Author's posts

Apr 21 2015

The Daily/Nightly Show (Each Other’s Laundry)

Blerd

It stands for Black Nerd.  It’s Larry’s first web exclusive clip.

Tonight’s panel is Mike Yard, Philip Galanes, and Christine Tiegen.  I have no idea what they are going to be talking about.

Continuity

Everyone Loves Awards

I am thinking now about dispensing my own awards- The Hornbecks.

Next week’s guests-

Gayle Tzemach Lemmon is a Clintonite Neolib who shills feminism through entrepreneurship.  Yup, no matter how poor and destitute you and your family are, you can always grub a few extra scraps by doing the housekeeping or laundry or cooking or dressmaking of your betters.

You know what I hate?  When a particularly obsequious asshole like Eric Greitens gets a 2 part web exclusive extended video that I feel compelled to publish as part of the record.

That and the real news below.

Apr 20 2015

Not Just Grape Leaves, Feta Cheese, and Olives

Yanis Varoufakis and Joseph Stiglitz

Greece: Default or Grexit?

by Yves Smith, Naked Capitalism

Posted on April 17, 2015

A critical issue to keep in mind is that a default does not bring Greece relief. The prospect of a Grexit (remember, it’s rational for Greek depositors to prepare for the worst) means an acceleration of the ongoing bank run. The imposition of capital controls would further fray nerves domestically, given that polls show majority opposition to leaving the Eurozone. Ongoing cash hoarding plus uncertainty will further weaken the already very sick Greek economy. That will hit tax receipts. If Greece has to resort to issuing TANs or other government scrip to pay workers and pensioners, that will likely further damage confidence. Thus Greece will remain in the Troika’s sweatbox.

Thus even with its intention of remaining in the Eurozone, Syriza may be forced to contemplated a Grexit as it struggles to finance its budget after its primary surplus has vanished. Of course, that assumes that the government remains popular after it imposes capital controls and starts issuing funny money. But if it does, a Grexit is not impossible, since the creditors’ continued unwillingness to fund a defiant Greece will make it harder and harder for the government to meet commitments that it has defined as red lines, such as paying pensions and spending on humanitarian relief.

Thus even if a Grexit is probably not an immediate result of a Greek default, that does not necessarily mean that Greece remains in the Eurozone. Even though the costs of an exit are extremely high, the costs of staying in are set to increase.

Apr 19 2015

Formula One 2015: Bahrain

I could have written this today instead of 3 years ago.

There was no one moment when Jon Stewart knew it was time for him to leave what he describes as “the most perfect job in the world”; no epiphany, no flashpoint. “Life,” he says, in the lightly self-mocking tone he uses when talking about himself, “doesn’t really work that way, with a finger pointing at you out of the sky, saying, ‘Leave now!’ That only happens when you’re fired, and trust me, I know about that.”

Instead, he describes his decision to quit The Daily Show, the American satirical news programme he has hosted for 16 years, as something closer to the end of a long-term relationship. “It’s not like I thought the show wasn’t working any more, or that I didn’t know how to do it. It was more, ‘Yup, it’s working. But I’m not getting the same satisfaction.'” He slaps his hands on his desk, conclusively.

“These things are cyclical. You have moments of dissatisfaction, and then you come out of it and it’s OK. But the cycles become longer and maybe more entrenched, and that’s when you realise, ‘OK, I’m on the back side of it now.'”

…

If anything, it was the prospect of the upcoming US election that pushed him to leave the show. “I’d covered an election four times, and it didn’t appear that there was going to be anything wildly different about this one,” he says.

Ah, but who could have anticipated the excitement over Hillary Clinton’s deleted emails?

“Anyone could, because that story is absolutely everything that it’s supposed to be about,” he says, with a groan; as a revelation, it managed to be at once depressing and completely unsurprising.

As Philip J. Fry says, “It’s just a matter of knowing the secret of all television: at the end of the episode, everything is back to normal.”

When News Overtook the Bahrain Grand Prix

By BRAD SPURGEON, The New York Times

APRIL 17, 2015

By 2012, Formula One had long been selling its Grands Prix to governments throughout the world as a way to showcase the host country or city and receive an economic windfall from visiting spectators. It had been done in Abu Dhabi, China, South Korea and Turkey, but one of the first of this new wave of host countries had been Bahrain, in 2004.

The Bahrain Grand Prix had been a successful race from the start. It helped shed new light on the Gulf state, an island kingdom that was home to the U.S. Navy’s Fifth Fleet and known for its oil and financial industries.

Through the years, those who regularly attended the race knew that there were also social disturbances in Manama, the capital city, which is about a 30-minute drive from the Formula One circuit. Traffic was sometimes jammed by anti-government demonstrations. But only rarely were those events mentioned in coverage of the race. Until 2011.

In Manama that year, amid the wave of Arab Spring uprisings throughout the region, the mostly Shiite opposition protests grew and the Sunni government clamped down on them with force, leading to bloodshed.

Bahrain had been run by the same ruling al-Khalifa family, of Sunni origin, since the 18th century. But in recent decades, the kingdom had invited foreigners to live and work there, and soon the Shiites grew to be a majority of the 1.2 million population. They wanted equal social treatment with the Sunnis.

The demonstrations in Manama had begun just a month before the 2011 Bahrain Grand Prix was scheduled to run. The race organizers eventually decided to cancel the race.

In 2012, however, the Bahrain government planned to go ahead with the race. So the opposition groups decided that if for nearly a decade the government had hosted the race to promote its image of the country, they, too, could use the race to publicize their own cause.

In the preceding year, there had been a reported 70 deaths and many people imprisoned. With the expanded media coverage of the Grand Prix, the demonstrations picked up before and during the race weekend. Although the government was generally not allowing reporters into the country, visas had been granted to sports journalists who came to cover the race. But most of them had little or no experience covering geopolitical stories.

In the days before the race, while in central Manama there were no demonstrations, members of the opposition took journalists to areas where there were protests. Reports and images of dissent quickly went global.

A demonstrator was killed by security forces during the protests, but there was no violence at the race track or in central Manama, where most of the sports journalists were staying. Several members of the Force India team were caught in a hail of Molotov cocktails while driving back to the city from the track, but no one was injured.

Despite public calls from British politicians, human rights groups and other organizations around the world to cancel the race, Formula One remained adamant that the show would go on.

“I can’t call this race off,” said Bernie Ecclestone, the series’s promoter. “Nothing to do with us. We’ve an agreement to be here, and we’re here.”

The Formula One drivers either made no comment or, like Red Bull’s Sebastian Vettel, the reigning world champion, said that they could not understand what all the fuss was about.

“I haven’t seen anyone throwing bombs,” he said. “I don’t think it is that bad. There is a lot of hype, which is why I think it is good that we start our job here, which is the sport and nothing else.”

Nice guy that Sebastian.  Always a pleasure to see him get his ass kicked.

Formula One: Bahrain GP goes ahead but human rights concerns remain

by Giles Richards, The Guardian

Friday 17 April 2015 18.00 EDT

After less than 24 hours in the country, the Guardian was told by a number of sources this week that the anti-government protests, far from having gone away, continue on an almost daily basis and have increased in numbers and volume with the arrival of Formula One. They also attest that the Bahraini state’s response has been arrests and a crackdown on dissent.

In the paddock the racing weekend continues as normal, business as usual for F1, part and parcel of Bahrain’s attempt to convince the world that it is business as normal for the state as well. Yet away from the track such relatively simple tasks as meeting with fellow journalists are conducted with requests for discretion. “They monitor phones, they use it extensively to work out details of how and who we contact to prevent us from working with other journalists and human rights groups,” says Mazen Mahdi, a Bahraini journalist for the German Press Agency. “If you tried to cover a protest live and see what the police are doing, if they saw you they would stop us and take us. It’s dangerous. Technically, just talking to me is breaking your visa status.”

Dangerous it seems for others, too, with repeated attempts by the Guardian to talk to family members of those who have been recently arrested meeting with failure through fear that being seen to speak out to the media would result in harsher sentences for those already detained. None in the end were willing to put their heads above the parapet. Claims of the use of tear gas and birdshot at protests is mentioned repeatedly and, amid the fear, there is a sense of outrage that F1 arrives to make money and entertain but remains at the same time devoid of the responsibilities that its very presence demands. Some people may be afraid but they also really want Formula One to be a force for change.

The issues in Bahrain were returned to the spotlight earlier this week when Amnesty International published a report condemning the continuing human rights violations and a lack of reform that was supposed to have occurred after the 2011 uprising.

Formula One has long-insisted this is none of its business. “We’re not here, or we don’t go anywhere, to judge how a country is run,” Bernie Ecclestone pointed out two years ago. The damning Amnesty report, however, was preceded by another announcement with considerably less fanfare. In it the group Americans for Democracy on Human Rights in Bahrain said that it had concluded an agreement with F1 that the sport would begin a policy of analysing the human rights impact it might have on host nations. “Formula One Group has committed to taking a number of further steps to strengthen its processes in relation to human rights,” it read. So now it seems, to some extent, it is Formula One’s business.

John Donne, Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions, Meditation 17

No man is an island, entire of itself.  Each is a piece of the continent, a part of the main.  If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less; as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thine own or of thine friend’s were.

Each man’s death diminishes me, for I am involved in mankind; therefore send not to know for whom the bell tolls.

It tolls for thee.

Formula One Publishes Human Rights Commitment

By REUTERS

APRIL 17, 2015, 4:25 P.M. E.D.T.

Britain’s Guardian newspaper saw the statement as a victory for campaigners and compared it to the words of 84-year-old Formula One supremo Bernie Ecclestone two years ago.

“We don’t go anywhere to judge how a country is run. I keep asking people, ‘What human rights?’. I don’t know what they are,” he said then.

Statement of Commitment to Respect for Human Rights

1. The Formula One Group is committed to respecting internationally recognised human rights in its operations globally.

2. Whilst respecting human rights in all of our activities, we focus our efforts in relation to those areas which are within our own direct influence. We do so by taking proportionate steps to:

  (a) understand and monitor through our due diligence processes the potential human rights impacts of our activities;

  (b) identify and assess, by conducting due diligence where appropriate, any actual or potential adverse human rights impacts with which we may be involved either through our own activities or as a result of our business relationships, including but not limited to our suppliers and promoters;

  (c) consider practical responses to any issues raised as a result of our due diligence, within the relevant context;

  (d) engage in meaningful consultation with relevant stakeholders in relation to any issues raised as a result of our due diligence, where appropriate; and

  (e) respect the human rights of our employees, in particular the prohibitions against forced and child labour, the freedom to associate and organise, the right to engage in collective bargaining, and the elimination of discrimination in employment and occupation.

3. Where domestic laws and regulations conflict with internationally recognised human rights, the Formula One Group will seek ways to honour them to the fullest extent which does not place them in violation of domestic law.

You have to scroll way down past all that copyright stuff to find it.  Larry, get me some weak tea.

Mediums and Softs.  Hamilton thinks Rosberg is not trying hard enough to beat him.  Rosberg thinks Hamilton is an asshole (probably true that).  Mercedes is still making race management mistakes.

Here’s an interesting “I told you so!”

F1 Engine Allowance to Be Discussed After Spain

By REUTERS

APRIL 18, 2015, 8:32 A.M. E.D.T.

A proposal to increase Formula One’s power unit allowance from four to five per driver this season will be discussed at a meeting next month, leaving some in danger of being penalised before change is agreed.

“The proposal is with the (governing) FIA and I guess it’s going to be discussed the next time around in a strategy meeting,” Mercedes motorsport head Toto Wolff said at the Bahrain Grand Prix.

…

After three races, Red Bull’s Australian Daniel Ricciardo has used three Renault internal combustion engines, one of six elements making up the V6 turbo hybrid power unit, while seven others are on two.

Drivers were allowed five units last season but that was tightened for 2015. Grid penalties will be applied if allowances are exceeded.

Have I mentioned yet that Bernie Ecclestone is a senile jerk?

All’s Not Quiet on Formula One’s Clean-Engine Front

By BRAD SPURGEON, The New York Times

APRIL 17, 2015

The new 1.6-liter, hybrid turbo engines use a third less fuel than their V-8, 2.4-liter, normally aspirated predecessors and produce at least double the hybrid energy – as well as far less noise. But whether a team, engine provider or other interested party considers the project a success or a failure depends on the results on the track.

For the Mercedes car manufacturer and its team, which won the titles last year and is leading the series heading into the fourth race of the current season, the Bahrain Grand Prix this weekend, the program is not only an astounding success, but an essential factor in the German company wanting to continue in Formula One.

“For us, the current technology is an important part of our involvement,” said Toto Wolff, the head of the Mercedes racing program. “Our marketing strategy focuses on the hybrid technology of Formula One.”

But for Bernie Ecclestone, the promoter of the series, who has complained that the loss of the old engine roar has reduced the excitement for track-side spectators, the program is a sign that the series is in its death throes.

“The fans want the volume, the teams want the low cost – and even the racing was better,” Ecclestone recently told Sport Bild, a weekly German sports magazine. “Toto can have a lovely inscription on his gravestone that says ‘I helped to kill Formula One.”‘

Ecclestone was referring specifically to the refusal by Mercedes to agree to a vote to change the rules in the immediate future to revert to the louder, gas-guzzling engines.

Ferrari, the most vocal complainer about the engines last year, made huge progress with its engine technology over the winter. It won the second race this season and has finished with a driver on the podium in each of the first three races. Ferrari has for now ceased to complain about the new engine formula.

The Renault engine manufacturer and the Red Bull team, by contrast, have picked up where Ferrari left off last year. Having taken a step backward in engine power, both the team and the manufacturer have threatened to withdraw from the series if something is not done.

Yet it was Renault that several years ago asked Formula One to create a new, environmentally friendly engine, seeking to make the series more relevant to its effort to sell hybrid road cars.

Bernie, buy yourself a Walkman and crank the volume to eleven you deaf old bastard.

Jensen Button may or may not race due to electric problems on his McLaren Honda.  He could barely practice and was unable to complete a lap in Qualifying.

Apr 18 2015

The Breakfast Club (Clichéd)

Well, it’s been 10 years and I hope I’m constantly surprising you with facets of my character I have not yet revealed even when I write within a restricted format (which is the essence of poetry).

breakfast beers photo breakfastbeers.jpgI hate Borodin, just because of that commercial.

My therapist is leaving the medical group (oh, don’t worry, it’s all related) with which I am associated and in our final session they asked me-

“Do you answer to ek hornbeck?”

Yes, of course I do.

It’s not a common name so it’s easily picked out of the crowd whereas regular names like Robert or Bob have instantly a dozen heads spinning.

Well, I’m not like that.  Not that my head doesn’t spin because it might be someone I know personally, but because I don’t share myself on the Internet.  Personally I Google rather poorly, ek hornbeck much better, and my onion layers are part of the fascination-

Is he in Heaven?  Is he in Hell?  That damned elusive Pimpernel.

Except I’m more on the Robespierre side.

Tout institution qui ne suppose pas le peuple bon et le magistrat corruptible est vicieuse.

Yup, one of 500 and ignored on a rainy day.

But by 1833 when Borodin was born the struggles of 1789 were far in the past (hah). and he…

Well, he was an award wining chemist.

He dabbled in music and wrote several things but rarely finished any of them, still he attracted the attention of the more serious composers who saw flashes of talent and was considered one of The Balakirev Circle of new wave nationalist Russians because he was so conciously derivitative of popular folk tunes.

The Polovtsian Dances referenced in the commerical above were a part of his (unfinished) opera, Prince Igor, which was about the suppression of native Mongolians (the Polovtsians) by Prince Igor and has all the charms of Opera…

Let’s review the rules, shall we?

The 3 rules of Opera.

  1. It must be long, boring, and in an incomprehesible foreign language (even if that language is English).
  2. The characters, especially the main ones, must be thoroughly unsympathetic and their activities horrid and callous.
  3. Everyone must die, hopefully in an ironic and gruesome way.

Ballet is the same, but with more men in tights and without the superfluous singing.

with an admirable mixture of genocide of the culture you are stealing.  It has all the charm of a musical about Greasy Grass in which Custer wins.

Oh and it and several other snippets were stolen by Broadway for Kismet.  Someday I’ll chat about Nellie Forbush, a thoroughly unsympathetic character.

To his credit Borodin was an early advocate of Women’s Rights and despised by his “revolutionary” contemporaries in ‘The Five’ for writing in conventional formats like Quartets, Concertos, and Symphonies of which I offer you the two that he indesputedly finished all on his own.

So what does this say about me (aren’t we all the star of our own movie)?  I like this role.  He’s exactly like me only more in your face-

I’m not trying to prove anything. All I want to do is teach my students that man just wasn’t planted here like a geranium in a flowerpot. That life comes from a long miracle; it didn’t just take seven days.

But it’s against the law. A school teacher’s a public servant. He should do what the law and the school board want him to.

Has the accused have anything to say in his own defense? If not, I sentence you to life as a public servant. A silent butler in the service of your school board. Waste baskets for ideas on sale in the outer lobby.

I don’t see anything funny in this Mr. Hornbeck.

Objection sustained. Neither do I.

Then why don’t you just leave us alone? You newspaper people have stirred up enough trouble for Bert. What do you want anyway?

I came to tell Boy Socrates here that the Baltimore Herald is opposed to Hemlock and will provide a lawyer.

Who?

Who? I don’t know yet but what’s the difference? A new lawyer with old tricks, an old lawyer with new tricks. Wake up Copernicus! The law is still on the side of the lawmakers and everything revolves around their terra firma.

Then why bother, you and your newspaper?

Because I know that the sunrise is an optical illusion. My teacher told me so.

Sigh.  I have to break in a new therapist.  I think I’ll start with this one-

What do you call a schizophrenic Buddhist?

Someone who is at two with the universe.

And actually, that’s multiple personality disorder and I’ve never been diagnosed as anything except depressed and anxiety prone.

Yet.

Obligatories, News and Blogs below.

Apr 18 2015

The Misleadership Class

Troops referred to Ferguson protesters as ‘enemy forces’, emails show

by Joanna Walters, The Guardian

Friday 17 April 2015 12.12 EDT

As the Missouri national guard prepared to deploy to the streets of Ferguson last year during protests sparked by the shooting death of Michael Brown, the troops used highly militarised language such as “enemy forces” and “adversaries” to refer to citizen demonstrators.

Documents detailing the military mission divided the crowds that national guards would be likely to encounter into “friendly forces” and “enemy forces” – the latter apparently including “general protesters”.

A briefing for commanders included details of the troops’ intelligence capabilities so that they could “deny adversaries the ability to identify Missouri national guard vulnerabilities”, which the “adversaries” might exploit, “causing embarrassment or harm” to the military force, according to documents obtained in a Freedom of Information Act request by CNN.

And in an ominous-sounding operations security briefing, the national guard warned: “Adversaries are most likely to possess human intelligence (HUMINT), open source intelligence (OSINT), signals intelligence (SIGINT), technical intelligence (TECHINT), and counterintelligence capabilities.”

In less military-style language, the briefing then goes on to detail how protesters might obtain this intelligence – a list of sources no more technical than public records, social media and listening to conversations “being carried out in public” by civic officials or law enforcement, according to the report.

The Missouri governor, Jay Nixon, deployed the state national guard to Ferguson in August after local police forces caused international uproar by firing teargas on demonstrators while armed with gear that even US military veterans said was better suited for the streets of Afghanistan than an American suburb.

After Walter Scott Shooting, Scrutiny Turns to 2nd Officer

By MANNY FERNANDEZ, The New York Times

APRIL 17, 2015

Clarence W. Habersham Jr., the first officer to arrive on the scene after the fatal police shooting of an unarmed black man named Walter L. Scott, is drawing intense scrutiny both for the questions surrounding his response to the shooting and for what his role has illuminated about the pressures and expectations black officers face in largely white police departments.

Critics of Officer Habersham, 37, including black leaders and lawyers, have called for him to be prosecuted for what they say was his failure to provide adequate aid to Mr. Scott, 50, and for appearing to go along with what many viewers of a video of the shooting believe was an attempt by Michael T. Slager, the white officer who fatally shot Mr. Scott in the back, to plant a Taser by his body.

Officer Habersham later said in a brief police report that he tried to aid the victim by putting pressure on his wounds, but critics say the video does not show him performing CPR or acting with urgency in response to the shooting.

…

On April 4, Officer Habersham arrived on the scene after Mr. Slager, 33, who has since been charged with murder, fired eight shots at Mr. Scott as he was some distance away, fleeing after a traffic stop and a confrontation. In the video, as Mr. Scott lies in a grassy lot after Mr. Slager has handcuffed him, Officer Habersham can be seen crouching over Mr. Scott and at other times standing over him while directing medics to the lot on his radio. He does not appear to perform CPR on Mr. Scott, and he did not claim to have done so in his two-sentence report, stating that he “attempted to render aid to the victim by applying pressure to the gunshot wounds.” Yet there are moments in the video when neither officer appears to be tending to Mr. Scott as he lies dying.

Some experts question that response.

“I wouldn’t have expected him to jump immediately into CPR,” Seth W. Stoughton, an assistant professor at the University of South Carolina School of Law and a former police officer, said of Officer Habersham. “You need to treat the bullet holes first to make CPR even remotely effective. But I didn’t really see him doing that. When I see two officers on scene with someone who has just been shot, I certainly do not expect to see both of them standing up and away from the body, neither one of them offering aid.”

Mr. Slager is shown in the video picking up an object from another part of the lot and then dropping either that object or something else by Mr. Scott’s body. Officer Habersham was standing over Mr. Scott, putting on blue medical gloves, when Mr. Slager dropped the object, and it is unclear in the video if he saw it happen. Civil rights activists contend that the dropped object was a Taser that Mr. Slager said Mr. Scott had tried to take from him.

The shooting is also being investigated by state and federal agencies.

…

Officer Habersham and four other officers are accused in a federal lawsuit filed last year of beating a black robbery suspect who was handcuffed in November 2011. It was unclear whether Officer Habersham participated in the beating, witnessed it but failed to stop it or played some other role, if any, but the lawsuit also accuses him and other officers of failing to render aid to the suspect.

“This is the Old South, and you have the Old South mentality here,” said Edward Bryant, president of the North Charleston chapter of the N.A.A.C.P. “The whites are always in charge. They’re the lead person, and Mr. Habersham is being in that role as they had it in the 1800s.”

Meaning of course that of Quimbo and Sambo.

Now it’s not like my Viking heritage is devoid of this, I invite the study of Vidkun Quisling who in many respects is even more reprehensible than Harriet Beecher Stowe’s stereotypes.  I once traveled with a Norwegian through New Haven and mentioned it was Benedict Arnold’s home town.

“Who is he?”, she asked.

“Well, he’s kind of the U.S. Quisling.”, I replied sort of off handedly but also to prove I was at least passingly familiar with the history of Scandinavia.

She turned to me and said, with real anger in her voice, “How do you know that name!”

Umm… well… uh…

Folks, this struggle is not about identity politics.  It’s not about your race, your creed, your gender, or sexual orientation.  It is a class struggle and identity politics is just another distraction to keep the corporatist Billionaires in charge and their political toadies in office.  It’s not a struggle of White and Black, it’s a struggle of Blue and Green and Gold above all against every one else.

Maybe if I had said it was the city Jim Morrison got arrested for obscenity in.

I once went to the New Haven Arena to watch a hockey game.  It’s now the headquarters of the New Haven division of the FBI.

Officer Cleared; Protesters Crash Cops’ Protest

by Paul Bass, New Haven Independent

Mar 27, 2015 3:31 pm

A week of building tensions over race and policing came to a peak as chanting cops crashed a press conference announcing the exoneration of an officer – and then anti-police demonstrators crashed the cops’ interruption.

…

A citizen video captured the officer slamming the handcuffed girl to the ground, sparking public criticism. The video went viral. It became a Rorschach test revealing America’s divide on policing. Some saw a handcuffed girl manhandled by an officers. Others saw an endangered officer carefully protecting himself and the public against a lawbreaker. The lack of crucial facts about the case, compounded by a week of missteps by the police department in communicating with the public, exacerbated tensions in town.

…

The teen’s mother, Valerie Boyd, reacted to the decision by saying “there’s no justice.”

“The department of training failed [the officer] as well as they failed me and my daughter. The department is at fault. He should have been retrained coming into New Haven as a police officer. He should have been given the proper procedures of how to apprehend a suspect,” Boyd said.

“He’s back on the street. I don’t feel safe.”

…

The officers’ crashing of the press conference was in turn crashed by protesters critical of the police protest. These demonstrators, most of whom were black, called the police protesters racists who are deaf to the concerns of the black community.

…

“We’re protecting you, you dumbbell!” shot back one of the pro-police protesters.

I am a class traitor.  Welcome to Stars Hollow Connecticut “the little town that time forgot and the decades cannot improve … where all the women are strong, all the men are good-looking, and all the children are above average.”

Apr 18 2015

Progressive? Hardly.

How Ron Wyden became the scourge of the left on trade

By Doug Palmer, Politico

4/17/15 7:49 PM EDT

Ron Wyden has long aspired to be a major Senate dealmaker, but one of his biggest breakthroughs to date – negotiating a landmark trade bill – has put him at odds with his Senate leader and Democratic friends, and has earned him scorn from liberals who think he’s sold out.

“Like a vote for the Iraq War or statements of support for the Social Security-cutting Bowles-Simpson plan, a vote for fast track and the TPP [Trans-Pacific Partnership] will never be forgotten and will haunt members of Congress for years to come,” said Jim Dean, chair of Democracy for America.

…

“Over and over again we’ve been told that trade deals will create jobs and better protect workers and the environment,” Pennsylvania Sen. Bob Casey said after the deal was announced. “Those promises have never come to fruition. Now some in the Senate are ready to dive into another mistaken trade deal.”

…

The two sides soon hit a snag over Wyden’s idea for a new mechanism to potentially turn off the fast-track procedures at the same time that Democracy for America and Move On, another progressive group, were criticizing Wyden for even talking with Republicans about the bill and threatening to try to defeat him in Oregon’s 2016 Senate Democratic Party primary.

…

But critics remain unsatisfied. They say the final provision for potentially stripping fast track from a trade agreement was too weak to make a significant difference.

Review of Comcast Deal Is Said to Raise Concerns

By EMILY STEEL and BEN PROTESS, The New York Times

APRIL 17, 2015

The staff lawyers at the Justice Department reviewing Comcast’s proposed $45 billion takeover of Time Warner Cable have raised concerns about the merger and are leaning toward recommending that it be blocked, according to a person with knowledge of the deliberations.

…

If approved, the merger would reshape the country’s television and broadband infrastructure. Other deals hinge on the merger’s approval, including the Charter Communications $10.4 billion bid for Bright House Networks that would ultimately create the nation’s second-largest cable operator.

Media executives and public interest groups have raised concerns that an enlarged Comcast would have too much power over the future of the Internet and television. Among the fears are that Comcast would use its extra heft to force consumers to pay more for declining service and to push around Internet companies and TV networks, stifling innovation and diversity of programming.

“There’s no question is my mind that this deal is anything other than blatantly anticompetitive,” said Michael Copps, a former Democratic member of the F.C.C. and a special adviser to the Common Cause public interest group. “It fails not just the antitrust metrics, but the public interest metrics, too.”

Now, imagine a world in which Comcast, Time Warner, Charter, and Bright House sue in a secret Star Chamber of corporation judges not only for the immediate revenue from the expected (but not proven) boost to their stock prices and are awarded not only that, but any future income they could nebulously claim was an indirect result of this monopolist deal and the U.S. Government would be forced to tax you…

Yes YOU!

to pay them that without actually doing any work at all.

That my friends is Investor State Dispute Settlement and is the great steaming shit sandwich that Barack Obama and Ron Wyden want you to eat.

Don’t be fooled by social issues like Marriage Equality and Marijuana Legalization.  They are mere bread and circuses.  These people are whores to the bone and would sell their mothers for a nickle.  They are cheaper to buy than Judas.

Happy Fast Track/TPP peons.  Embrace the Suck.

Apr 17 2015

What Usually Goes Wrong

What went wrong is what usually goes wrong, no matter the context, when you have a history of colonialism, ongoing interference from outside forces, sectarian blindness, and massive wealth at the service of mischief.

Transcript

Transcript

Transcript

Tensions Flare Between Iraq and Saudi Arabia in U.S. Coalition

By MICHAEL R. GORDON and ERIC SCHMITT

APRIL 15, 2015

The dueling Iraqi and Saudi narratives began when Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi of Iraq, who this week is making his first official visit to Washington, spoke early in the day to a small group of reporters at Blair House, the White House guest residence for visiting dignitaries. He said the Saudi campaign and the fighting in Yemen had created huge humanitarian problems.

“There is no logic to the operation at all in the first place,” Mr. Abadi said. “Mainly, the problem of Yemen is within Yemen.”

Mr. Abadi, who is in Washington seeking American military help in the fight against the Islamic State as well as billions of dollars to shore up his sagging economy, then suggested that the Obama administration agreed with him in his concerns about the Saudi campaign.

“They want to stop this conflict as soon as possible,” Mr. Abadi said. “What I understand from the administration, the Saudis are not helpful on this. They don’t want a cease-fire now.”

…

The United States is flying Predator and Reaper reconnaissance drones over Yemen and transmitting the information to a 20-person American military coordination team divided among Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Bahrain, overseen by Maj. Gen. Carl E. Mundy III, the deputy commander of Marines in the Middle East, said a senior American military official who wanted to remain anonymous because he was discussing targeting procedures.

Under the arrangement, Saudi Arabia gives lists of potential targets to the American analysts for vetting. “We are not choosing their targets, but upon request, we’re providing intelligence to help Saudi Arabia with their precision, effectiveness and avoidance of collateral damage,” the official said.

Apr 17 2015

The Daily/Nightly Show (Completely True)

Just Call It ‘Office Supplies’

It’s a hell of a thing, killing a man. Take away all he’s got and all he’s ever gonna have.

Yeah, well, I guess they had it coming.

We all got it coming, kid.

Tonightly we’ll be talking about things that are completely true with Neil Degrasse Tyson, Robin Thede, and Mike Cannon.

Continuity

Sympathy For The Devil

Next week’s guests-

Eric Greitens is whoring Resilience: Hard-Won Wisdom for Living a Better Life, he’s the kind of person centrist types drool over.  Former JSOC in charge of an anti-al Qaeda unit, Duke grad, Rhodes and Truman scholar, Piled High and Deep in Political Science (yeah, right, the only social science more sketchy than Economics); he worked for W as a Katrina relief co-ordinator (heck of a job) and is running for office in Missouri as a…

Wait for it…

Republican.

Way to go Jon.  What a great guest.  Don’t let the door hit you in the ass on your way out.

Billy Crystal’s web exclusive extended video and the real news below.

Apr 16 2015

Letter from Birmingham Jail

16 April 1963

My Dear Fellow Clergymen:

While confined here in the Birmingham city jail, I came across your recent statement calling my present activities “unwise and untimely.” Seldom do I pause to answer criticism of my work and ideas. If I sought to answer all the criticisms that cross my desk, my secretaries would have little time for anything other than such correspondence in the course of the day, and I would have no time for constructive work. But since I feel that you are men of genuine good will and that your criticisms are sincerely set forth, I want to try to answer your statement in what I hope will be patient and reasonable terms.

…

You deplore the demonstrations taking place in Birmingham. But your statement, I am sorry to say, fails to express a similar concern for the conditions that brought about the demonstrations. I am sure that none of you would want to rest content with the superficial kind of social analysis that deals merely with effects and does not grapple with underlying causes. It is unfortunate that demonstrations are taking place in Birmingham, but it is even more unfortunate that the city’s white power structure left the Negro community with no alternative.

…

You may well ask: “Why direct action? Why sit ins, marches and so forth? Isn’t negotiation a better path?” You are quite right in calling for negotiation. Indeed, this is the very purpose of direct action. Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and foster such a tension that a community which has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue. It seeks so to dramatize the issue that it can no longer be ignored. My citing the creation of tension as part of the work of the nonviolent resister may sound rather shocking. But I must confess that I am not afraid of the word “tension.” I have earnestly opposed violent tension, but there is a type of constructive, nonviolent tension which is necessary for growth. Just as Socrates felt that it was necessary to create a tension in the mind so that individuals could rise from the bondage of myths and half truths to the unfettered realm of creative analysis and objective appraisal, so must we see the need for nonviolent gadflies to create the kind of tension in society that will help men rise from the dark depths of prejudice and racism to the majestic heights of understanding and brotherhood. The purpose of our direct action program is to create a situation so crisis packed that it will inevitably open the door to negotiation. I therefore concur with you in your call for negotiation. Too long has our beloved Southland been bogged down in a tragic effort to live in monologue rather than dialogue.

One of the basic points in your statement is that the action that I and my associates have taken in Birmingham is untimely. Some have asked: “Why didn’t you give the new city administration time to act?” The only answer that I can give to this query is that the new Birmingham administration must be prodded about as much as the outgoing one, before it will act. We are sadly mistaken if we feel that the election of Albert Boutwell as mayor will bring the millennium to Birmingham. While Mr. Boutwell is a much more gentle person than Mr. Connor, they are both segregationists, dedicated to maintenance of the status quo. I have hope that Mr. Boutwell will be reasonable enough to see the futility of massive resistance to desegregation. But he will not see this without pressure from devotees of civil rights. My friends, I must say to you that we have not made a single gain in civil rights without determined legal and nonviolent pressure. Lamentably, it is an historical fact that privileged groups seldom give up their privileges voluntarily. Individuals may see the moral light and voluntarily give up their unjust posture; but, as Reinhold Niebuhr has reminded us, groups tend to be more immoral than individuals.

We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed. Frankly, I have yet to engage in a direct action campaign that was “well timed” in the view of those who have not suffered unduly from the disease of segregation. For years now I have heard the word “Wait!” It rings in the ear of every Negro with piercing familiarity. This “Wait” has almost always meant “Never.” We must come to see, with one of our distinguished jurists, that “justice too long delayed is justice denied.”

…

I must make two honest confessions to you, my Christian and Jewish brothers. First, I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to “order” than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: “I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action”; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a “more convenient season.” Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.

I had hoped that the white moderate would understand that law and order exist for the purpose of establishing justice and that when they fail in this purpose they become the dangerously structured dams that block the flow of social progress. I had hoped that the white moderate would understand that the present tension in the South is a necessary phase of the transition from an obnoxious negative peace, in which the Negro passively accepted his unjust plight, to a substantive and positive peace, in which all men will respect the dignity and worth of human personality. Actually, we who engage in nonviolent direct action are not the creators of tension. We merely bring to the surface the hidden tension that is already alive. We bring it out in the open, where it can be seen and dealt with. Like a boil that can never be cured so long as it is covered up but must be opened with all its ugliness to the natural medicines of air and light, injustice must be exposed, with all the tension its exposure creates, to the light of human conscience and the air of national opinion before it can be cured.

In your statement you assert that our actions, even though peaceful, must be condemned because they precipitate violence. But is this a logical assertion? Isn’t this like condemning a robbed man because his possession of money precipitated the evil act of robbery? Isn’t this like condemning Socrates because his unswerving commitment to truth and his philosophical inquiries precipitated the act by the misguided populace in which they made him drink hemlock? Isn’t this like condemning Jesus because his unique God consciousness and never ceasing devotion to God’s will precipitated the evil act of crucifixion? We must come to see that, as the federal courts have consistently affirmed, it is wrong to urge an individual to cease his efforts to gain his basic constitutional rights because the quest may precipitate violence. Society must protect the robbed and punish the robber. I had also hoped that the white moderate would reject the myth concerning time in relation to the struggle for freedom. I have just received a letter from a white brother in Texas. He writes: “All Christians know that the colored people will receive equal rights eventually, but it is possible that you are in too great a religious hurry. It has taken Christianity almost two thousand years to accomplish what it has. The teachings of Christ take time to come to earth.” Such an attitude stems from a tragic misconception of time, from the strangely irrational notion that there is something in the very flow of time that will inevitably cure all ills. Actually, time itself is neutral; it can be used either destructively or constructively. More and more I feel that the people of ill will have used time much more effectively than have the people of good will. We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the hateful words and actions of the bad people but for the appalling silence of the good people. Human progress never rolls in on wheels of inevitability; it comes through the tireless efforts of men willing to be co workers with God, and without this hard work, time itself becomes an ally of the forces of social stagnation. We must use time creatively, in the knowledge that the time is always ripe to do right. Now is the time to make real the promise of democracy and transform our pending national elegy into a creative psalm of brotherhood. Now is the time to lift our national policy from the quicksand of racial injustice to the solid rock of human dignity.

…

Before closing I feel impelled to mention one other point in your statement that has troubled me profoundly. You warmly commended the Birmingham police force for keeping “order” and “preventing violence.” I doubt that you would have so warmly commended the police force if you had seen its dogs sinking their teeth into unarmed, nonviolent Negroes. I doubt that you would so quickly commend the policemen if you were to observe their ugly and inhumane treatment of Negroes here in the city jail; if you were to watch them push and curse old Negro women and young Negro girls; if you were to see them slap and kick old Negro men and young boys; if you were to observe them, as they did on two occasions, refuse to give us food because we wanted to sing our grace together. I cannot join you in your praise of the Birmingham police department.

It is true that the police have exercised a degree of discipline in handling the demonstrators. In this sense they have conducted themselves rather “nonviolently” in public. But for what purpose? To preserve the evil system of segregation. Over the past few years I have consistently preached that nonviolence demands that the means we use must be as pure as the ends we seek. I have tried to make clear that it is wrong to use immoral means to attain moral ends. But now I must affirm that it is just as wrong, or perhaps even more so, to use moral means to preserve immoral ends. Perhaps Mr. Connor and his policemen have been rather nonviolent in public, as was Chief Pritchett in Albany, Georgia, but they have used the moral means of nonviolence to maintain the immoral end of racial injustice. As T. S. Eliot has said: “The last temptation is the greatest treason: To do the right deed for the wrong reason.”

I wish you had commended the Negro sit inners and demonstrators of Birmingham for their sublime courage, their willingness to suffer and their amazing discipline in the midst of great provocation. One day the South will recognize its real heroes. They will be the James Merediths, with the noble sense of purpose that enables them to face jeering and hostile mobs, and with the agonizing loneliness that characterizes the life of the pioneer. They will be old, oppressed, battered Negro women, symbolized in a seventy two year old woman in Montgomery, Alabama, who rose up with a sense of dignity and with her people decided not to ride segregated buses, and who responded with ungrammatical profundity to one who inquired about her weariness: “My feets is tired, but my soul is at rest.” They will be the young high school and college students, the young ministers of the gospel and a host of their elders, courageously and nonviolently sitting in at lunch counters and willingly going to jail for conscience’ sake.

– Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Apr 16 2015

The Breakfast Club (Logic)

breakfast beers photo breakfastbeers.jpgWell, I was going to talk about planetary science today (about which you’ll find plenty of links below) but instead I spent all night puzzling over what is supposed to be a simple 5th grade math problem.

Albert and Bernard just became friends with Cheryl, and they want to know when her birthday is.  Cheryl gives them a list of 10 possible dates.

May 15 May 16 May 19
June 17 June 18
July 14 July 16
August 14 August 15 August 17

Cheryl then tells Albert and Bernard seperately the month and day of her birthday respectively.

Albert: I don’t know when Cheryl’s birthday is, but I know that Bernard does not know too.

Bernard: At first I don’t know when Cheryl’s birthday is, but I know now.

Albert: Then I also know when Cheryl’s birthday is.

(note: copied by me directly from the picture)

If you don’t want spoilers you’d better stop reading and figure it out now.

What is truth? Is truth unchanging law? We both have truths.  Are mine the same as yours?- 39 Lashes

Let’s start with one truth.  This is not a simple 5th grade math problem.

You see the meme is that this is a regular old word problem from a 5th grade math test that Singapore children are expected to pass in order to graduate to the 6th grade which led of course to much Internet hand wringing about the abysmal state of U.S. education in general and particularly in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) where the privatizing looters of our School funds and fiscal conservatives in general bemoan the lack of a qualified work force that must be supplemented by smarter (and cheaper) H-1B imported slave labor.

Here’s some tangential truth to start off- there is no shortage of STEM qualified native labor, in fact there is a surplus.  The problem is that they expect salaries commensurate with their expensive multi year training.

Irrespective of that, almost every element of the meme is untrue.

This question is actually one of the more difficult math nerd questions given to high school students at a Math Olympiad.

Then there is some dispute about the semantics of the question.  The New York Times goes so far as to re-write it so it is undisputably true that “seperately” in this case means that Albert knows only the month and Bernard only the day instead of another fair interpretation of the word that would mean merely that Cheryl told them independently.  I’ll point out the official language of Singapore is not just English, but British English (hell, they even drive on the wrong side of the road) so that’s kind of a minor, if glaring, quibble; the sort that ought to make Alex Trebeck blush if not adjust the score during the commercial break (I give it a 25% chance, but what the heck).

There is however a deeper, logical flaw that allows for two (count ’em, 2) “correct” answers that is explained by The Guardian’s James Grime.

The 3 Easy Steps

1. Albert knows that Bernard doesn’t know.

2. Albert deduces Bernard can’t have a unique date such as 18 or 19.

3. Albert, smugly taunts Bernard, announcing Bernard doesn’t know.

As we’ve seen above in The New York Times discussion, step one is dependent on what the definition of “is” is.  Clearly if knowing the date (as Bernard does) provides a unique solution, Bernard knows all which he admits he does not.  This eliminates the 18th and 19th (you know my methods Watson).

The Difficult 4th Step

4. Bernard realises what Albert has realised, which is that Bernard does not have 18 or 19. Now if Albert was holding June he would know the answer, because there is only one remaining date in June, namely June 17. So Bernard deduces it is not June.

The “Wrong” Answer- QED

5. Bernard announces he knows the answer. This is the second statement of the problem.

6. If Bernard is so confident, he must have a unique date. We know it’s not 18 or 19. What other unique date can it be? There are two 14s, two 15s, two 16s and two 17s – but Bernard has eliminated June 17 – leaving him with August 17 only. That’s how he worked it out.

7. Albert is furious Bernard beat him to the answer. Albert puts himself in Bernard’s shoes, running through the six steps above. Finally Albert reaches the same conclusion we have, Bernard must have 17. Albert announces he knows the answer too.

So August 17 is a valid answer.

Or is it?

It is all about how you interpret the first statement. If Albert has to deduce that Bernard doesn’t know, then we get July 16.

But if Albert knows that Bernard doesn’t know – in other words, that this is a statement of fact, rather than a deduction – then we get August 17.

This incredibly subtle change – deduction vs fact – completely changes the nature of the question. Indeed, with fact interpretation the reader can now deduce the answer from just the first two statements of the conversation, whereas the argument for July 16 does require all three statements.

So, can we accept August 17?

Not any more. The originators of the question, Singapore and Asian School Math Olympiads, have rejected this alternative answer.

I’ll point out that in most classic logical problems all the statements are to be taken as fact rather than bluffs.  On the other hand usually (but not always) all the information is relevant.

In any event I’m taking Alex to the mat on this one.  Jeopardy is an incredibly lucrative franchise and they give away only a pittance in prizes.  I know plenty of lawyers (looking at you PhilJD) and I think I get at least a settlement and an invite back.

The law that entropy always increases holds, I think, the supreme position among the laws of Nature. If someone points out to you that your pet theory of the universe is in disagreement with Maxwell’s equations – then so much the worse for Maxwell’s equations. If it is found to be contradicted by observation – well, these experimentalists do bungle things sometimes. But if your theory is found to be against the second law of thermodynamics I can give you no hope; there is nothing for it but to collapse in deepest humiliation.

–Sir Arthur Stanley Eddington, The Nature of the Physical World (1927)

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