When Gridlock Works: Cybersecurity Bill Stuffed, For Now

By: David Dayen, Firedog Lake

Thursday August 2, 2012 11:06 am

The Senate, unable to come up with a schedule for amendments, blocked the cybersecurity bill today in an outcome that, despite being a result of Republican obstruction, satisfied Internet activists who had been urging a no vote.

…

He (Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid) decried the fact that meetings continued on amendments without a deal, and that the Chamber of Commerce, which opposes the legislation because they feel it still puts too many demands on business groups to maintain standards for resisting cyber attacks on public infrastructure, was driving the process. Lawmakers took out the mandatory standard prescriptions on businesses, but the Chamber of Commerce still finds the bill too stringent. “Republicans are running like scared cats” on the legislation, Reid said. “The Chamber of Commerce has now become the protector of our nation’s security.”

But if the Chamber is forcing Republicans to “run scared,” privacy groups and experts are running from the bill as well. Though they did get improvements from the truly awful CISPA bill that passed the House, most activist groups on the left paying attention to the bill still oppose it. The activist group Demand Progress generated 500,000 contacts to Congress opposing the bill, and the coalition Fight for the Future has been rallying against the bill as well.

…

The best hope for stopping these breaches of privacy for coming into being is to kill a cybersecurity bill that many experts have doubted is necessary, especially without the mandatory standards. Sometimes gridlock is a friend.

As with Keystone XL, Social Security, and Medicare/aid this is likely a temporary victory.  Versailles is convinced the proles have too much and want to take it away.  The solution is to fire them.

All.

Remember in November.

Broadcast Schedule

All this is sourced through the NBC Olympics broadcast schedule.  Competition starts again at 6 am tomorrow.  

Competitions designated by (Medal) will award winners that day.  ‘all’ means not specified.  Sometimes NBC especially does mashups and doesn’t include event or competitor information.  Elimination means no round robin, one and done.

These schedules are a place for you to make sure you don’t miss a sport you like and share your observations.  Have fun today!

The joys of obscure Olympic sports

By Mike Downey, Special to CNN

updated 11:47 AM EDT, Wed August 1, 2012

“Wait a minute. Didn’t you GO to Olympic women’s judo once?” Yes, indeed I did. Barcelona, 1992.

…

I saw a point go on the scoreboard under the word “koka.” It was my first time seeing an ippon go up on a koka. I was enjoying my first judo. I wasn’t yet ready for the National Judo League to put Monday Night Judo on TV, but I was having a good time.

…

I got a kick out of watching them fight. I looked up that day’s judo results later on a computer and found the following: 19 ippons, 13 waza-aris, 22 yukos, 35 kokas, 13 shidos, three chuis, two keikokus and no hansoku-makes.

Don’t you hate it when you watch judo all day without seeing a single hansoku-make?

Bank official admits economists were to blame for recession

A top economist at the Bank of England has admitted that his profession should share the blame for the financial crisis and recession.

By Philip Aldrick, Economics Editor, The Telegraph

12:01AM BST 01 Aug 2012

Andy Haldane, executive director for financial stability at the Bank (of England), said economists misled policymakers in the years before the crisis by promoting a “blinkered” view of the world based on the assumption their theories were unfailingly correct.

…

He said the error was not driven by economists seeking financial gain but “the quest for certainty”. But their error was to think of the assumptions used to build economic models as cast-iron laws.

“A concept gets formalised and then gets socialised and then believed as an almost theological doctrine,” he said. “The notion of not knowing, of imperfect information, of uncertainty, got lost from economics and finance for the better part of 20 or 30 years.

“I think one of the great errors we as economists made was that we started believing the assumptions of economics, and saying things that made no intellectual sense. We started to believe that what were assumptions were actually a description of reality, and therefore that the models were a description of reality, and therefore were dependable for policy analysis.

“With hindsight, that was a pretty significant error.”

(h/t Naked Capitalism)

Just in case you think this will have any effect on faith cult not science voodoo academics-

Greenspan – I was wrong about the economy. Sort of

Andrew Clark in New York and Jill Treanor, The Guardian

Thursday 23 October 2008

A long-time cheerleader for deregulation, Greenspan admitted to a congressional committee yesterday that he had been “partially wrong” in his hands-off approach towards the banking industry and that the credit crunch had left him in a state of shocked disbelief. “I have found a flaw,” said Greenspan, referring to his economic philosophy. “I don’t know how significant or permanent it is. But I have been very distressed by that fact.”

It was the first time the man hailed for masterminding the world’s longest postwar boom has accepted any culpability for the crisis that has engulfed the global banking system.

…

“I made a mistake in presuming that the self-interests of organisations, specifically banks and others, were such that they were best capable of protecting their own shareholders and their equity in the firms,” said Greenspan.

They have learned nothing at all.

Who To Listen To

Paul Krugman, The New York Times

July 30, 2012, 9:03 am

One thing that’s striking in Portes’s discussion – and something I very much agree with – is the irrelevance of formal credentials. As we’ve debated how to deal with the worst slump since the 1930s, a distressing number of economists have taken to arguing on the basis that they have fancy degrees and you don’t – or in some cases that well, you may have a fancy degree too, and even a prize or two, but in the wrong sub-field, so there.

But all this counts for very little, especially when macroeconomics itself – or at any rate the kind of macroeconomics that has dominated the journals these past couple of decades – is very much on trial.

More Dancing Horsies and a Tiara

Broadcast Schedule

This is the complete schedule for today.  It covers from 6 am to 6 am.

All this is sourced through the NBC Olympics broadcast schedule.  Competition starts again at 6 am tomorrow.  

Competitions designated by (Medal) will award winners that day.  ‘all’ means not specified.  Sometimes NBC especially does mashups and doesn’t include event or competitor information.  Elimination means no round robin, one and done.

These schedules are a place for you to make sure you don’t miss a sport you like and share your observations.  Have fun today!

At London Olympics, empty seats have organizers scrambling, giving away tickets to children and soldiers

By Karla Adam, Washington Post

Published: July 29

A day after the city reveled in the splendor of Danny Boyle’s critically acclaimed Opening Ceremonies, many locals were piqued Saturday when television footage showed empty seats at some of the most popular sporting events, including swimming and gymnastics, that they had been told were sold out. Such scenes ignited speculation that corporate sponsors had been provided tickets they weren’t using, leaving the public on the outside looking in.

…

The International Olympic Committee moved quickly to quash those rumors, saying sponsors had been allocated about 8 percent of available tickets, while at the same time they tried to determine exactly whom the unused seats belonged to.

…

On Sunday, many venues appeared full, but there were reports of empty seats at the Basketball Arena, where the U.S. men beat France, and Greenwich Park, where Zara Phillips, the queen’s granddaughter, was competing in equestrian.

On a rainy day at Wimbledon, Doreen Beeton stood on Henman Hill lamenting the half-filled Centre Court she saw on a giant video scoreboard. She believes many sponsors who were provided with tickets have no interest in the early-round matches.

…

Scrambling to calm the furor, London 2012 chairman Sebastian Coe said off-duty military and students already accredited for the Olympic Park would be offered the abandoned seats. British troops already were attending women’s gymnastics Sunday morning, Coe said.

…

This isn’t the first time organizers have come under fire for ticketing mishaps. Earlier this month, they withdrew 500,000 tickets for soccer matches following meager demand in large stadiums dotted around the country. They also announced in July they were offering refunds to thousands of ticket holders in the 10-meter platform diving event because the position of their seats meant that the divers would briefly jump out of view.

…

Faisal Lalani, 48, who had tried and failed last year to get tickets for swimming, came to the Olympic Park on Sunday hoping to snag one of the unused tickets he read about.

Standing outside of the entrance to the Olympic Park, with grandiose views of the Aquatics Centre and Orbit tower, he said, “I feel cheated.”

Badminton Doubles Pairs Face Match-Throwing Probe

By MIKE CORDER Associated Press

LONDON August 1, 2012 (AP)

Four women’s badminton doubles pairs, including the reigning world champions from China, faced a disciplinary hearing Wednesday after being charged with trying to throw their matches at the London Olympics to secure an easier matchup in later rounds.

…

World doubles champions Wang Xiaoli and Yu Yang of China and their South Korean opponents Jung Kyun-eun and Kim Ha-na were booed loudly by the crowd Tuesday after dumping serves into the net and making simple errors like hitting the shuttlecock wide.

…

The problem was repeated in the next women’s doubles between South Korea’s Ha Jung-eun and Kim Min-jung and Indonesia’s Meiliana Jauhari and Greysia Polii. Both teams were also warned for deliberately losing points in a match the Koreans won 18-21, 21-14, 21-12. The capacity crowd vented their displeasure on them, too.

…

“If we’re not playing the best it’s because it doesn’t matter – if we’re the first or the second (in the group) we’re already through. The most important thing is the elimination match tomorrow.”

You get no points for advancing to Q2, 17th or first.  Might as well save the tires.

Twitter Restores Journalist’s Account But Remains at Ethical Crossroads

By Mat Honan, Wired

July 31, 2012

When news broke that Twitter had suspended journalist Guy Adams’ account for violating its privacy rules by tweeting the email address of NBC executive Gary Zenkel, it sent shock waves across the Twitter community.

…

Here’s an interesting thought experiment. Imagine that instead of going after an NBC executive, Adams’ target was a dictator. Imagine that Adams tweeted, say, Syrian president Bashar al-Assad’s email address, along with a call to action to protest his policies. Had Twitter worked back-channel with the Syrian government, showing it how to have Adams’ account taken down on a technicality, it would clearly be an indefensible act of censorship. Heads would roll.

But even though the issues at play are smaller when someone criticizes Olympic coverage, Twitter’s actions are no more defensible. Especially because Adams broke none of Twitter’s rules.

…

Just because the Adams flare-up revolves around sports on TV, Twitter should take this no less seriously than were it a geopolitical issue. The same principle is at stake: free speech. Although Twitter must comply with local laws, none were broken in this case. Twitter should defend that principle, or abandon it completely. There’s no room for middle ground – especially when it involves a corporate partner. Users are right to be distrustful of Twitter after this debacle. Reinstating Guy Adams’ account was a good first step, but Twitter needs to go farther.

…

It needs to treat the person who gave special favor to NBC no differently than it would treat someone who gives special favors to the Syrian regime. It must stand by its “tweets will flow” stance in every case if it’s to demonstrate that it stands for principles, and not just marketing.

Or, it can be a big media player, like its partner, Comcast, which owns NBC.

Just another example of the casual crony corruption of the current capitalist system.

A World Without Coral Reefs

By ROGER BRADBURY, The New York Times

July 13, 2012

It’S past time to tell the truth about the state of the world’s coral reefs, the nurseries of tropical coastal fish stocks. They have become zombie ecosystems, neither dead nor truly alive in any functional sense, and on a trajectory to collapse within a human generation. There will be remnants here and there, but the global coral reef ecosystem – with its storehouse of biodiversity and fisheries supporting millions of the world’s poor – will cease to be.

Overfishing, ocean acidification and pollution are pushing coral reefs into oblivion. Each of those forces alone is fully capable of causing the global collapse of coral reefs; together, they assure it. The scientific evidence for this is compelling and unequivocal, but there seems to be a collective reluctance to accept the logical conclusion – that there is no hope of saving the global coral reef ecosystem.

…

But by persisting in the false belief that coral reefs have a future, we grossly misallocate the funds needed to cope with the fallout from their collapse. Money isn’t spent to study what to do after the reefs are gone – on what sort of ecosystems will replace coral reefs and what opportunities there will be to nudge these into providing people with food and other useful ecosystem products and services. Nor is money spent to preserve some of the genetic resources of coral reefs by transferring them into systems that are not coral reefs. And money isn’t spent to make the economic structural adjustment that communities and industries that depend on coral reefs urgently need. We have focused too much on the state of the reefs rather than the rate of the processes killing them.

Overfishing, ocean acidification and pollution have two features in common. First, they are accelerating. They are growing broadly in line with global economic growth, so they can double in size every couple of decades. Second, they have extreme inertia – there is no real prospect of changing their trajectories in less than 20 to 50 years. In short, these forces are unstoppable and irreversible. And it is these two features – acceleration and inertia – that have blindsided us.

…

This is not a story that gives me any pleasure to tell. But it needs to be told urgently and widely because it will be a disaster for the hundreds of millions of people in poor, tropical countries like Indonesia and the Philippines who depend on coral reefs for food. It will also threaten the tourism industry of rich countries with coral reefs, like the United States, Australia and Japan. Countries like Mexico and Thailand will have both their food security and tourism industries badly damaged. And, almost an afterthought, it will be a tragedy for global conservation as hot spots of biodiversity are destroyed.

What we will be left with is an algal-dominated hard ocean bottom, as the remains of the limestone reefs slowly break up, with lots of microbial life soaking up the sun’s energy by photosynthesis, few fish but lots of jellyfish grazing on the microbes. It will be slimy and look a lot like the ecosystems of the Precambrian era, which ended more than 500 million years ago and well before fish evolved.

So Saturday

Catch up guys, now we’re talking about this stuff-

A Five-Ring Opening Circus, Weirdly and Unabashedly British

By SARAH LYALL, The New York Times

Published: July 27, 2012

As is the case almost every Olympics, much of the speculation around it centered on how Britain could possibly surpass the previous summer host, China. In 2008, Beijing used its awe-inspiring opening extravaganza to proclaim in no uncertain terms that it was here, it was rich, and the world better get used to it.

…

That the Olympics come at a time of deep economic malaise, with Britain teetering on the edge of a double-dip recession, the government cutting billions of dollars from public spending, and Europe lurching from crisis to crisis, made the scene a bit surreal, even defiant in the face of so much adversity.

…

In The Guardian, the columnist Marina Hyde said government officials appeared to be rashly depending on the Olympics, which cost an estimated £9.3 billion (or $14.6 billion), to save the country’s struggling economy virtually single-handedly.

Referring to a British track-and-field star, Ms. Hyde wrote that according to the government’s thinking, “Jessica Ennis winning gold is no longer merely a sporting aspiration but something that would cause a massive and immediate recalibration of the balance of payments.”

Ok, maybe not that, how about this-

NBC fail shows network’s commitment to ‘the last great buggy-whip Olympics’

Heidi Moore, The Guardian

Monday 30 July 2012

I am using anti-internet-censorship technology of the kind that is favored by political dissidents trying to connect with the outside world against the wishes of oppressive regimes.

Normally, the Olympics would not require the kind of computer-address-scrambling technology used by revolutionaries, hackers and child pornographers – but good luck trying to get at live events any other way if you happen to live on US soil.

…

In response to the complaints, NBC stated its intentions publicly: to herd Olympics viewers into exclusively primetime viewership of the games. There was no sleight of hand in NBC’s admission: it was completely open.

…

It is absolutely extraordinary that smart viewers are frustrated with NBC’s coverage and flaunting their use of proxy services to watch the BBC. It is not piracy – the proxy services are legal, and the BBC has broadcast rights too – but the fact that tech CEOs, journalists and others are sharing tips about how to avoid a major network is a sign that the network is missing a crucial turning point in responding to what audiences want from Olympics coverage.

Why should they respond to what the people want when all the other elites don’t give a rat’s ass?  Personally I favor direct action-

South Korean fencer in protest after controversial Olympic defeat

Press Association, The Guardian

Monday 30 July 2012

The 25-year-old thought she was through to the final of the women’s épée when, to her horror and that of her coach, Shim Jaesung, the clock was reset from zero to one second. The score was 5-5 at the time, but that would have been good enough for her under the rule where one fencer is awarded “priority” when a contest goes into sudden death. When the action resumed the German Britta Heidemann, gold medallist four years ago, scored a do-or-die hit that eventually put her in the final against Ukraine’s Yana Shemyakana.

The Korean coach furiously launched an appeal against the decision that had allowed the fight to continue and it was nearly half an hour before it was announced to the crowd – slow-hand clapping by this stage – that Heidemann’s win stood. Shin … remained on the piste. The bronze medal match and the final both had to be put back while the row went on, but almost 75 minutes later Shin was led off.

…

Shin said: “I think it’s unfair. The one second was over – I should have won. The hour was really difficult, but I thought if I got a yellow card [for leaving the piste] I might not be able to fight for bronze. I’m very sorry for the spectators. They spent a lot of money and I just don’t understand how this could have happened.”

Broadcast Schedule

All this is sourced through the NBC Olympics broadcast schedule.  Competition starts again at 6 am tomorrow.  

Competitions designated by (Medal) will award winners that day.  ‘all’ means not specified.  Sometimes NBC especially does mashups and doesn’t include event or competitor information.  Elimination means no round robin, one and done.

These schedules are a place for you to make sure you don’t miss a sport you like and share your observations.  Have fun today!

Dancing Horsies

One thing I got to see yesterday was the Cross Country part of the Team Overall Equestrian event.  Men and Women, no discrimination (except by money) Zara Phillips (Elizabeth’s grand daughter) was part of the UK Team and put in a respectable performance.  It was fun to watch, like riding through a miniature golf course and there were lots of crashes for you Turn Left fans.  Today they finish with Jumping so no Dancing Horsies.

Ok, maybe some.

Rocky Anderson on the Olympics–

From Up w/ Chris Hayes

Broadcast Schedule

This is the complete schedule for today.  It covers from 6 am to 6 am.

All this is sourced through the NBC Olympics broadcast schedule.  Competition starts again at 6 am tomorrow.  

Competitions designated by (Medal) will award winners that day.  ‘all’ means not specified.  Sometimes NBC especially does mashups and doesn’t include event or competitor information.  Elimination means no round robin, one and done.

These schedules are a place for you to make sure you don’t miss a sport you like and share your observations.  Have fun today!

Upsets–

Spain gets bounced from Football.  Only the World and European champions.  World Champion Wieber does not Qualify in Women’s Gymnastics (Overall).

Olympic Coverage Criticism–

Smug American Elitism at the Olympics Opening Ceremony

By: Kevin Gosztola, Firedog Lake

Saturday July 28, 2012 1:11 pm

It is a running joke that Americans learn geography or about countries outside the United States only when the US military decides to invade a country. Presumably, this is why NBC broadcasters Bob Costas, Matt Lauer, and Meredith Viera announcing the Olympics opening ceremony would be sharing trivia about each country, especially information that Americans might be able to understand even if they were terribly uneducated. But that should be no justification for the candor of the commentary during the broadcast of the Opening Ceremony, which was frankly an example of smug American elitism and often outright condescension.

For example, Bob Costas said North Korea’s greatest athletic achievement belongs to “dear leader Kim Jong-Il who, according to his official biography, carded 11 holes-in one, not over a lifetime but over the first round he played.

…

This went on for just about every other country. “Churchill never met Idi Amin,” Costas said as Ugandan athletes walked in the stadium. An anecdote about Kuwait mistakenly playing the Kazakhstan national anthem in the film Borat was shared as Kazakh athletes made their entrance. He mentioned the animated movie franchise Madagascar as Madagascan athletes strode by the camera. And, of course, like a school boy learning the country’s name for the first time or a character in a Christopher Guest film, he said, “There are some countries whose names just make you smile,” as Djibouti walked by.

The comments were not limited to quips that fell flat. Costas’ introductions of many of the countries seemed to highlight the worst aspects of each country’s history or inadequacies in the country that Costas himself may or may not have experienced personally. He said, Egypt is in “a transition of some sort,” and added, “From military dictatorship to Jeffersonian democracy? Not quite.” He noted that Kiribati does not have regularly scheduled flights to Honolulu. He ominously reminded audiences that world leaders are keeping a “wary eye” on Pakistan. He described how Australia was “originally founded as a penal colony.”

…

Coupled with the fact that NBC cut out the ceremony’s memorial of the 7/7 terror attacks in London and Saudi Arabia’s first female athletes entering, NBC’s presentation of the opening ceremony was appalling, hokey, and downright imbecilic. Broadcasters of the American idiocracy were in true form.

It is not like Americans are given much exposure to people or culture in countries outside of the United States. They are consistently indoctrinated with this idea from all politicians that they are citizens of the Greatest Nation on Earth. So, perhaps, it is not surprising that broadcasters on NBC would reinforce this predominant ideology of exceptionalism in our society. But is it too much to expect that NBC announcers would, for the few seconds that these countries go by, not offer smug or sneering remarks that call out the imperfections of each country’s current politics or past history?

So after all the teams burned up their good rubber on yesterday’s Qualifying today catches everybody on the wrong foot with car setups and tire management.

It will be dry.

This is good news for the pole sitters actually since their setups have already proven successful and the only hope for the back markers is that their fewer laps will be able to keep them on track enough longer to offset their demonstrated speed disadvantage.  We’ll be seeing the same Mediums (Prime) and Softs (Option) that we’ve seen most of the season.

The commentators are convinced that Red Bull has been hamstrung by the decision outlawing their engine torque mapping system, but I look at the results of Qualifying and I’m not persuaded yet.  Sure Webber is out in Q2, but Vettel puts the same car in 3rd.  Rosberg and Schumacher are mild disappointments for Mercedes fans, but the team has had good and bad weeks all season.

Why the big deal about Qualifying?  The Hungaroring has a reputation for driving like Monaco.  What people mean by this is that despite being a lot faster on lap times, it’s a horrible place to pass and cars tend to end up in the same grid they started unless they blow up or park in a wall.

Summarizing the season at the August break my impressions are that Alonso has an unassailable lead in the drivers’ standings because his rivals are inconsistent in their results in addition to his being an improved driver in an improved car (for proof look at Massa).

Red Bull would be in trouble except for the reliability issue.  Until their opponents can consistently put 2 drivers in the points no one can catch them.  McLaren engineering is quite good, but their race management sucks.  Ferrari deserves praise for producing a better car, or at least one Alonso is comfortable in.

The main points if interest will be whether any teams from mid-pack will be able to really effect a race or not and which ones will they be.  Renault and Mercedes are candidates, but there won’t be any improvements.

They’re on vacation damnit.

• Formula One Official Site
• Hungaroring
• Hungarian Grand Prix
• Guardian Interactive Circuit Guide
• Speed Racecast
• F1 2012: Hungaroring Qualifying

Pretty tables below.

Broadcast Schedule

All this is sourced through the NBC Olympics broadcast schedule.  Competition starts again at 6 am tomorrow.  

Competitions designated by (Medal) will award winners that day.  ‘all’ means not specified.  Sometimes NBC especially does mashups and doesn’t include event or competitor information.  Elimination means no round robin, one and done.

These schedules are a place for you to make sure you don’t miss a sport you like and share your observations.  Have fun today!