Contributors

Sunday, March 01, 2015

Saturday, February 28, 2015

We Are Spock

Leonard Nimoy, best known for portraying Spock on Star Trek, has died. The character that NBC execs wanted to dump because he was too Satanic is among the most iconic in screen history -- perhaps in even all of fiction.

I was nine years old when Star Trek first aired in 1966. I don't remember when I started watching, but at one point my parents let me stay up late on Friday nights to see it. And I remember watching the last episode, the terrible "Turnabout Intruder," in 1969. I watched the show endlessly in reruns in the 1970s.

I'd always been interested in the space program. My uncle worked for Lockheed in California as a materials scientist and some of his work wound up in the Apollo spacecraft. He was a voracious reader of science fiction, and I aspired to be like him.

So when Star Trek came out, it wasn't surprising that Spock became my favorite character. One Halloween I used nose putty to make pointed ears. I shaved off half my eyebrows and my mom drew upswept eyebrows on my forehead with eyeliner. I sewed gold braid on the sleeves of a pale blue sweatshirt. I even bear a passing physical resemblance to Leonard Nimoy.

Like Spock, I strive to eschew irrationality and violence. But also like Spock, I have flashes of temper and sentimentality. But Spock is just a character in a show. He's a fiction.

As such, the fictional character and the men who play him -- Nimoy and Zachary Quinto -- are not heroes. They should not be adulated and admired just for doing a highly-paid and relatively risk-free job. Their on-screen exploits are entertaining, and maybe even inspiring and touching. There's nothing wrong with letting them know that we like their work. But the actors are not the characters.

That's the Spock in me talking.

For many years I had a peripheral connection  to science fiction fandom. I attended dozens of conventions, including five or six Worldcons in places like Miami, Phoenix, Boston and Chicago. But I've never attended any Star Trek or Star Wars conventions.

Leonard Nimoy was not Spock: he just played him on TV.
Why? Those show-specific cons promote the whole cult of personality, which I find repellant (I know, another Spock-like reaction). It embarrasses me that so many fans seem incapable of distinguishing the character from the actor. Leonard Nimoy was not Spock: he just played him on TV. When fans drill Harrison Ford about the minutiae of plot points in Star Wars and how they connect to the 23,000 Star Wars novels and he rolls his eyes and tries to explain for the six millionth time that he's not Han Solo and he has no idea what the producers are planning, I roll my eyes with him.

Nimoy was similarly peeved, so much so that he wrote an autobiography entitled I Am Not Spock, published in 1975. I never read it because, well, I'm not a fanboy.

The real brains behind Spock were Gene Roddenberry, the creator of the series, and the dozens of screen writers who worked on the scripts. Spock is the creation of a hive mind that pulled Nimoy's strings. They too were just regular guys doing a job, with a full complement of human frailties and failings: they weren't Spock either.

But in 1995 Nimoy published I Am Spock. I never read that either, not being a fanboy, so I must rely on Wikipedia for this insight:
Nimoy had much input into how Spock would act in certain situations, and conversely, Nimoy's contemplation of how Spock acted gave him cause to think about things in a way that he never would have thought if he had not portrayed the character. As such, in this autobiography Nimoy maintains that in some meaningful sense he has merged with Spock while at the same time maintaining the distance between fact and fiction.  
Those of us who watched him play the character also think about things differently. Anyone who adopts an ethos of logic tempered by compassion, the promotion of the common good, the belief that the future can be better, and an eternal search for the truth, is Spock in a meaningful sense.

Not many television shows have philosophical underpinnings, but Star Trek does in all its incarnations. And Spock embodied them all in a single character.

Leonard Nimoy has died. May Spock live long and prosper.

And There Goes Scott Walker's Candidacy...



The National Review’s Jim Geraghty...

…it is insulting to the protesters, a group I take no pleasure in defending. The protesters in Wisconsin, so furiously angry over Walker’s reforms and disruptive to the procedures of passing laws, earned plenty of legitimate criticism. But they’re not ISIS. They’re not beheading innocent people. They’re Americans, and as much as we may find their ideas, worldview, and perspective spectacularly wrongheaded, they don’t deserve to be compared to murderous terrorists.

When you lose the National Review...

The 12 Year Olds In The House

Yesterday's actions in Congress, specifically the House of Representatives, regarding DHS funding illustrate most clearly the maturity level of Republicans. They would rather have an adolescent temper tantrum than fund a department whose very reason for being is to protect our country from terrorists attacks.

In addition to seeing how 12 year olds behave while they are in charge, it also puts to bed which party really cares about national defense. Any comments about how Barack Obama is weak or leading from behind now ring completely hollow. What a pathetic joke these people are. Is there anyone out there who is still taking them seriously?

Put them in charge of Congress and this is what happens. Perhaps people who actually give a shit about what the federal government does should be in charge come the next election.

Friday, February 27, 2015

The Mentality of the Climate Denier




Does this guy even understand fundamental concepts of science?

I thought we were done with this shit 500 years ago with Copernicus. Ah well....

Conservatives Have A Long Way To Go

A recent PPP poll shows that conservatives really have a long way to go in terms of...oh...I don't know...joining the rest of us past the 15th century!

Q16 (Republicans) Do you believe in evolution or not? 
Believe in evolution 37% 
Do not believe in evolution 49% 
Not sure 13%

Uh...not a matter of belief, folks, it's settled science (see: true, whether you believe it or not). Speaking of which...

Q15 (Republicans) Do you believe in global warming or not? 
Believe in global warming 25% 
Do not believe in global warming 66% 
Not sure 10%

Also, settle science.

So, with nearly half of conservatives not believing in evolution and more than half not believing in global warming, it becomes obvious that this is the party about IRRATIONAL BELIEF, not logic, facts, and evidence. If you look at where they stand on all of the issues of the day, it's really all belief.

Supply Side Economics? Proven to be a failed model and recanted by the people that came up with it (Bruce Bartlett and David Stockman). Still believe? Yep

Guns protect me and my family? Proven to be more likely that an accident is more likely in homes with firearms. Still believe? Yep

Immigrants-self deport! Shown to be completely unfeasible given the number of undocumented workers and how integral they are to our economy. Still believe? Get the fuck out, crime breakers!!

It's no wonder that so many conservatives are very religious. They have tied up all of their beliefs into one, gigantic, epistemically closed ball of intransigence.

And there is nothing more dangerous than ideologues. Why? This...

Q17 (Republicans) Would you support or oppose establishing Christianity as the national religion? 
57% Support establishing Christianity as the national religion
30% Oppose establishing Christianity as the national religion
13% Not sure

Thursday, February 26, 2015

How To Govern An Economy

Minnesota got another shout out for having a great economy despite the "destruction" that raising taxes, increasing the minimum wage, and increasing government spending brings with it.

Between 2011 and 2015, Gov. Dayton added 172,000 new jobs to Minnesota's economy -- that's 165,800 more jobs in Dayton's first term than Pawlenty added in both of his terms combined. Even though Minnesota's top income tax rate is the 4th-highest in the country, it has the 5th-lowest unemployment rate in the country at 3.6 percent. According to 2012-2013 U.S. census figures, Minnesotans had a median income that was $10,000 larger than the U.S. average, and their median income is still $8,000 more than the U.S. average today.

Take note that the predictions from Republicans were completely wrong.

I wonder if they'll get the message in Wisconsin...

Wednesday, February 25, 2015

Keystone Should Happen, But Only If America Benefits

President Obama has vetoed the Keystone pipeline bill, but it won't be the last we hear of it. I think that eventually he will sign some kind of bill. But it should be one that benefits Americans, not foreign oil companies. In the original House bill, the particularly nasty crude coming through the pipeline would have been exempt from the oil spill tax!

The current method of transporting oil via trains is unacceptable because of the constant derailings and explosions of oil cars (now forecast at 10 a year). A pipeline is much safer in principle: it has fewer moving parts, it's out of the way under ground (or can be), it's not as prone to collisions, and so on.

The problem is that pipelines have a history of poor maintenance and there's a tendency to route them through areas that are the cheapest for the pipeline company, disregarding local ecological concerns and property owners' rights.

Giant corporations always spin off the subsidiaries that build such risky and large projects as separate companies so that they can declare bankruptcy when it blows up figuratively in their faces, and literally in American backyards. All too often these companies leave the local people and local and federal governments holding the bag for their disasters.
It's even worse in this case because the company building the pipeline is foreign, which means the guys responsible aren't even Americans and don't give a damn if an oil spill in the Ogallala Aquifer poisons all the wells in Nebraska, Oklahoma, Kansas and north Texas. They're treating the American Great Plains like it's some third world country where they can do anything they damn well please.

The real question isn't whether the pipeline should be built, but where and how to build it to be safe enough. We also have to ensure that the company that builds it will be held responsible for the damage it will inevitably cause when it leaks. Because it will leak, and they know it. The people responsible for it shouldn't just be able to skate away and not pay for the destruction they will have wrought.

It's not clear that the people building the pipeline really understand how corrosive this Canadian crude is. It's not clear that they're willing to spend the money necessary to build an adequate pipeline and will monitor and repair it adequately for next 20 years. And then pay to have it decommissioned 30 years from now when the tar sands and the Bakken oil field are depleted, and we've got a thousand miles of filthy, leaky pipeline cutting through the middle of the country.

If some foreign company wants to pump a zillion barrels of oil in a pipeline through the heart of America to the Gulf of Mexico so that it can be shipped off to China, then the United States should be profiting from that.

Will this foreign company be paying American taxes? Or will it siphon off all profits to some Cayman Islands bank account, putting all the risk on American property owners and taxpayers while keeping all the profit?

If we're going to be building something like this through America, then Americans should benefit.

The President Goes 3 for 3

The President had a good day yesterday. He vetoed the Keystone Pipleline legislation, put the GOP in a corner on DHS funding, and got Republicans to cave on net neutrality.

The Keystone Pipeline has pretty much become joke so it's really not a big deal that he vetoed the bill. The issue is largely symbolic now yet I still question the value of the project. It will only create temporary jobs in a market that is really not doing very well right now. The DHS funding battle perplexes me as well. The president's immigration action is on hold pending court action so the GOP doesn't have to fight about it in Congress. They should be putting their energy into the court battle. Why put the people at DHS out of a job?

The net neutrality action is the big one out of this bunch. The internet should be regulated like a utility and the idea that the various providers should be allowed to slow down speeds or offer fast lanes for certain customers would eventually end up eroding consumer surplus. The internet is indeed a public good and should be governed as such.


Tuesday, February 24, 2015

Our Violent Nation

We hear an awful lot these days about how the violent crime rate has dropped in this country. Yet, in looking at the numbers, the "drop" is really from an insanely high number to just a high number. Our murder rate is higher than nearly all other developed countries. So, what is it about culture that makes it such a violent place?

I'm sure it has to do with a combination of several phenomena but what are those key ingredients? I think the numbers in my first link illustrate that we haven't really done a very good job identifying our addressing what these key ingredients are that make us so violent. Obviously, there have been multitude of studies but perhaps it's time to erase the entire board and start over.

Monday, February 23, 2015

On Love of Country

Rudy Giuliani has been drawing attention for saying that President Obama doesn't love America:
“I do not believe, and I know this is a horrible thing to say, but I do not believe that the president loves America,” Giuliani said during the dinner at the 21 Club, a former Prohibition-era speakeasy in midtown Manhattan. “He doesn’t love you. And he doesn’t love me. He wasn’t brought up the way you were brought up and I was brought up through love of this country."
Po' Wudy... The pwesident doesn't wub him. 

So Obama doesn't love America because he doesn't love Rudy Giuliani, Scott Walker, and the Wall Street fat cats who are vetting Republican presidential candidates to see which one will march to their tune? Is there anything substantial for Giuliani's claims?
Giuliani continued by saying that “with all our flaws we’re the most exceptional country in the world. I’m looking for a presidential candidate who can express that, do that and carry it out.”
In other words, Giuliani believes that Obama doesn't think we're special.

But Giuliani is clearly being hypocritical here. He and Scott Walker and the fat cats in the room clearly don't love the president. The clearly don't love liberals, they clearly don't love people demanding everyone be paid a living wage and the people demanding Wall Street bankers be held responsible for the economic catastrophe they caused in 2009.

Does it even make any sense to talk about loving a country? It's clear you can love your spouse, your children, and your pets. You might even be able to love the mountains, skiing, poker, history, porn, mathematics, science, religion, god, your AK-47, and any number of singular things.

How can you love an amorphous collection of 300 million individuals?
But how can you love something that is an amorphous collection of more than 300 million individuals, and a myriad of ethnicities, religions, political parties, businesses, local governments, and a hodge-podge of inconsistent laws and regulations, and its evil history of slavery and lynchings?

Clearly, you can't. You can only love a subset of those things. And when people like Rudy Giuliani say they love America, what they really mean is that they love themselves and the people who are like them, and the policies that promote the things they want to happen.

Conservatives claim to love the Constitution and the Founding Fathers, yet they selectively pick and choose a very limited and specific subset of history and law that bolsters only their beliefs. They minimize, ignore and deny everything that doesn't comport with their extremely limited and self-serving view of history and law.

These days it's common to hear people on both the left and the right say things like, "I love America, but I hate what it's become." I.e., I don't like the changes the other guy is making.

Lectern pounders like Giuliani don't love America, they love the sound of their own voices.
The only people who truly love this country are geeky poets who wax rhapsodically about the contradictions and conflicts inherent in a democracy, people who can accept everyone for who they are despite their warts. People who wish the best for everyone in the country despite their ethnicity, economic status, and political leanings. Lectern pounders like Giuliani don't love America, they love the sound of their own voices.

I don't trust people who boast loudly and proudly that they are patriots who love their country. Being a patriot is like being a hero: it's not a title you can bestow upon yourself, it's an honor that is bestowed upon you by others for your selfless actions. "He was a patriot," is something that only someone else can say about you after you're dead.

"He was a patriot," is something that only someone else can say about you after you're dead.
People who claim to be country-loving patriots are just puffing up their own importance by attaching themselves like leeches to the simplistic concept that is what they want America to be, not what America the real country actually is.

What Rudy Giuliani is really saying, "I love the great country of America, so I'm great too. Obama doesn't think America is great, so he's not great." This is the rhetoric and mindset of a five-year-old.

People like Obama don't run around chanting "USA! USA!" constantly because it's phony boastful jingoism that means nothing. This country has a lot of problems (something which Giuliani readily admits), but chief among those problems is the attitude of the Republican Party that they can spend the entire eight years of the Obama administration torpedoing Obama at every stage, constantly threatening government default, sabotaging foreign policy with the Adoration of the Netanyahu, without harming the fabric of this country.

In modern history Democrats have never displayed such unanimous and unalloyed animus against Republican presidents (even as ones as incompetent as George W. Bush, whom Democrats supported even as he railroaded us into war in Iraq) as Republicans have displayed against Obama. You have to go back to the Civil War, when southern Democrats reviled Lincoln like the devil. But of course, that's misleading, because all the southern Democrats have now joined the Republican Party and all the Lincoln Republicans have become Democrats.

Even during the Watergate hearings, Democrats displayed far more decorum toward Richard Nixon, a paranoid thug who had to resign in disgrace for his criminal activities, than Republicans have displayed toward Obama. A president whose greatest crime in their minds -- as witnessed by the Republican legal and legislative agenda -- is a law expanding health care for the American people.

If Republicans really love America, they should prove it by working with the president to make this country a better place, rather than sitting back and incessantly sniping.

This Gun Toting T Shirt Comes With A Warning




Don't reach for the fake gun on your T-shirt...wow, really? How about not buying the fucking thing in the first place!!

I will admit that, given the advent of social media, the whole open carry thing is now being spread far and wide. This can only result in good things:)

I'm afraid there's still one thing I don't understand, though, If I walk into a Chipotle or department store and I see a dude with a gun slung over his back, how do I know he's not a "bad" guy? What if there are several people with open carry guns? How do I know if they are "good" or "bad?"

If guns are allowed in schools and universities and there is a shooting, how can I tell who the "good" guys are and who the "bad" guys are?

Comments Will Now Be Moderated

After careful consideration, I've decided to start moderating comments. The biggest turn off for new readers that find my site is that comments aren't controlled. I have learned, via email on the feedback form, that people don't want to bother with a site where they are going to be harassed by other commenters. They don't feel safe, given the nature of comments on this site, so here are our new policies.

Comments that refute points or ideas presented in the posts or by other commenters are just fine. Criticisms about groups of people (liberals are all blah blah blah...conservatives are all blah blah blah) are also acceptable. Criticism about public figures are fine (Barack Obama is a Kenyan Muslim! John Boehner is a corporate shill!) as well. Personal remarks about posters or other commenters that take the form of insults, childish baiting, answering questions with questions or arguments about arguments will not be allowed. Here are a couple of examples...

Types of comments that will be allowed:

Huh, I guess if you pick individual items, he has some bright spots. Of course, additional parts of the equation:Worst 8 year Run for EconomyOrWithout Texas, US is net negative jobsOrBig Unemployment liesStock market by many accounts is in bubble territory. Economic competitiveness is getting worse. 

The underlying economic factors are all weak. US debt will have doubled by the time Obama leaves office. Lower Gas prices (lately) and Shale Oil drilling have provided massive benefits for the US that prop up the economic condition.There are bright spots but there always are, even in a recession. I hope things are turning for the better but lots of warning signs look ominous

or

Gun 'Cult' Ideology: RULE 1 ALL GUNS ARE ALWAYS LOADED RULE 2 NEVER LET THE MUZZLE COVER ANYTHING YOU ARE NOT PREPARED TO DESTROY RULE 3 KEEP YOUR FINGER OFF THE TRIGGER TIL YOUR SIGHTS ARE ON THE TARGET RULE 4 BE SURE OF YOUR TARGET Always treat all firearms as if they were loaded. Never allow the muzzle of any firearm to point at anything you are not willing to destroy. Never put your finger near the trigger until you are ready to fire. Do not depend on any mechanical device for safety! Always be sure of your target, and what is behind and in front of it. 

So, despite you claiming this is 'gun cult' stuff - the actual 'gun cult' ideology specifically forbids it. How many ideological rules of the 'gun cult' were violated for this to happen?

Note that both comments are counterpoints to ideas presented in a post and in no way focus on a poster or a commenter. They are defending their viewpoints which is perfectly acceptable.

Here are some examples of the type of posts that will be deleted from now on. They are all from the same thread.

What drugs are you fucking on?

God only knows what sort of mass murderer an enraged Nikto-anus would turn into if he actually had one of the Evil Instruments of Doom (tm) in his possession.

You want to play games, you leave me no choice but to treat you like the idiot you are acting like.

Because you are an idiot, you are wrong that this would have changed a thing.

So, clearly these are personal insults. Here's an example of singling out a poster or commenter with childish baiting that would lead into an argument about an argument.

I don't have any problems with guns, per se, if they are in the hands of professionally trained people like Army rangers or police officers. -Markadelphia 

I have stated repeatedly that I have no problem with trained police or private security being in school buildings-Markadelphia 

Guess not.

My hope is that comments will now become an area of more serious discussion and an exchange of more intelligent ideas and thoughts. Perhaps we can finally attract some new commenters now that there is some sort of structure.


Sunday, February 22, 2015

Another False Meme About Guns

Apparently, there is a meme moving around the inter webs that states that George Washington said the following words...

"When government takes away citizens’ right to bear arms it becomes citizens’ duty to take away government’s right to govern."

As Politifact accurately notes, there is no evidence that he ever said these words. Now, what Washington did say was this...

"A free people ought not only to be armed, but disciplined." (State of the Union address on Jan. 8, 1790)

Further...

The academic consensus is that Washington was referring to a trained militia to defend the new nation, rather than anticipating citizens seeking to head off perceived governmental tyranny. Ron Chernow, whose Washington: A Life won the 2011 Pulitzer Prize for biography, told PolitiFact Texas that Washington was "talking about national defense policy, not individuals arming themselves, and the need for national self-sufficiency in creating military supplies." 

Some post-Revolutionary lawmakers did expect citizens to own firearms, but Washington does not appear to have been among them, experts said. "The idea of resistance to tyranny being dependent on a nation of gun-wielding individuals acting at their own behest or even on local initiative would have been anathema to Washington," Lengel told PolitiFact Texas. "Indeed, during the (Revolutionary) war he very frequently lamented the crimes carried out by armed civilians or undisciplined militia against their unarmed neighbors. The solution to these crimes, as he understood it, was to increase the power of the government and the army to prevent and punish them -- not to put more guns in the hands of civilians."

Most interesting...

The Growth of Organic Farming

The Christian Science Monitor has a great piece up about the growth of organic farming around the world.

 According to the International Federation of Organic Agricultural Movements (IFOAM), 2 million of the world’s 1.5 billion farmers are now producing organically, with nearly 80 percent based in developing countries. India boasts the most certified organic producers, followed by Uganda and Mexico. Currently 164 nations have certified organic farms, powering an industry worth $63.9 billion. (In 2000, there were 86 countries with certified farms producing $15.2 billion.) With this growth come opportunities for farmers to add value to their products and access expanding markets.

Pretty cool!

The Intent of the Operator




Climate Denier Caught!

Deeper Ties to Corporate Cash for Doubtful Climate Researcher

He has accepted more than $1.2 million in money from the fossil-fuel industry over the last decade while failing to disclose that conflict of interest in most of his scientific papers. At least 11 papers he has published since 2008 omitted such a disclosure, and in at least eight of those cases, he appears to have violated ethical guidelines of the journals that published his work.
 
The documents show that Dr. Soon, in correspondence with his corporate funders, described many of his scientific papers as “deliverables” that he completed in exchange for their money. He used the same term to describe testimony he prepared for Congress.


I tell you I am shocked...SHOCKED...at this discovery!

Fact Checking Obama's Economy

Recently, President Obama asked for a fact check on his statements on the economy. Politifact obliged. Here are the facts compared to what he asserted.

• The "economy kept growing." Official data on gross domestic product from the Commerce Department shows that the economy has been growing robustly in recent months.



In fact, it’s been growing so robustly that Republicans have been trying to claim credit for it, a view we have been skeptical of.

• The "stock market has more than doubled." On Jan. 20, 2009, the day Obama took office, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was 7,949.09. On Feb. 19, 2015, it stood at 17,985.77. That’s more than twice as much.

One would think people would be more grateful to the president as any American with a stock portfolio and/or 401K has massively improved their investments on the president's watch. Their adolescent bullshit simply won't let them, I guess.

 • "Deficits are down by two-thirds." We recently checked Obama’s claim that we've seen "our deficits cut by two-thirds" and found it Mostly True.

• "America is creating jobs faster than at any time since the last time a Democrat was president." We recently checked Obama’s claim that the economy is "creating jobs at the fastest pace since 1999," which is when Bill Clinton, a Democrat, was president. We rated Obama’s claim True.

• "Our manufacturers are creating jobs for the first time since the last time a Democrat was president." We didn’t check this claim before, but a quick look at Bureau of Labor Statistics data shows that, except some small and brief upward blips in 2004, Obama is right. Manufacturing employment has been rising, slowly but surely, since 2010. We have also checked Obama’s claim that "factories are opening their doors at the fastest pace in almost two decades." We rated that Mostly True.

• "Health care inflation is running at the lowest rate in almost 50 years." We have reported that data from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis that shows health care inflation, as of the end of 2013, was about 1 percent per year — the lowest since the early 1960s.

• "Our deficits are falling faster than they have in 60 years." When Obama claimed that "our deficits are falling at the fastest rate in 60 years," we rated it True. (And for readers seeking a refresher course on the "deficit" and the "debt," here’s a rundown.)

Given all of these facts, why won't opponents of the president simply admit that he's done a damn fine job? After all, they do pride themselves on logical, fact based, rational thought, right?


Grand Indeed (Best Picture Nominee #8)



If it were up to me, The Grand Budapest Hotel would in in every category in which it was nominated. Wes Anderson is a genius and it makes me very happy that he and Richard Linklater are making films and being massively appreciated these days. Odds are that Birdman or Boyhood will be the winners for Best Picture tonight but Grand Budapest is my pick.

Saturday, February 21, 2015

Republicans Take Credit For Economy

I'm happy to report that Republicans have finally admitted that Barack Obama is no longer destroying the economy. They are, however, now of the mind that the improvement of the economy is due to them winning back all of Congress last fall. This little ditty started last month with Mitch McConnnell who has since been taken to the mat over his bizarre version of reality.

I guess we can safely tuck away the boiling pit of sewage:)