Monthly Archives: April 2009
Quote of the day
“Better, I think, to be a champagne socialist than a suppository-wielding, water-boarding capitalist.”
- David Hare, from his speech at the 2009 Freedom of Expression awards. (h/t Quotation of the Day mailing list)
Bad timing and swine flu (updated)
When House Appropriations Committee chair David Obey sought $900 Million in funds for pandemic preparation to be included in the stimulus bill, he generated bitter opposition from Republicans. The GOP claimed that this was not economic stimulus. Well, with the prospect of the swine flu outbreak upon us, and its potential for damaging the already fragile economy, we now see the truth.
Obey and other advocates for the spending argued, correctly, that a pandemic hitting in the midst of an economic downturn could turn a recession into something far worse — with workers ordered to remain in their homes, workplaces shuttered to avoid the spread of disease, transportation systems grinding to a halt and demand for emergency services and public health interventions skyrocketing. Indeed, they suggested, pandemic preparation was essential to any responsible plan for renewing the U.S. economy.
But former White House political czar Karl Rove and key congressional Republicans — led by Maine Senator Susan Collins — aggressively attacked the notion that there was a connection between pandemic preparation and economic recovery.
Oh, and the markets are sharply down this morning, in part based on pandemic fears.
This reminds me of the Republicans and volcano monitoring.
Update: Video of Susan Collins’ opposition:
It's a cat door, dammit
\
(via Cute Overload)
It’s a cat door, dammit
(via Cute Overload)
Victor Vinge: Singularity by 2030
If you have never heard of the sinularity, you are in for a surprise. The concept is that humans, in the near future, will either become or create super-intelligent beings, biological or technical. Once this happens, humans as currently understood will not have the mental ability to even understand what these beings are doing and will become, essentially, lower level animals. It may happen so quickly that most (or all) people don’t even know that it is approaching. On first hearing, this may sound crazy, but some very smart people believe it will happen.
Science fiction writer Victor Vinge “predicted” this event in 1981. H+ Magazine has a great interview with Mr. Vinge about the concept and his predictions today. (h/t BoingBoing)
Rank and file revolt in GOP
There have been some indications that the leadership of the Republican party is beginning to understand that their embrace of off-putting social positions is hurting the party. However, according to Politico, the rank-and-file seem hell-bent on maintaining these positions. This has the potential for keeping the GOP in the minority for another generation, since the social issue positions of the current party are totally out of sync with younger, well-educated voters as a whole. To the extent, for example, that opposition to gay marriage becomes a litmus test for determining whether someone is a “true” Republican, the party will be more limited.
But outside Washington, the reality is very different. Rank-and-file Republicans remain, by all indications, staunchly conservative, and they appear to have no desire to moderate their views. GOP activists and operatives say they hear intense anger at the White House and at the party’s own leaders on familiar issues – taxes, homosexuality, and immigration. Within the party, conservative groups have grown stronger absent the emergence of any organized moderate faction.
There is little appetite for compromise on what many see as core issues, and the road to the presidential nomination lies – as always – through a series of states where the conservative base holds sway, and where the anger appears to be, if anything, particularly intense.
I thought Texas seceded (updated)
But apparently not.
Update: more fun from the Alamo state:
Rich: the banality of Bush admininistration evil
Another great essay today from Frank Rich in the New York Times. Excerpt:
We’ve learned much, much more about America and torture in the past five years. But as Mark Danner recently wrote in The New York Review of Books, for all the revelations, one essential fact remains unchanged: “By no later than the summer of 2004, the American people had before them the basic narrative of how the elected and appointed officials of their government decided to torture prisoners and how they went about it.” When the Obama administration said it declassified four new torture memos 10 days ago in part because their contents were already largely public, it was right.
Yet we still shrink from the hardest truths and the bigger picture: that torture was a premeditated policy approved at our government’s highest levels; that it was carried out in scenarios that had no resemblance to “24”; that psychologists and physicians were enlisted as collaborators in inflicting pain; and that, in the assessment of reliable sources like the F.B.I. director Robert Mueller, it did not help disrupt any terrorist attacks.
Nursery rhymes for the recession
From McSweeny’s, nursery rhymes for the recession. A taste:
Jack and Jill
OK, so Jack and Jill went up the hill, to fetch a pail of water. But, listen, even water is expensive nowadays. So Jack just innocently asked, “Do you really have to wash your hair every night?” Then, of course, they started getting into it, and Jill became pretty damn passive-aggressive, and unnecessarily, I might add. So then Jack fell down—maybe on accident, maybe on purpose—and he broke his crown. And, with no health insurance, they were both shit outta luck.
Military interrogators warned against torture
From The Washington Post:
The military agency that provided advice on harsh interrogation techniques for use against terrorism suspects referred to the application of extreme duress as “torture” in a July 2002 document sent to the Pentagon’s chief lawyer and warned that it would produce “unreliable information.”
“The unintended consequence of a U.S. policy that provides for the torture of prisoners is that it could be used by our adversaries as justification for the torture of captured U.S. personnel,” says the document, an unsigned two-page attachment to a memo by the military’s Joint Personnel Recovery Agency. Parts of the attachment, obtained in full by The Washington Post, were quoted in a Senate report on harsh interrogation released this week.
Oh, and here is a direct link to the underlying document itself.
Swine flu outbreak (updated)
And here I was totally prepared for an outbreak of bird flu. Seriously. And what happens? Freaking SWINE FLU!!! WTF?? What good is it to be paranoid and certain of the end of times?
But seriously, get the latest on the recent outbreak of swine flu from the Center for Disease Control on Twitter @CDCemergency or on the web.
This from the AP:
And, flashback to the 70′s:
I don’t think there is any swine flu shot for this outbreak.
Quote of the day: Ronald Reagan
The United States participated actively and effectively in the negotiation of the Convention. It marks a significant step in the development during this century of international measures against torture and other inhuman treatment or punishment. Ratification of the Convention by the United States will clearly express United States opposition to torture, an abhorrent practice unfortunately still prevalent in the world today.
The core provisions of the Convention establish a regime for international cooperation in the criminal prosecution of torturers relying on so-called ‘universal jurisdiction.’ Each State Party is required either to prosecute torturers who are found in its territory or to extradite them to other countries for prosecution.
- President Ronald Reagan, on signing the UN Convention on Torture in 1984 (via Andrew Sullivan).
OK students, here is the essay portion of the final exam: compare and contrast the current state of the convervative movement in the US (i.e., Boehner/Limbaugh/Cantor) with the movement under Reagan. Use examples, and be specific.
Cool ad alert
Check out this beauty from Adam Berg for Philips Electronics:
Writing for the Internet 101
Great syllabus and overview of a new required course for the well-educated: Writing for Nonreaders in the Postprint Era (via McSweeney’s). Excerpt:
As print takes its place alongside smoke signals, cuneiform, and hollering, there has emerged a new literary age, one in which writers no longer need to feel encumbered by the paper cuts, reading, and excessive use of words traditionally associated with the writing trade. Writing for Nonreaders in the Postprint Era focuses on the creation of short-form prose that is not intended to be reproduced on pulp fibers.
Instant messaging. Twittering. Facebook updates. These 21st-century literary genres are defining a new “Lost Generation” of minimalists who would much rather watch Lost on their iPhones than toil over long-winded articles and short stories. Students will acquire the tools needed to make their tweets glimmer with a complete lack of forethought, their Facebook updates ring with self-importance, and their blog entries shimmer with literary pithiness. All without the restraints of writing in complete sentences. w00t! w00t! Throughout the course, a further paring down of the Hemingway/Stein school of minimalism will be emphasized, limiting the superfluous use of nouns, verbs, adverbs, adjectives, conjunctions, gerunds, and other literary pitfalls.