Archive
June 21, 2009 - June 27, 2009
Saturday, June 27, 200927 Jun 2009 07:35 pm Did They Get Persiankiwi?
there is no news from @persiankiwi persiankiwi is arrested.
27 Jun 2009 07:33 pm Listening To Food, Eating Worlds, Seeing MusicCore77 writes: "The latest short film from Terry Timely explores the theme of synesthesia with the richness of a 17c. natura morta painting and sprinkles on top." Watch it here. 27 Jun 2009 07:27 pm A New Age of Media Patronage?Clay Shirky debates the future of news. Fallows has related thoughts: Suppose you decide ahead of time that you'd be willing to spend $100 over the next year for the news that you can get free on the Internet. Why would you make that choice? For the same reason many people now decide to pledge $100 to NPR: they know that they can still listen without paying but recognize that if everyone makes that choice, there will eventually be nothing to hear. In NPR's case, the money is then doled out to specific shows and producers by the network or individual stations. In the case of an online journalism fund, it could be doled out proportionately to the news sites you actually visit during that year. 27 Jun 2009 06:59 pm Face Of The Day
A turtle gets out of a swimming pool in Essaouira on June 27, 2009. By Abedlhak Senna/AFP/Getty. 27 Jun 2009 06:03 pm Why It MattersHere's a very good post by Without Banisters, "a specialist in European history who is a little distracted by contemporary America right now," on France using torture during the Algerian war. It gives a little perspective on the sometimes quixotic-seeming effort to get the truth on the table: The reason all the government censorship was necessary was that a small but incredibly passionate, intellectually high-powered anti-torture movement developed in France from late 1956. By any concrete measure, it failed: France continued to torture straight through to the miserable end of the war, and no one was prosecuted then or later specifically for having tortured (or ordered torture). But in another sense, its triumphs were enormous: people like Pierre Vidal-Naquet (read the Guardian's obit of him here), carrying on despite constant government harassment, prosecution, journal seizures -- and, eventually, despite death threats and bombings from hard-line supporters of France's presence in Algeria -- told the truth about what France was doing. Relentlessly. They laid the groundwork for France's eventual reckoning with its past, which is still going on today. (Vidal-Naquet's investigations of government involvement in torture, carried out under huge constraints during the war, remain indispensable for historians of the period.) Continue reading "Why It Matters" » 27 Jun 2009 05:35 pm Keeping The PeaceApparently from yesterday:
(Hat tip: Ray Man Kojast?) 27 Jun 2009 05:01 pm The Anti-ViagraHard to see this catching on: A Manhattan Project to develop the sexual disinterest pill for men (call it the anti-Viagra) should have bipartisan support, because it's not obvious in advance who would benefit most from the end of these implosions. For every John Edwards or Eliot Spitzer, there's a John Ensign or Mark Sanford. (Hat tip: Ideas) 27 Jun 2009 04:20 pm Mental Health BreakRed Rabbit from Egmont Mayer on Vimeo. 27 Jun 2009 03:45 pm Why Do People Deny The Holocaust?Rob Horning tries to get to the root of conspiracy theories: Coming up with conspiracy theories is a pathological way of dealing
with too much information (which threatens to bury us, confront us with
our utter insignificance), with often strikingly inventive and
ingenious results. But perhaps more often, the results are pernicious
and hateful, prompting deranged people to commit crimes in the name of
their disturbed theories. If the hypothesis that conspiracies derive
from stunted creative energy with no socially sanctioned outlet holds,
would creating these theories provide an outlet for such people’s
unstable pent-up energy, their alienation and feelings of
powerlessness? Does it help them let off steam, defusing the danger
they otherwise represent? Or do the theories necessarily harden them in
their madness, providing justification to go further, to act, to murder
a bunch of celebrities on Cielo Drive, or a guard at the Holocaust
Museum.
27 Jun 2009 03:14 pm Exploding Artwork
Rosemarie Fiore uses fireworks to make art: My firework drawings are created by containing and controlling firework explosions. I bomb blank sheets of paper with different fireworks including color smoke bombs, jumping jacks, monster balls, fountains, magic whips, spinning carnations, ground blooms, rings of fire, and lasers. As I work, I create imagery by controlling the chaotic nature of the explosions in upside-down containers. When the paper becomes saturated in color, dark and burned, I take it back to my studio and collage blank paper circles onto the image to establish new planes and open up the composition. I then continue to bomb the pieces. These actions are repeated a number of times. The final works contain many layers of collaged explosions and are thick and heavy. The artist at work after the jump: Continue reading "Exploding Artwork" » 27 Jun 2009 02:17 pm Iceland Strikes AgainTrevor Corson explains why Maine lobsters are so cheap right now: Remember how I said stocks of codfish in Canada had collapsed 20 years ago? Those cod used to be packaged and frozen by Canadian processing plants. After the cod collapse, the same Canadian plants started packaging and freezing the extra lobsters being caught in New England. They took up the slack. By an unfortunate twist of fate, those plants had their financing tied up in the Icelandic banking system, and when it collapsed last fall, the capacity of the processing plants did, too. Ever since then, the market has been flooded with excess live lobster. Lobsters that used to get turned into frozen claws and tails for mid-level chains like Red Lobster are now filling the fresh lobster tanks to overflowing. Thus the crash in price. The fact that luxury dining has declined doesn't help, but it's not the cause. The problem is simply that New England's lobsters have finally come home to roost.
27 Jun 2009 01:17 pm The Line Between Civil Rights And RevolutionIt seems, from a distance, to be true that the Iranian protestors are motivated not by revolutionary ardor but by a demand for normalcy. But that was also precisely the case with the crowds, young and old, who tore down the Berlin Wall and swept away the Soviet Bloc regimes in ‘89, and later with the nonviolent revolutions in Serbia and Ukraine. They, too, were post-ideological; what they wanted was to live in a “normal” country, where normalcy was defined as a liberal democracy with a mixed economy and guarantees of individual rights. Continue reading "The Line Between Civil Rights And Revolution" » 27 Jun 2009 12:21 pm Lyrics That Haunt: "Oh God, He's Taking Demerol"Aaron noticed this this morning, and it does seem haunting in retrospect. Here are some of the lyrics to Jackson's "Morphine":
Continue reading "Lyrics That Haunt: "Oh God, He's Taking Demerol"" » 27 Jun 2009 12:03 pm The View From Your Window
San Francisco, California, 10.32 am 27 Jun 2009 11:31 am Quote For The Day"We have a political system that most observers can confidently predict will be completely unable to avert the fiscal or the climate crisis. That's like a police force that can't respond to emergency calls, or a fire department unable to put out fires," - Ezra Klein. 27 Jun 2009 11:24 am Vive La ResistanceThe Mousavi forces are not done yet: 27 Jun 2009 11:09 am The Obama Effect?Free Exchange updates the cable news pecking order: THE "fair and balanced" network is heading for its best year of ratings ever, averaging 2.1m viewers while CNN plunges to 805,000 and MSNBC rises to 787,000. James Hibberd of the Hollywood Reporter theorises that "a dominant political party... can fuel the popularity of opposing voices", and Fox is going through the boom that Rush Limbaugh experienced during the Clinton years and Jon Stewart experienced during eight years of George W. Bush.
27 Jun 2009 10:09 am Hard At Sleep
Ellie Smith advocates for naps at work:
27 Jun 2009 08:34 am Language And Who/Where We AreIn an Edge article, Lera Boroditsky describes an Aboriginal community: Instead of words like "right," "left," "forward," and "back," which, as commonly used in English, define space relative to an observer, the Kuuk Thaayorre, like many other Aboriginal groups, use cardinal-direction terms — north, south, east, and west — to define space. This is done at all scales, which means you have to say things like "There's an ant on your southeast leg" or "Move the cup to the north northwest a little bit." One obvious consequence of speaking such a language is that you have to stay oriented at all times, or else you cannot speak properly...The result is a profound difference in navigational ability and spatial knowledge between speakers of languages that rely primarily on absolute reference frames (like Kuuk Thaayorre) and languages that rely on relative reference frames (like English). (Hat tip: Mind Hacks) 27 Jun 2009 07:43 am Did Michael Become A Muslim?, Ctd.Ali Eteraz also pores through the evidence: In the Muslim world Jackson was very well received and never lost his iconic stature. He was so loved that rumors of his conversion to Islam had been in existence for countless years. (I heard them in Pakistan when I was growing up there in the 80’s). These rumors probably began as a case of Muslim wishful thinking — which I previously analyzed and refer to as Muslamism — whereby every famous person, from Shakespeare, to Napoleon, to Will Smith, to Jackson, is turned into a Muslim. (Recently the wish seems to be stronger if the individual happens to be black).
Friday, June 26, 200926 Jun 2009 09:32 pm A Question Of DiplomacyYglesias makes his case for the Waxman bill: I don’t think it can be seriously denied that this is a small price to pay to avert a global catastrophe. The problem with Waxman-Markey is that it wouldn’t, on its own, actually avert said catastrophe. But this isn’t a flaw in the bill’s design, it speaks to the global nature of the problem—no one country’s activities can prevent catastrophe, you need coordinated action by all the world’s major economies. Continue reading "A Question Of Diplomacy" » 26 Jun 2009 08:14 pm Don't Panic, Ctd.Manzi responds to Conor Clarke and counters Nate Silver. He responds to the Dish via e-mail:
Continue reading "Don't Panic, Ctd." » 26 Jun 2009 07:32 pm Face Of The Day
Lance Corporal Jimmy Finley from Ruston, Louisiana of the 2nd Marine Expeditionary Brigade, 2nd Battalion, 3rd Marines Unit grills steaks for dinner at a Forward Operating Base on June 26, 2009 in Deleran, Afghanistan. The Marines are part of a stepped up effort by American troops fighting Taliban forces in southern Afghanistan. By Joe Raedle/Getty Images. 26 Jun 2009 07:06 pm Watching IraqPeter Feaver worries: June 30th is the deadline for U.S. combat troops to leave urban areas. The deadline was contained in the Status of Forces Agreement (SoFA) that the outgoing Bush administration negotiated and that the incoming Obama administration embraced back in March....Starting this week, the parade of critical junctures in Iraq will accelerate. If the Iraqis go ahead with plans to put the SoFA to a national referendum, the parade could become a stampede. When even skeptical war critics like Fareed Zakaria are penning articles about "Victory in Iraq" that read almost like a Bush valedictory speech on the topic, the opportunity for a decent outcome in Iraq seems tantalizingly close. I hope we are not jeopardizing that outcome with a premature withdrawal. There has been no "victory" in Iraq. Continue reading "Watching Iraq" » 26 Jun 2009 06:26 pm "The Forces Working To Destroy The Planet Earth"Matt Steinglass wants people to shut up and get on board with cap and trade: There was a time for the parsing of arguments over the relative merits of carbon taxes and cap-and-trade, over whether 100% or 50% or 10% auction of carbon permits was acceptable, and so forth. But the hour of geeky wonkitude is past. Now we are where we are. This is the bill we have. The question is whether it will go through or not. That’s the only question. If the bill fails, it will mean victory has gone to those forces who are quite literally working to destroy Planet Earth. That is all that is happening here. There is no room here for skeptics and doubters and cavillers and doomsday-morning quarterbacks. This is it. The bill is on the table. You pass it or you don’t. And if it’s not tough enough to save the world, you come back again next year and the year after and the year after that and fight to make it tougher.
26 Jun 2009 06:01 pm Marriage In DCAdam Serwer applauds gay rights activists in the district: The face of LGBT leadership in D.C. is often black. Nationally, anti-gay-rights activists have had a great deal of success in encouraging black voters to oppose gay rights, partially because LGBT rights are seen -- incorrectly -- as a "white issue." But in Washington, D.C., the diverse composition of the marriage-equality movement means that marriage-equality activists don't have to "reach out" to the black community, because they're already part of it. That doesn't mean marriage-equality activists don't face serious obstacles in garnering support among African Americans, but it makes racial divisions harder to exploit. The lesson is clear -- when the marriage-equality movement is integrated, outreach becomes less of an issue. Ta-Nehisi chimes in: Regrettably, I can't think of anywhere else like D.C. Atlanta, perhaps? But I don't see gay marriage coming to Georgia for another decade, at least.
26 Jun 2009 05:35 pm Did Michael Become A Muslim?
Juan Cole explores the evidence:
Continue reading "Did Michael Become A Muslim?" » 26 Jun 2009 05:06 pm Sciutto On IranOne of Lara's colleagues at ABC News, senior foreign correspondent Jim Sciutto, has also had a prominent presence on Twitter. His latest: This is most signif step back of the wk i think: reform pres cand karoubi takes his fight off sts and into 'the system'
In spectacular case of denail, Sup Ldr blames US, Israel for protests and Neda killing. not sure who believes him in Iran Gets the award for worst use of Twitter during Iran crisis http://tinyurl.com/lcelld [link] Hearing lots of skepticism about runoff compromise, esp if cheat once, why not cheat again? Have to say I agree. 26 Jun 2009 05:03 pm The Froomkin SagaEric Wemple argues that ideology had nothing to do with it. 26 Jun 2009 04:39 pm Quote For The Day II"I am a gay man. My partner lives 12 time zones away. We are in a monogamous relationship, and we do not cheat. We get to see each other only twice a year for less than three weeks. Although he is a professional in marketing, the United States will not let him immigrate because he was not picked in the lottery. The federal government would not recognize our relationship if I married him. The government will not allow us to be together. South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford and Sen. John Ensign (and former House speaker Newt Gingrich and senator Larry Craig) oppose same-sex marriages even as they do their best to destroy the institution of marriage in the United States. I pay my taxes. I served in the military. I was an Eagle Scout. In short, I am a good, but second-class, citizen. It's very hard not to be infuriated by the double standards," - Bill McColl, in a letter to the WaPo. 26 Jun 2009 04:39 pm Why Do The Chinese Save So Much?26 Jun 2009 04:20 pm Mental Health Break
(Hat tip: Nico). An Iranian twist to "They Don't Really Care About Us" after the jump:
Continue reading "Mental Health Break" » 26 Jun 2009 04:00 pm Waxman-Markey By State
Nate Silver breaks down how much the Waxman bill will cost per household in each state (these figures are for 2020, the year the CBO benchmarked): There is a fair amount of state-to-state variance, although it is exaggerated somewhat by the presence of a couple of outliers: Florida and D.C. on the one side and Wyoming and Alaska, which I think are being punished for the use of personal jet travel, on the other. The key question for the bill's passage might be whether Democrats can pick up some Republican votes in large, coastal states like Florida, California, New York, and North Carolina, each of which appears to be associated with below-average costs to end-users. Conversely, most of the places with the highest direct costs are places where the Democrats weren't likely to pick up many votes anyway, although this does suggest that votes like Mark Begich's in Alaska and Mary Landireu's in Louisiana will be tough ones if this gets to the Senate.
26 Jun 2009 03:45 pm How The Iranians Use TortureTorture is generally being applied with two primary objectives—to force prisoners to identify others involved in the demonstrations and coerce false confessions. The protesters are compelled to state that they went to demonstrations against the government because they fell under the influence of foreign media (aping comments by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and other government figures, pointing to the Persian-language service of the BBC as a particularly favored whipping boy). On June 23, Iranian state television produced a parade of apprehended demonstrators who offered up crudely staged confessions. “I think we were provoked by networks like the BBC and [Voice of America] to take such immoral actions,” one young man stated. A woman followed him, saying that she “was influenced by VOA Persian [service] and the BBC because they were saying that the security forces were behind most of the clashes.” Continue reading "How The Iranians Use Torture" » 26 Jun 2009 03:18 pm The Swedes Attack?While Iran appears calm today, we get this from the AP: Swedish broadcaster SVT says the Iranian Embassy outside Stockholm is being attacked by demonstrators. The report says about 150 people are trying to storm the embassy building. It was not immediately clear if anyone was hurt.
26 Jun 2009 03:11 pm A Milestone On The HIV BanToday, the regulatory process of repealing the ban inches forward. It has been very frustrating, but when you follow the actual legally-mandated process, it takes time. There was a delay at the beginning of this administration, but the bureaucracy is now moving forward and the administration says it's very serious about getting it done. Vice-president Joe Biden reiterated his support last night. The pressure seems to have worked. The new rule will pop up on the federal register this afternoon, initiating a 45 day mandatory public comment period. There's then another round of review from OMB and the CDC. Then, after it's published in final form in the federal register, there's an effective date of somewhere between 30 and 60 days for the ban to cease operation. That leaves us somewhere in the fall before the Jesse Helms anachronism finally ends its 22-year stigmatization and persecution of people of HIV. Yes, it's been a long, long haul. But a little more patience is not too much to ask. The potential benefits are big. Continue reading "A Milestone On The HIV Ban" » 26 Jun 2009 02:45 pm "Rip It From His Throat!"I haven't mentioned this with all the other news, but a church in Connecticut posted a gay "exorcism" video on YouTube. It's a distressing video to watch because it brings to mind the terrible isolation that so many gay kids and teens feel - because the most immediate source of bigotry can come from those they most love and trust. It's vile, and abuse, and one day will be looked back on as a hideously retrograde practice. In this, however, ridicule and humor can sometimes be better than outrage. Mark Twain was right. So I offer - what else? - South Park: (Hat tip: Buzzfeed) 26 Jun 2009 02:15 pm Quote For The Day"The internet is the strongest force for individual self-expression ever invented. Governments around the world, even democratically elected, have difficulty with [the flow of] information online. Dictatorships and closed communities one after the other will try and shut down communication from inside. Strategies governments use trying to shut down people's speech are terrible strategies and will not succeed," - Google CEO Eric Schmidt. 26 Jun 2009 02:14 pm The View From Your Window
Queretaro, Mexico, 6.45 pm 26 Jun 2009 01:49 pm "Cold, Pond-Scum Infested Water"A reader writes:
Continue reading ""Cold, Pond-Scum Infested Water"" » 26 Jun 2009 01:45 pm Don't Panic
Conor Clarke counters Manzi: I think there's a fair amount of scaremongering going about the costs of cap and trade. I get off the Jim Manzi train when he says that Waxman-Markey will be "a terrible deal for American taxpayers" because "it is projected to impose annual costs of about $1,100 per household (a little less than 1% of total consumption) by 2050." (That's from the EPA estimate.) That $1,100 looks like a lot, but of course the country is projected be almost three times richer in 2050 than it is now. Average household consumption in 2050 will be $164,348. This does put things in perspective, but what are we getting for that 1% decrease? By Manzi's estimate: "If the law works precisely as intended, in about one hundred years we should expect surface temperatures to be a about one-tenth of one degree Celsius lower than they otherwise would be." Small benefit; trivial cost. And that's the problem. 26 Jun 2009 01:02 pm Froomkin: Out With A BangGo get 'em:
"The likes of Bob Woodward." But here's the good news: If I ever had any doubt, your words have further inspired me to
continue doing accountability journalism. My plan is to take a few
weeks off before embarking upon my next endeavor -- but when I do, I
hope you'll join me.
26 Jun 2009 12:56 pm Tweeting Wolf, CtdA reader writes:
Continue reading "Tweeting Wolf, Ctd" » 26 Jun 2009 12:46 pm Turning The Sky Green, CtdToday in Iran: Know hope. 26 Jun 2009 12:38 pm Is Anyone Excited About The Waxman Bill?, Ctd.Michael Goldfarb is: Basically, cap and trade strikes me as the Iraq war of the Democratic domestic policy agenda. It's the overreach moment. It's a massive program that, unlike health care reform, no one is demanding, no one understands, and no one can explain. Cap and trade may be the only thing that can save the Republican party from eight years in the wilderness. Pure Rove. 26 Jun 2009 12:35 pm Yalie Of The WeekFrom the alumni magazine: Dan Froomkin! 26 Jun 2009 12:16 pm Reading The Fine PrintFree Exchange whispers healthcare reform's dirty little secret: The unspoken truth about Mr Obama's (entirely justified and courageous) effort to reach universal coverage is that you may not be able to keep your existing health plan—at least, not at the same price. That is because paying for expanding coverage must involve capping or eliminating the tax exclusion currently favouring employer-based health cover. That single distortion of the tax code costs some $250 billion a year—the biggest kitty of money lying around in Washington. But tapping some of that inevitably means some Americans will see de facto tax increases. Continue reading "Reading The Fine Print" » 26 Jun 2009 11:58 am The New RevolutionariesBabak Sarfaraz writes:
26 Jun 2009 11:35 am Thinking About MichaelMy take here; Coates and Kinsley here; bloggy round-up here; Indian homage here. 26 Jun 2009 11:31 am Deficits Matter
The CBO checks on the long-term debt: Today CBO released the Long-Term Budget Outlook. Under current law, the federal budget is on an unsustainable path—meaning that federal debt will continue to grow much faster than the economy over the long run. Although great uncertainty surrounds long-term fiscal projections, rising costs for health care and the aging of the U.S. population will cause federal spending to increase rapidly under any plausible scenario. Unless tax revenues increase just as rapidly, the rise in spending will produce growing budget deficits and accumulating debt. Large budget deficits would reduce national saving, leading to more borrowing from abroad and less domestic investment, which in turn would depress income growth in the United States. Continue reading "Deficits Matter" »
June 21, 2009 - June 27, 2009
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