack on Iraq? Actually you don't. My GP covert ops team has uncovered incontrovertible evidence that this supposedly live broadcast speech was a sophisticated media hoax, pulling the wool over all our eyes. Fortunately GPCO was able to recover a copy of the actual speech, though we lost two guys in the process. (Not sure how. They tell me it's best not to ask about such things.) Compared to the dummy speech it's surprisingly short. Revise history accordingly.

Happy Mother's Day

To honor all mothers everywhere, here is Anita Renfroe distilling it all down for you. If you are actively parenting at this time, it might be useful to play this every morning at breakfast and get it all out of the way.



[Technical note: The subtitles, which are very helpful, are in English and Japanese because the English-only clip I found has lousy audio.]

No Sympathy

So the folks in Michigan and Florida are all upset that they aren't getting any delegates to the Democratic convention. Doesn't matter that it's their own stupid fault. Doesn't matter that their state party leaders were clearly warned that this would happen if they broke the rules by holding primaries too soon. It's just wroooongg, they say, for them to go to all the trouble of holding illicit elections and not have the votes count for something. My response is much the same as Sara Robinson of the Group News Blog: Boo Fucking Hoo. (Go read, it's funny.)

Like Mrs. Robinson, I am a California native now an expatriate. Though I've been a diligent voter since I turned eighteen, I have never - until this year in Louisiana - cast a presidential primary vote that meant a damn thing.

Because until this year, California always held its primary on the first Tuesday of June, and the nominations were always decided by then. So, although I always followed the primary contests avidly, I never saw a primary candidate so much as set foot in California except to raise money. Until this year the most populous state in the union, with far more people in it than Florida and Michigan combined, has always had to watch the nomination contests from the sidelines.

Hey Michigan, Florida, doesn't feel so good, does it?

In fact, I thought it would be interesting to see how close we ever got to making a difference, by seeing when recent presidents secured their first nominations. George W. Bush ended John McCain's challenge with the South Carolina primary, second after New Hampshire in February. In 1992 Bill Clinton had it sewn up by Georgia, March 3. George H.W. Bush had it in the bag on Super Tuesday, March 8, 1988. In 1980 Ronald Reagan had a commanding lead almost from the start.

And so it goes. California joined the crowd at Super Tuesday this year, and when that actually didn't decide the race, Obama showed up to give a speech at Tulane. His first big cheer line was when he noted that the St. Charles Streetcar was running again, the first time since Katrina. If you live in New Orleans, you know what that means.

And it was nice to cast a primary vote knowing that it meant something. If the folks in Florida and Michigan want to get that feeling back next time, they need to tell their party leaders, in a clear loud voice: Don't fuck up again.

History tells

There's been talk about whether Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal might be under consideration as a running mate for John McCain. He's a very conservative Republican, an up and coming politico, and the first elected Indian-American state governor. That's Indian as Punjabi, not Comanche.

I don't think it will happen, as I think Jindal's far too smart a guy to fall for this. Why? Aaaaaand that gives me my lead to mention a really interesting site: My History Can Beat Up Your Politics.

Bruce Carlson is a history buff whose passion is taking current political issues and looking at American history to see if it will give us any insights. He then makes a podcast about each issue, talking it all through taking anywhere from 10 to 40 minutes. His thesis, which he supports with a lot of evidence, is that you'd do better to look at historical trends than current polling, if you want to know what's going to happen. It's very wonky, as he'll methodically go through, say, every single presidential election in light of his current question, but if you like that stuff (and I do) it's great.

About McCain, two of the podcasts I've listened to seem relevant. In Running From the President, Carlson notes that no candidate trying to succeed a president of his own party has ever done so without the enthusiastic support of his predecessor, which he cannot get if he repudiates or even just distances himself from his predecessor's policies. McCain has already tied himself to Bush's policies.

But in Presidential Pass-offs, he notes that nobody, starting with John Adams following George Washington, has gotten elected to succeed a president of his own party unless the outgoing president was very popular. Bush now is officially the most unpopular president since modern polling was invented around 1935.

That puts McCain between a rock and a hard place. He's handcuffed to Bush's hideously unpopular person and policies, which indicates he's sunk, according to history. But if he were to break away from Bush, Mr. Straight Talk Patriot Hero would look like a disloyal little fuck of a weasel, and history says he's sunk again.

This is why I think Jindal will pass. Think what you may of his policies, nobody thinks Jindal is stupid, and he's certainly not stupid enough to chain his Louisiana shrimp boat to a sinking ship called the USS John McCain.

Cat Engineering

The thing about the beasts is that they never have come with a users manual. Somebody's trying to remedy that.

Straight Talk Indeed

It's a pity that people who really care about this election turn to the media only to find blathering about lapel pins and bowling scores, rather than, say, how to fix the economy. Not helpful. But in this Internet age at least we can go to the candidates' websites and find out from them directly what we want to know. But sometimes that's not much better. I found this on John McCain's site, from his page on Iraq, section "Winning the Homefront"

If efforts in Iraq do not retain the support of the American people, the war will be lost as soundly as if our forces were defeated in battle. A renewed effort at home starts with explaining precisely what is at stake in this war to ensure that Americans fully understand the high cost of a military defeat.

Now wait just one damn minute here. For one, those two sentences don't really fit together. The first seems to be speaking metaphorically -- "as if our forces were defeated in battle" -- while the second seems to threaten the real thing -- "the high cost of a military defeat."

I grant the high cost. I believe there's a saying to the effect that while winning a war costs a huge amount of money, resources, and lives, losing one costs everything you have. But that's not what we're looking at.

A military defeat? Is there the slightest chance that American troops in Iraq will be compelled to surrender to superior force? No, none at all. And that is what a military defeat is.

No, a defeat in Iraq would be a political defeat. A defeat resulting from a failure to understand what the military can and cannot do, a failure to understand both the country of Iraq and the region, a failure to understand the resentment people feel towards a foreign occupancy and the risks of an insurgency, and so on.

But of course McCain mutters about the threat of a military defeat. A military defeat can be blamed on the military. The blame for a political defeat must be laid at the feet of the politicians who led us into this situation and supported it. Like John McCain.

Our Robot Overlords

This is absolutely creeping me out:



I had no idea robotics had advanced to the point where a machine could do something like this. This thing - Big Dog, it's called - is amazing. It's easy to make a four-legged machine that just plods along in the direction you point it. There are plenty of toys that do that, so long as they don't bump into anything. But to navigate over a pile of bricks? Recover from being kicked? Get up after slipping on ice? That's uncanny.

What's unsettling is that the production models this may lead to will be, basically, delivery devices. But what will be delivered, and to where? In our military we already use drone aircraft, not just to spy but to attack targets. What might be done with drone ground troops? Imagine tens of thousands of these things, heavily armored and bristling with weapons, trudging into a city to take it. Terrifying, and the potential basis of a cool thriller sci-fi movie where we of course overcome the robots and win in the end. This movie may have already been made, even. But when they're on our side? Each one remotely directed by a US soldier from perfect safety?

That becomes profoundly disturbing. Throughout human history it has never been possible to wage a war without suffering SOME human casualties. If a war can be waged by drone air, sea, and land forces, without risking a single American life, won't it become terribly attractive?

I'm In Love with TED

No, A and I aren't splitting up. TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design, and it's the name of a conference held annually at Monterey Bay since 1984. It draws together over a thousand of the top people in a wide range of fields to meet, give presentations, talk, have a ball, and figure out how to save the world. What do I mean by top? I mean people like Bill Clinton, Paul Simon, Bill Gates, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, and Bono. James Hong, co-founder of the website Hot or Not describes it this way: "It's brain candy on steroids." You've probably seen clips from TED on the news, since this is where Microsoft and Apple debut their latest big breakthroughs; the original Apple Macintosh was presented to the world here.

I wish I could go. Unfortunately, it's by invitation only, and even then the price of admission is $6,000. However, and very fortunately, they have a website that offers over 200 edited clips of presentations on an incredible range of subjects, like "Is There A God?", "How the Mind Works", and "What's Next in Tech." They're available to view for free, and I'm probably going to spend the next six months watching all of them.

They encourage bloggers to embed their favorite clips in their blogs. Here's the first one I saw. Watch to the end, about five minutes, cause you won't believe what that octopus does:



Then there's these guys. (About 15 minutes.)



That's from Ted.com. Worth a visit.

PULL!

Or, how to keep a dachshund amused for hours and hours and hours...

David Paterson of New york

I'm fascinated by how David Paterson is going to do as the new governor of New York. I had never heard of the guy before the Spitzer governorship exploded, and I find that not only will he be only the third black governor since Reconstruction nationwide, but the first blind person in such a high office.

I think I'm a bit more interested in blind issues than most sighted people. My mother (hi, Mom!) was a teacher at a state run school for blind adults, teaching them the skills to live independently, among other things. She taught cooking, and a kitchen is a classic example of something which is easy for the sighted and a daunting obstacle for the blind. Since you can't read labels, your shelves and refrigerator had damn well better be organized. And a hot stove is a scary thing.

Paterson is not totally blind. He has enough vision in one eye to get about without a cane or a dog, and can recognize people close up. He also says he can read somewhat, obviously with magnification equipment. And he has a lovely sense of humor, evidenced in the New York Times's coverage of his first press conference as governor-to-be:

And when asked whether he, like Mr. Spitzer, had ever patronized a prostitute, Mr. Paterson could not suppress his trademark dagger wit.

He paused, gave a sly smile, and answered, “Only the lobbyists.”

Then there is this piece in the Times. The author, who like Paterson is functionally but not totally blind, writes about how blind people compensate for their disability. You have to develop a sharp and detailed memory, you have to get very good at "reading" the character of the people you talk to, and you have to be very, very patient. Also, I think, you tend to get underestimated, as people tend to think unconsciously that anyone who needs a little help just to get around in the world can't be all that bright.

A governor with these qualities is nobody to take lightly. Watch out, Albany.

We're Addicts. Or Cats.

Interesting article in the Wall Street Journal, about how addictive browsing the web can be. The word "addictive" may be closer to the reality than is comfortable.

Research suggests that humans get pleasurable feedback from encountering and processing new situations and new information, possibly even through the release of natural opioids in the brain. This makes sense. If our monkey curiosity is the key to our evolutionary success, and to our nature as humans, then it's logical that using that curiosity would be pleasing. Evolution rewards success, and sometimes directly in the now.

The question is whether this capacity can be overloaded by technology that evolution could not prepare us for. Could the flood of new data that the toobz feeds us be turning that pleasurable feedback into a permanent "on" rather than an occasional reward? Is this why people find it so hard to tear themselves away from the blogs, even when it harms their normal "meatspace" life? The article compares to a cat chasing the red dot from a laser pointer. It's natural hunt-and-kill instinct is overwhelmed by a stimulus outside its evolutionary experience. It can't help but keep chasing, even when there's no prey to catch.

Maybe what we all need is an internal SWAT team that will occasionally show up with serious firepower to say, "SIR! BACK AWAY FROM THE LAPTOP! NOW, SIR!!"

I mean, look at me. I read this article and what did I do? Blogged about it.

Spitzer: Isn't this what porn's for?

Oh, jeez, here we go again. Another high-flying politician, New York Governor Eliot Spitzer, with presidential ambitions yet, a crusader for right and justice, the scourge of sleaze and crime, gets caught bumping a pricey hooker when he's out of town away from his wife. Worse, he actually imported her into DC for a little fun between daytime business. (Google the "Mann Act" please.) The only novelty is that for a change he's a Democrat.

This stuff is so unnecessary. It's not uncommon for middle aged men to desire some exciting sexual variety after years of marriage, even in a happy marriage. No, scratch "not uncommon." It's damn near universal. The question is what you do about it.

Cummon, despite its disrepute, this is where porn does a lot of good. If a guy can look at what turns him on in private when he can scratch that itch but good, it may not be quite as fucktastic as banging in person what you're looking at, male, female, or in between. But it can take the edge off, make the urge for in-person banging less urgent, more manageable, and has probably kept a lot of marriages sailing smoothly on an even keel. And okay, yes, me too. Been there, done that, cleaned up afterwards.

But Spitzer? No. It wasn't because he was horny. Anyone can take care of horny in five minutes in the bathroom. This is about arrogance, and entitlement, and an ego that thinks he's climbed so high nothing can bring him down. One blogger, the Rude Pundit, consulted a hooker friend of his about why anyone would pay so much for a hooker, up to $5,500. She said, "The same reason people buy ugly paintings by famous artists or stay in penthouse hotel rooms for a night. Because they can. Status, you know."

Status. I think Spitzer's lost a lot of that in the past 48 hours. I think he's lost all that he had.

Another [yawn] Election

OK, this time it's Mississippi, just next door. It looks like Obama's winning this one too, which is fine with me.

But the relentless, nonstop, breathless coverage is getting damn exhausting, especially as it's covering what is more and more a non-story. ("This just in! Dog bites man, Obama wins primary. Film at eleven.")

The New Yorker ran a cartoon last week showing a team of these newsstars sitting behind their mockup desk, saying to the camera: "And now for three hours of meaningless speculation about a race we've already acknowledged is too close to call."

Damn straight. And getting so tiresome. HOW many months left to go??

Got a complaint? Sing!!!

Oh man, this is wonderful.



In Finnish, there is an expression, "valituskuoro," which literally means "complaint choir." When a lot of people are griping about something, that's a complaint choir.

Then a few years ago a pair of performance artists, Tellervo Kalleinen and Oliver Kochta-Kalleinen, thought, what if you took that phrase literally? So they began pitching the idea, community chorus performances with texts comprised completely of what local people were bitching about.

It was a slow start, but after a group in Birmingham, England, got excited about it the concept took off. (They had reason, and much to complain about, with Birmingham sometimes called the "arsehole of England".) After their performance, the concept has spread. And why not?



I think this is awesome, and the link to the main website is this: http://www.complaintschoir.org/ They offer many resources to help you in forming a complaint choir of your own, and so many have enthusiastially responded that, well, they've hit on something.

Their site has a lot of videos of complaint choirs all around the world. Go there and see, and maybe form your own. You know you want to.