earthli News 3.7 https://www.earthli.com/news/ 2026-05-07T07:43:36+02:00 https://www.earthli.com/news/icons/webcore_png/app/news_100px.png https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=6066 2026-03-15T11:33:19+01:00 https://earthli.com/users/marco

https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=5966 2025-12-27T10:14:07+01:00 https://earthli.com/users/marco

This show discusses "the new National Security Strategy, Machado, oil, and Trump's attempts to instigate a war with Venezuela." "Episode 510: Tip Line #10 Ft. Sarah Squirm and Jack Bensinger" Though they call it a "classic call-in show" because they play some calls from their tip line, this show has long riffing on those topics with SNL cast-member Sarah Sherman and SNL writer Jack Bensinger, who was actually funnier than Sarah. Sarah did have a few zingers but Jack, Brace, and Liz were noticeably more quick-witted. "Episode 511: Haters and Losers" This is the yearly installment of who's a winner (e.g., Erika Kirk) and who's a loser (e.g., Charlie Kirk). "Episode 512: Old Saint Dick" [image]This show was released on Christmas. Brace and Liz read stories from the Bible, without skipping the weird parts. They discuss the logistics of the birth of Christ and his ensuing circumcision. "Brace: I think we have to accept the possibility that Baby Jesus had a missile." Citing the show notes, "We discuss the amazing birth of Jesus Christ, the founder of Christianity, and discuss at length the mystery of his foreskin." This may sound bizarre but it's because history is bizarre. They talk about the "Holy Prepuce" , which is a relic that is Jesus's foreskin and which was banned by the Holy Roman Catholic Church. In "Calcata, Italy" , it "was paraded through the streets as recently as 1983." They did this on the first day of the year because that honest-to-God used to be called the "Feast of the Circumcision of Christ" until "Vatican II" put the kibosh on that. Yum. ]]> https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=5865 2025-12-07T22:07:18+01:00 https://earthli.com/users/marco

was surprisingly good. There is no good way to cite it to give you a flavor of it. It is unique. It is raw. It is unflinching. It is kind of about love. There are dogs in it. There are misunderstood and psychotic friends. There is devotion. It's weird but good. [image] "At the animal" ... ]]>

was surprisingly good. There is no good way to cite it to give you a flavor of it. It is unique. It is raw. It is unflinching. It is kind of about love. There are dogs in it. There are misunderstood and psychotic friends. There is devotion. It's weird but good. [image] "At the animal shelter I said, Give me the worst dog available, which turned out to be an oafish, fecal-brown Vizsla missing a back leg. But of course B doted on him. She found endless excuses to come over. She took a hundred pictures of Tokyo expelling sludge in the yard, balanced on his three legs, prism-like." ]]> https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=5541 2025-05-31T16:16:28+02:00 https://earthli.com/users/marco

is a Reddit repost of a Tumblr "essay" that describes the painful fallout of having taught an entire generation without phonetics, with only the "whole language" approach, which -- checks notes -- involves a whole lot of wild guessing because you have no tools with which... ]]>

is a Reddit repost of a Tumblr "essay" that describes the painful fallout of having taught an entire generation without phonetics, with only the "whole language" approach, which -- checks notes -- involves a whole lot of wild guessing because you have no tools with which to analyze -- in the strictest sense of the word: i.e., "break down", or "parse" in the case of sentences, words, and phonemes -- unfamiliar words. The title is play on the once-popular "Bushism" : "Is our children learning?" Below, I've included the images from the original re-posting on Reddit from a post whose origins are lost in the mists of time. Below that, I've included a transcript -- using the "Live Text" feature by copy/pasting text from the image in Preview -- because reading text in pictures is so non-Gen-X-coded that ... I can't even. [image][image][image] I used to be mad about "whole language" reading approaches in theory but now I work with school-age kids and I am mad about it in practice. me: the word is "commute" kid: complete? me: do you see a P in that word? kid: uh.... compare? me: where are you getting a P??? sound it out. kid: com... complete? me: is that a P after the M? sound it out. kid: *stares blankly* me: [oh right, nobody taught them how to do this. fucking hell...] okay, we'll do this together [like it's kindergarden even though you're thirteen years old...]. what sound does C make? I am not a reading teacher or a dyslexia specialist but I'm having to do remedial phonics instruction for middle schoolers because nobody ever taught them how SO THEY CAN'T FUCKING READ I cannot overstate how much these kids are just making wild guesses when I ask them to read something. Because that's what they were taught to do. If you don't know a word, use context clues and make a guess at what you think the word might be. Which is a fucking insane approach to reading, by the way, and I could rant about this forever because this makes absolutely no sense and I cannot figure out how the entire educational field was duped into thinking that this makes a lick of sense. But I also want to emphasize that even kids who are decent readers have this problem. I work with some kids who straight-up can't read, but even my kids who absolutely can read will just guess wildly at an unfamiliar word. Those kids will go back and sound it out if I force them to, because they can read, so they have the necessary decoding skills. But they have to be pushed to do it and reminded several times to quit fucking guessing and read the actual letters on the page, Jason. For example. I have a kid who is actually a pretty strong reader - probably one of my best. The word was "disagreement." He made a couple of guesses - some nonsensical, but after pushing him to sound out the word, he got closer. He kept saying "dis-age-ment" and "dis-argue-ment." And I said okay, let's break this word down. Me: Is there anything in here you recognize? Jason: "The beginning is 'dis' and the end is 'ment' like argument, but I don't know the middle." Me: Great! Let's pull the middle out. I wrote the word "agree" on the page. Me: Do you know this word? Jason: "Age? Argue?" Me: SOUND. IT. OUT. Jason: "Ag... agriculture?" Me: Jason the love of god. I drew a line in the middle. Ag/ree. Sound out each part. Jason: "I don't know." Me: JASON. I wrote them out on opposite sides of the paper. Ag..........ree. What sound does ag make? Jason: "Ag?" Me: YES GREAT FANTASTIC. Now come all the way over here. Ree. Sound it out. Jason: "Are?" Me: JASON. R. E. E. Jason: "Rey? Ree?" Me: Yes, thank you, it's Ree. Put it together. Jason: "Ag...ree? Oh! It's disagreement!" Me: YES. EXCELLENT. THANK YOU. WHY WAS THIS SO HARD? #however the situation is better in liberal states that invest substantially more money into education than conservative states As much as I wish that was [sic] the case, "Jason" and all of his classmates are students in a strongly blue state with some of the highest educational spending per student in the country. I'm not saying the situation is better in red states - I've seen what my friends who are teaching in Texas are dealing with and the situation is dire. I'm just saying it's less of a red/blue or funding issue than you might imagine. I thought of an analogy: Can you imagine seeing a color and being so helpless that you can't even begin to describe it? Do we just start yelling out sounds, in the vague hope that we'll get it? Of course not. We learn words for some colors by rote and then we start combining them. We'll say "reddish-brown" or "yellowish-green" or something sensible. We do the same thing for odors -- and numbers and musical notes, and, like, everything man. I am mystified how an entire nation thought that they could stop doing this -- just throw out the most battle-tested didactic tool I can think of because learning is hard and it should be easy. Sure, combinations don't always work and then maybe you'll then learn a new word like mauve, taupe, chartreuse, vermillion, verdigris, lavender, or fuchsia, which there's no way you could have guessed. But your approximation will not have been completely off-base. It will be adequate for a lot of purposes. The "whole language" approach is what it looks like when you don't give people the tools to bootstrap, to be autodidacts. Do accomplished readers sound out words? No. They don't They know all of the words intuitively. Is there a way to skip the tedious part of learning a language and just jump right to the fluency of an accomplished reader? No. No, there isn't. This "whole language" approach feels very much like the AI-assisted approach to coding now being promoted for juniors and beginners. It will end in the same tragic mess that "whole language" has. No wonder people are home-schooling their kids. 🤦‍♂️ ]]> https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=5470 2025-05-27T23:31:30+02:00 https://earthli.com/users/marco

https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=4678 2025-05-27T23:26:50+02:00 https://earthli.com/users/marco

"[image]ist es weniger klar als "in die Gruppe". Denn die reine" ... ]]>

"[image]ist es weniger klar als "in die Gruppe". Denn die reine Ortsangabe kann auch bedeuten, daß er innerhalb der Gruppe in etwas Kleineres integriert ist. ""Ich habe mich in der Stadt eingelebt" ist schon erfüllt, wenn ich mich in meiner Wohnung wohl fühle. Um mich aber "in die Stadt" einzuleben, muß ich mich in der Stadt generell wohlfühlen." ]]> https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=5486 2025-05-20T21:56:36+02:00 https://earthli.com/users/marco

is in German and discusses how the need for speed endangers innovation. It is written very much from a "leave me alone to be brilliant" style of engineering that argues that innovation can only happen if the engineers are allowed to ignore prosaic concerns like... ]]>

is in German and discusses how the need for speed endangers innovation. It is written very much from a "leave me alone to be brilliant" style of engineering that argues that innovation can only happen if the engineers are allowed to ignore prosaic concerns like profitability. Something good will come of their work, trust them. It disparages the notion of "efficiency" espoused by managerial layers. It's not necessarily wrong but it's also not really interested in a solution that addresses the realities of the system under which many of us live. I wrote the following to a group conversation: Efficiency is not a goal in itself, but a means of achieving the goal of productivity. When a resource becomes more efficient, then it generates the same value as before but with less effort, then it's more productive. However, you could also increase productivity without increasing efficiency by adding resources. It's more cost-effective to increase efficiency, which is why there's generally a focus on that. I guess effectiveness measures whether the generated value takes us somewhere useful? That is, becoming more efficient at generating ineffective value might feel good but is ultimately not useful. How can something have value but also not be useful? I think of a farmer who's grown a field of food that no-one wants to eat -- or that no-one is desperate enough to eat. They invested effort to generate value but it's useless. Addressing the article, I can't really argue with most of it. It reflects my beliefs about sustainability and quality, and my experience in building products. It is, however, "preaching to the choir" (with me, at least). To play devil's advocate, though, I wonder which environment the author thinks we're living and working in. Sometimes slow-but-steady (the process the author proposes) will eventually end up with the better product but the market either isn't willing to wait or doesn't think it has to. That is, if the market sees that it can externalize the costs of deciding to grab the product that is first to market rather than waiting for the quality product, then it will happily do so. Here's a completely made-up and perhaps too-contrived example: If it takes a company five years to develop a device that lasts twenty years, but a competitor takes two years to develop one that costs 20% as much but only lasts four years, then there will be no market available by the time the "better" product comes to market. The customer will cheerily buy five of the devices over twenty years, amortizing the cost with a much-smaller upfront investment, while completely externalizing the cost of discarding four extra devices because they will just shove their E-waste somewhere for free. We want to be living and working in a world that rewards slow-but-steady quality, but we have to figure out how to deliver that in the world we have, one that seems to -- at least sometimes, if not often -- prefer quick-and-dirty. Can we figure out how to not allow hastily and poorly developed products from being cheaper by externalizing their costs? The incentives in our world push the other way. An interlocutor responded: "I see a conflict between innovation and serving the (immediate) market needs: "Referring to the farmer, he has grown food that no one wants to buy, but at the same time he learned how to grow that food and he also learned that this food has no market (assuming he did not know that before). With this additional knowledge (compared to his competitors) he is able to grow another plant now superior to existing ones and successful on the market. "I think, what the authors of the post mean by requiring time and free space (of thinking) that this is an important enabler for future innovation. Of course, there is a chance for failing and "wasting" resources because it is very difficult to anticipate later market success. But it is an established rule that innovation needs freedom and time to try things out without the "pressure to market". "In our vision, we had the term "taking bold risks to keep technological leadership" (probably "regain" would be more correct here). I am wondering, if this is still valid..." [image]I agree that innovation is about learning, and that learning takes time. Innovation is as much about learning what not to do as getting it right the first time -- it is arguably much more about learning from mistakes. The famous quote from Thomas Edison describes the process as "I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work." In an ideal world, the farmer who'd raised a bad crop would be given the opportunity to let society profit from the experience they'd gained. Society would have to trust that the farmer is capable of improving -- sometimes a bad year is just the first of many because the farmer is just not competent. That's possibly a roundabout way of saying/asking: how do we tell the difference between useful and wasteful failures? Who should get another chance to learn from experience? How many changes? For how long? To stretch the metaphor even further: Even given that the farmer were good and in a process of valuable learning, what if the farmer who'd failed were not allowed to be a farmer anymore? I.e., they go out of business? A common answer today would be that society would be preventing a proven loser from wasting precious resources. That is a not uncommon economic answer: that the market will ruthlessly decide. It's also very likely a net loss for society because this level of ruthlessness means that we don't give ourselves time to learn from our mistakes. Instead, we're told that the "market" will let someone else learn from them. This might be good sometimes, but it is often wasteful. The new innovator doesn't necessarily benefit from the experience of their predecessor. We may know how to innovate, and may have the right people, but we can't ignore the context in which we're doing it. We want to make sure that we give ourselves a fighting chance of surviving and being able to bring our delightful innovations to a world that seems to be want to strangle anything that thinks farther ahead than the end-of-quarter numbers. As I noted in my previous comment, we don't want to capitulate to quick-and-dirty -- because we know that's a dead-end long-term -- but we have to acknowledge that quick-and-dirty is a competitor in the short-term and make sure we're set up to outlast them. We're trying to compete by convincing our market that we're worth the wait. Can we do that by getting our innovation out there more quickly? Is there a way of innovating that is more iterative? So that we move toward the quality product that we want to achieve without losing our audience's attention? The hope is that such a process would not only be better-suited to the world we have, but might also help us let valuable outside feedback flow more quickly into our products. Easier said than done but it's something we have to seriously come to grips with, I think. ]]> https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=5482 2025-05-18T22:37:26+02:00 https://earthli.com/users/marco

, which is a document about how to chart the roiling waters of the business climate of 2025. The following are some stream-of-consciousness notes I took while reading through it. [Being a bit obvious] The... ]]>

, which is a document about how to chart the roiling waters of the business climate of 2025. The following are some stream-of-consciousness notes I took while reading through it. [Being a bit obvious] The presentation is fast out of the gate: The executive summary screams at you to PANIC because YOU ARE MISSING OUT. No. Stop doing that. FOMO is be resisted and coolly evaluated. You only need to "rethink radically" if you're doing something wrong. Just because you're moving, doesn't mean you're improving. The most important thing is to know where you are relative to where you want to be. "focusing specifically on high-impact projects" is kind of a no-brainer. Who "vaguely works on low-impact projects"? With statements like that, you have to be careful not to equate "high-impact" with "only focus on the short-term". "Manage your resources in a very efficient manner" is classic "easier said than done" and also incredibly obvious advice. OMG we should be totally not wasting time! Who knew?!? Thanks for your deep and wise insight, 3dSE! [Be pragmatic] The hard part is in determining what "wasting time" means. The statement "speed beats perfection" is quite dangerous, especially when completely unqualified or framed. This is equating "disruption" with "good". Remember "Chesterton's Fence" . Always. What does speed even mean? I think a much better way of formulating the advice would be to be pragmatic. Pursue perfection but be prepared to temporarily accept intervening milestones. Always be ready to accept an intermediate milestone as 'final' if your customers are satisfied. "Always be ready to accept an intermediate milestone as 'final' if your customers are satisfied." Evaluate whether perfecting a "good" product is higher priority than making a different, but just as good product in a different field or for a different purpose. Moving from one milestone to another shouldn't be considered a foregone conclusion. You have to reevaluate the whole plan to see where resources are best invested. Don't be fooled by sunken cost, but also be willing to see that you've built something useful that is worth improving. Once you have this mindset, you will automatically design useful milestones that are "basecamps" on the way to a "peak". You may never get to the peak, but you can train your people to enjoy the journey. Wait, why is that important? Because your want to keep people inspired and engaged with work that has many potential outcomes. We want to harness the power of perfectionism for good. Perfectionists are great! They're only a problem when you can't change what they think "perfect" is, ... and it's not what you want it to be. [Know what "good enough" means to you] When a paper like this writes, "companies that fail to drastically shorten...", then this is consulting speak for "hire us or you'll be driven out of business by a competitor that did hire us." Take a deep breath and think about what a reasonable time-to-market is and whether it can be shortened. This document assumes that companies have the feeling that they're leaving efficiency and, therefore, profits, on the table. Therefore, when you read it, you're meant to feel like you're inadequate. Instead, think of it as a checklist of practices that you should consider: Are you already doing them? Are you doing them enough? Did you used to need to do them more than you do now? Could you tone it down now? The document is written as a marketing document for consulting services. It will not admit that the reader might not need 3dSE's advice. That would be beside -- or against -- the point. Just imagine that you'd already read this document and had followed its advice. On a second reading, you'll still feel like a failure because it doesn't discuss when you're good enough. Remember what the point of this document is: to sell 3dSE's services. And remember what you're trying to get out of it: benefitting from the sage advice of business-consulting experts who've published a free document online to entice you into finding out more. If you treat it as a checklist and determine that your company is already in a position to evaluate its position on the efficiency and effectiveness spectrum, then the document on its own is quite useful. [The death of layout] Just on a side note, what kind of maniac makes a document like this landscape mode? For God's sake, there are reams of research that say that 70-80 characters is the optimal reading width and this bloody document is twice that. Throw me a bone, man. [Move fast and...?] "fast, autonomous decision-making": Hmmmm. This is so much easier said than done. You don't want to be a control freak, but man there's a lot of wiggle room here. Autonomous decision-making might also just be startup-like, pivoting, diva-driven "planning". This document is, so far, kind of an empty buzzword-salad. [Change the mindset] Any use of AI-based tools necessitates a change in mindset, a change in attitude toward testing. Because these tools are capable of producing so much information, we must engender a mindset where people are constantly thinking: is this what I wanted? Is it good enough? How do I know? Which test do I use to verify the output? Am I eyeballing it? If I don't have a test or I have a weak one, can I justify that? What if I'm wrong? What's the risk? We need to increase frustration with inefficiency, engender an affinity for efficiency. Always be annoyed by your process and tools when they "fail" you, instead of just accepting it. People need to change their mindset to be active participants in the configuration of tooling and process. This is not just advice for developers! Everyone should learn to think this way. A good front-office example that is very salient to working in Switzerland (or any multi-lingual context) is: is the spelling and grammar-checking in your most commonly used tools configured to support your in all languages? Even when you switch languages line-by-line? Did you know that this is already possible? That you should, in fact, demand that this works, as an absolute minimum? [Compliance and security] "Electronics & high-tech devices: Stricter ethical and legal requirements and the pressure to leverage AI technologies, pose challenges in maintaining compliance while integrating new technologies in products or processes." I'm honestly not sure how "entrepreneurial culture" is going to address this type of problem. It seems more like it might exacerbate it. "Ensuring cybersecurity has become a critical challenge as machinery becomes more connected." Well, yes. ]]> https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=5474 2025-05-18T22:06:17+02:00 https://earthli.com/users/marco

. The screenshot below shows what this article looked like. This is an article that the main editor of 3QuarksDaily felt a burning interest to share. Before him, though, Maureen Dowd of the vaunted gray lady, The... ]]>

. The screenshot below shows what this article looked like. This is an article that the main editor of 3QuarksDaily felt a burning interest to share. Before him, though, Maureen Dowd of the vaunted gray lady, The New York Times, felt a burning desire to shared with the world just how hard it is to be George Clooney. [image] This is, of course, mind-boggling if you're not part of this world. * Did this article appear above or below the one about Palestinian children running into stray bullets and rockets? * Or of Columbia University cooperating with the U.S. government persecuting its legal-resident students for being "antisemitic"? * Or do we just not report on that stuff now? * Or wait ... do we report on it now, now that it's Donald Trump doing it but not before, when Biden was doing it? It's all so confusing. What's a newspaper to do? It wants to pretend that it's doing journalism, but wants to lose neither access nor prestige nor subscribers nor advertisers. It know which side its bread is buttered on. So, it writes instead about how George likes to smoke but shouldn't. ]]> https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=5490 2025-04-27T21:31:29+02:00 https://earthli.com/users/marco

, which doesn't even try to pretend to have an any objectivity about what the author very clearly considers an unsavory place, was at least an admission that 4Chan was, "[...] a website that, effectively, invented the concept of" ... ]]>

, which doesn't even try to pretend to have an any objectivity about what the author very clearly considers an unsavory place, was at least an admission that 4Chan was, "[...] a website that, effectively, invented the concept of the internet meme and was one of the last truly anonymous spaces left on the web." [A plea for an NC-17 Internet] I never used 4Chan. I didn't have an account there. I would occasionally see flashes of brilliance and dark humor cross-posted to Reddit, though. It wasn't nearly as surprisingly good as Tumblr but it had its moments. Not everyone on that forum was a frothing racist fool. There were a lot of clever people who very clearly enjoyed the anonymity of the place, and the fact that it was a chaotic space where you could push nonexistent limits. It was, in a way, the NC-17 internet that I wish we had more of. Just yesterday, I was writing to a friend on Signal, from an iPhone and was making joke about how the Wordle is running out of words -- we trade Wordle scores as a bit of a daily touchstone -- and I joked that they might need to open things up to include words like "penis". But, I couldn't swipe-type "penis" because it's a naughty word. It first converted it to "permits", then "pennies". This is so stupid. So mind-numbingly stupid. It's a part of the body. About half of the planet has one. Is there an R-rated version of the Internet? Or are we doomed to be trapped in a child's sandbox, playing with plastic toys provided by billionaires and trillion-dollar companies trying to keep us docile and quiet? Does no-one else notice this? Does no-one else care? You know, people in the U.S. are either completely ignorant of or literally munching popcorn while the U.S.'s closest ally Israel slaughters hundreds of children per day on purpose and as part of a genocide but we are safe and sound because no-one can write shit, fuck, vagina, or penis on their phones. What in the holy hell is going on? [Insightful commentary from 4Chan] Anyway, 4Chan was a place where adults could interact with adults and be as horrible as they wanted to be. It was also a place where people posted incisive commentary that was much more clever and insightful than anything you'd find in the New York Times. For example, here's a long post from 4Chan, which just shows that every public forum is multi-dimensional and has intelligent potential allies on it. Painting a site like 4Chan with a broad brush is stupid. [image] It very neatly describes the way liberals see the world and political struggle. It's from 2017, about six months in to the first Trump regime. I have transcribed it below. "Lots of people complain about the anti-climactic ending, but really I don't think it could [have gone] any other way. I'd like to imagine that there's some alternate universe where Rowling actually believed in something and Harry was actually built up as the anti-Voldemort he was only hinted as being in the beginning of the books. Where he[...] opposes all the many injustices of the wizarding world and determines to change their frequently backwards, insular, contradictory society for the better, and forms his own faction antithetical to the Death Eaters. And, when he finally has his showdown with Voldy, Harry surpasses by adopting new methods, breaking the rules and embracing change and the progression of history. While Voldemort clings to an idyllic imaging of the past and the greatest extent of his dreams is to become the self-appointed god of an eternally stagnant Neverland, Harry has embraced the possibility of a shining future and so can overcome the self-imposed limits Voldemort could never cross, and Voldemort is ultimately defeated by this. "But that would require a Harry that believed in something, and since Rowling is a liberal centrist Blairite that doesn't really believe in anything, Harry can't believe in anything. Harry lives in a world drought [sic] with conflict and injustice, a stratified class society, slavery of sentient magical creatures, the absurd charade the wizarding world puts up to enforce their own self-segregation, a corrupted and bureaucracy-choked government, rampant racism, so on and so forth. But Harry is little more than a passive observer for most of it, only the racism really bothers him (and then, really only racism against half-bloods). In fact, when Hermione stands up against the slavery of elves, she's treated as some kind of ridiculous Soapbox Sadie. For opposing chattel slavery! In the end, the biggest force for change is Voldemort and Harry and friends only ever fight for the preservation and reproduction of the status quo. The very height of Harry's dreams is to join the aurors, a sort of wizard FBI and the ultimate defenders of the wizarding status quo. Voldemort and the Death Eaters are the big instigators of change and Harry never quite gets to Voldy's level. Harry doesn't even beat Voldemort, Voldemort accidentally kills himself because he violated some obscure technicality that causes one of his spells to bounce back at him. "And this is really the struggle of liberals, they live in a world fraught with conflict, but aren't particularly bothered by any of it except those bit that threaten multicultural pluralism [or their own comfort and security; ed.]. They see change, and the force behind that change, as a wholly negative phenomenon. Even then, they can only act within the legal and ideological framework of their society. So, for instance, instead of organizing insurrectionary and disruptive activity against Trump and the far-right, all they can do is bang their drum about what a racist bigot he is and hope they can catch him violating some technicality that will allow them to have him impeached or at least destroy his political clout. It won't work, it will never work, but that's the limit of liberalism just as it was the limit of Harry Potter." Pretty good, right? It hits the nail right on the head. Liberals are conservative: they are terrified of change because they know that it would impair their ability to live lives far more lavish than any sane remuneration for their contributions to society would entail. In that sense, Trump is much more radical than the Progressives, who can't even come out against an obvious genocide because they're afraid that it would end their political careers -- and probably their revolving-door post-political careers. [Everyone else is lying] Anyway, Broderick continues, writing obvious mendacities that his filters would never allow him to see as such. 4Chan was a cesspool of lies, whereas his newsletter and the liberal news media that he frequently cites are sources of capital-T truth. "[...] fitting for a website that has distorted reality more than any other, the hack this week unleashed a tidal wave of misinformation. [...]" COME ON...REALLY? You can't think of any other web site in the world that spreads more misinformation and has a wider reach than 4chan? Are you really, as a purported media researcher, so blind to your own side's propaganda? That is PATHETIC. Like, it's complete capitulation, on the scale described just above in the 4Chan post that Broderick himself cited. The irony is quite thick but it's invisible to Broderick. This is why I've almost stopped reading this guy. He's so far up his own team's ass that he doesn't even understand the irony of it. [An example of non-4Chan propaganda] [image] I can think of so many easy targets. For example, the propaganda I've seen in major Swiss newspapers this week about having Switzerland move closer to NATO and for Switzerland to send weapons to Ukraine and for Switzerland to hate China, and to hate Russia, and about Chinese soldiers fighting for Russia. Although the top headlines are pushing young Swiss people to WAR, the mid-third of the front page is viciously brainwashing young women in Switzerland to sacrifice their entire lives to spend 17 hours of each day being a financefluencer., celebrating how awesome it is to be a mindless cog in the orphan-crushing machine. Just make you stay on top and you're a winner. Who cares about the losers? Only losers. And communists who hate money anyway. You don't hate money, do you? Of course you don't. You need lots of money to buy that CHF40K.- Birkin Bag the previous day's edition (not shown) was telling you're a fool and a loser for not having, or at least willing to mortgage your future to have. And since women can never be brainwashed enough, let's plaster the next day's newspaper with a picture of a bleached-blonde young woman sucking her CHF200.- replacement for the ludicrously stupid craze from last year, in which women were buying entire closets full of Stanley Cups. Well, you can throw those all away because the Bink Bottle is the new "must have". These media do all this while burying articles about Israel not allowing Palestinians to eat for going on 60 days now in a tiny, tiny, tiny box on the eighth page, near the bottom -- all of those things are far more damaging and far-reaching propaganda than trying to rig the name of the next Mountain Dew flavor to be “Hitler did nothing wrong.” [4Chan was not influential] It is utterly insipid to claim that 4chan had anything approaching the influence of F@&KING RUSSIAGATE on human history. The U.S. is literally right-now engaged in a war with Russia that they have only recently revealed hasn't been a proxy war for over two years -- a historical fact of which the Russian have been aware the whole time. It is largely the animosity constantly engendered and reinforced by propaganda like Russiagate that allows people to shrug and decide that they suppose they support a world war between nuclear powers. How couldn't they? They've been brainwashed to deeply believe that Russia and China are irredeemable evils that cannot be reasoned with [1] and that are constantly seeking to not only to undermine our way of life, but probably take us over militarily in what we are led to imagine would look something like The Man in the High Castle. [2] "[...] yes, we did lose something this week. And it is almost certainly a better world without it. But it’s also possible we look back one day and wish the internet still felt as messy and, more importantly, human as it did when 4chan ruled the world." 4chan never ruled the world, FFS. It's a tragedy that so many people are celebrating the destruction of an online community. That celebration reflects more poorly on them than the light they attempt to shine on 4 chan's sins. It reveals how badly they want to put on the chains thrown to them by their masters. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- [1] I have a colleague at work who thinks that Russia is just about the worst thing on the planet, and who keeps naming the USSR's invasion of Hungary with tanks as one of the most terrible subjugations of humanity that he can think of. That was in 1965. It's like the only historical fact he ever names. Who is feeding him that? He seemingly has no idea that the U.S., in that year, probably slaughtered more Vietnamese than the Soviets threw into prison. Because he's been properly programmed, he just doesn't see the disconnect. He doesn't think that the U.S. has ever done anything nearly as evil as what Russia did, does, and is doing. He grudgingly admits that maybe the Iraq invasion -- the second one; he probably has no idea that there was one before that, or a U.S. proxy war on Iran that used Iraq as a spear -- wasn't a good look. [1] The four-season filming of which I absolutely loved. See "S01" , "S02" , "S03" , and "S04" . ]]> https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=5243 2025-02-11T22:07:14+01:00 https://earthli.com/users/marco

https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=5295 2024-12-23T12:59:14+01:00 https://earthli.com/users/marco

"Chengyu (traditional Chinese: 成語; simplified Chinese: 成语; pinyin: chéngyǔ; trans. "set phrase") are a type of traditional Chinese idiomatic expressions, most of which consist of four Chinese characters. Chengyu were widely used in Literary Chinese and are still common in written" ... ]]>

"Chengyu (traditional Chinese: 成語; simplified Chinese: 成语; pinyin: chéngyǔ; trans. "set phrase") are a type of traditional Chinese idiomatic expressions, most of which consist of four Chinese characters. Chengyu were widely used in Literary Chinese and are still common in written vernacular Chinese writing and in the spoken language today. According to the most stringent definition, there are about 5,000 chengyu in the Chinese language, though some dictionaries list over 20,000. Chengyu are considered the collected wisdom of the Chinese culture, and contain the experiences, moral concepts, and admonishments from previous generations of Chinese speakers." [image] * 井底之蛙 (jǐng dǐ zhī wā): a frog in the bottom of the well / a person with limited outlook * 三人成虎 (sān rén chéng hǔ): Three men make a tiger / repeated rumor becomes a fact * 紙上談兵 (zhǐ shàng tán bīng): talk about military tactics on paper / theoretical discussion useless in practice (I like our "armchair generals" or "armchair quarterbacks" idiom better.) * 畫蛇添足 (huà shé tiān zú): to add feet when drawing a snake / to improve something unnecessarily * 易如反掌 (yì rú fǎn zhǎng): as easy as turning over one's hand / for something to be very easy (This one's the same in German: "Handumdrehen" ) I like some of these because they're more intuitive than something like "bikeshedding" (performing a seemingly endless series of small tasks to avoid more complex steps that would actually move the project forward) or "yak-shaving" (spending most of your time discussing the simple but trivial issues rather than focusing your time on discussions around the bigger but harder tasks at hand) because you honestly don't have to explain it to anyone who knows what a snake is. "Putting lipstick on a pig" Now there's an English idiom I can get behind. ]]> https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=5240 2024-11-12T22:31:23+01:00 https://earthli.com/users/marco

https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=5219 2024-11-10T11:41:19+01:00 https://earthli.com/users/marco

and "Ira Glasser, former head of the ACLU" way back in the spring of 2021. I've had fun with this friends links before (see "Robert Edward Grant: King of Gobbledygook" ), so I gave it chance. I... ]]>

and "Ira Glasser, former head of the ACLU" way back in the spring of 2021. I've had fun with this friends links before (see "Robert Edward Grant: King of Gobbledygook" ), so I gave it chance. I couldn't recommend that anyone else listen to these three hours ... but YMMV. It has 26M views and almost 500K likes on YouTube. Check out my notes below and decide for yourself. [media] I'm almost an hour in and I feel like Katt Williams thinks that the plots of Independence Day (all tech came from analyzing the attack ship from Roswell) and Transformers (all tech came from analyzing Megatron) are real, historical artifacts. He thinks humanity got advanced tech from space aliens. Brother Katt: just because you don't understand it doesn't mean nobody understands it. I just listened to a tech talk from a guy at work about "ASIC" that was incredible. Just incredible. He understands circuits on a deep level in a way that I almost certainly never will. OK, now, I'm at 90 minutes into this thing. Katt is drifting hard sometimes. People underestimate Rogan's ability to keep a conversation going for 3 hours, how he steers his guests into areas that might be interesting. He's kind of a moron, but he's not without talent. How many times has Rogan said, "Yeaaah, ... uh, that makes sense..." when Williams just vomited up another word salad? [image] "Rogan: I've always wondered whether alchemy wasn't just a way to regain lost knowledge. "Williams: [speaks so slowly that I feel like his battery is dying.]" They are both so stoned but Katt's like those alcoholics who can drive a car better than you or I can, even when they're at a stratospheric BAC. He has so much practice at being stoned. I kept expecting him to just *slide* out of his chair, but he always rallied. I mean, most of what he's saying is useless trash if you look at it too closely, but it sounds good. It sounds wise. Stoner wisdom. Joe Rogan is the perfect interviewer for him. Also, Katt talks about how much he reads -- 20 books per week! -- or how much he read when he was younger, or ... whatever. It's all bullshit! Either that or he's reading Nancy Drew or the Hardy Boys. If he actually read serious works -- he says he reads (or read! Who can tell what year he thinks it is?) classics -- then how could he be this misguided and spacey? If he actually spends all of that time reading all of that incredible content, then it's a shame that he comes out thinking and expressing himself like this. Williams mentioned several times that he thought he would be canceled for some of his utterances -- and then said something relatively banal. But then he also said, "You know, the Jewish people [UH OH] are powerful people on this planet [OMG STOP] and a lot of that has to do with the process that they have in instilling in their young people a certain amount of information and wherewithal and conversation that does not happen with other cultures, let's say [...] and um that exists only in a few places around the world but they're always important um especially if you look at things from a nonreligious point of view." Dude. WTF are you talking about? Are you talking about the Torah? No-one knows. And how does it not worry you to talk about one of the most sensitive ethnic communities when you worried about a dozen, other, relatively innocuous statements? Absolutely wild. Joe Rogan soon after: "What do you think ghosts are? Do you think they're real." Good call, Joe. Steer him away from the Jews. JFC. Katt Williams, after visibly gathering himself, "You either believe in the supernatural or you don't." Well...yeah. ]]> https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=5267 2024-11-08T22:51:58+01:00 https://earthli.com/users/marco

https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=5192 2024-09-25T20:41:45+02:00 https://earthli.com/users/marco

. Let's do some fun and quick and pretty easy analysis here. The title slug is pretty provocative: "GANGS CLASH". Did they, though? Clash? Let's... ]]>

. Let's do some fun and quick and pretty easy analysis here. The title slug is pretty provocative: "GANGS CLASH". Did they, though? Clash? Let's see what the article has to say! They spent time writing it, so let's do them the honor of reading it. Don't worry, we don't have to read far. The very first paragraph writes, "Venezuelan migrants moving into Chicago’s South Side have caught the attention of the city’s gangs, with some fearing an impending turf war between local gangs and their Venezuelan counterparts." Oho! No clashes. Instead, there's "fear of an impending turf war" just because people moved into a neighborhood. Are you kidding me? We're supposed to get our feathers ruffled over this? GIVE ME SOME BLOOD, BABY. I WANNA SEE SOME GOOD CLASHIN'. The article does helpfully include this image, though: [image] Oooo...scary graffiti! LOOK AT IT IT"S HORRIFYING. Dude, my train station in Switzerland has more graffiti with idiotic supporters of FCZ and GCZ having a "turf war" over whose soccer team is the most awesomest. Maybe FOX News should be covering that impending gang war. Anybody else interested in some good clashin' is going to walk away from this article with empty hands. It's all hypotheticals. Literally nothing has happened yet. I checked, even though an article that contradicts its headline IN THE VERY FIRST PARAGRAPH doesn't really deserve to be read in full. But my buddy sent it and, man, I can't just ignore them. Sincerely, Your friendly neighborhood newsreader. ]]> https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=5018 2024-08-19T00:29:03+02:00 https://earthli.com/users/marco

from a few months ago outlined the mindless and morally unhinged argument promulgated by people all across the political spectrum in the U.S. and Europe. "The Woke-Marxist college kids are wailing over the actions of Israel in Gaza — as they will for anyone within" ... ]]>

from a few months ago outlined the mindless and morally unhinged argument promulgated by people all across the political spectrum in the U.S. and Europe. "The Woke-Marxist college kids are wailing over the actions of Israel in Gaza — as they will for anyone within their dumb-ass equation of victims-and-oppressors, especially involving brown and white people. It is a brutal operation in Gaza, for sure, but so was the Hamas act-of-war on October 7 that many want to forget about now. They still hold and torture hostages, you know." [image]Let's see how Captain Kunstler is doing. Well, he's an upstate hater of all that is downstate, but he sees eye-to-eye with Scott Greenfield, whom Kunstler would no doubt refer to a "Jew lawyer" in a moment of weakness or if he were in his cups. Kunstler himself is also Jewish, which goes a ways toward explaining his blind devotion to Israel, but is still a bit mysterious, if you've read other things he's written. Still, a lot of the more interesting stuff he's written is quite a ways in the past now. He's been on a different track for a while now. Both Kunstler and Greenfield acknowledge the "brutal occupation", but also don't think that one thing has anything to do with the other. Hamas does hold hostages, but there is no evidence at all that they are torturing them. Those that have been returned report that they've been treated as well as is possible within the strict confines of the mass-bombing and starvation campaign in Gaza. But Kunstler and Greenfield think that anyone who's against Israel's policies is a whiny idiot who's too young and stupid to have an opinion worth respecting. The only people worth listening to are those who know you've got to "torture some folks", as Obama once said. Am I being unfair? Let's see what else he has to say. "I doubt that Israel wants to exterminate the Gazans, but at this point they would probably like to export them to other nations that share their Arab culture." Yup. Just "export" them to "other nations". That would be ethnic cleansing. It doesn't matter how you dress it up, Jim. Jim goes on to rehash that hoary old chestnut that the Palestinians won't be happy until Israel has been wiped from the map -- as if the Palestinians have anything approaching any leverage in this situation. He doesn't seem to notice the irony that his preferred solution is to, wholeheartedly support the genocide of the Palestinians as the only via solution for Israel while accusing the Palestinians of being interested in a genocide that they have to hope of perpetrating. He's accepted the calculus that it's either one side or the other, so the Jews should have Israel, as far as Jim is concerned. His words, not mine. Anything else, Jim? "They might have turned their 40 kilometers of Mediterranean beach-front into a world-beating resort, but instead they spent billions in international aid building a tunnel network and purchasing arms to wage war against Israel." Oh, yes, this one! Scott Greenfield also likes this one: that the Palestinians were utterly free to build a paradise but instead used all of their energy to work toward their only goal: eliminating all Jews. That is, they neglected their own society and people, all for the overarching goal of eliminating all Jews from Israel. Pure fantasy. It utterly ignores what he stated at the top, which is the "brutal occupation", which prevents anything from happening in Palestine that isn't approved by Israel. And Israel approves of nothing. This argument is so spectacularly ignorant, mean-spirited, and self-serving that it takes your breath a way, just a bit. "And what if Mr. Netanyahu launches a peremptory attack against southern Lebanon to destroy those bases?" Well, one thing's for sure, Jim. I know that you will think that it's everyone's fault but Israel's when the world fries. Jim is nothing if not a good Republican, though. He's 100% for Israel, against Hamas, but also against the war in Ukraine. To whit: "[...] the stark reality is that Russia is in control of the tactical situation on the ground. The WEF syndicate’s project — fronted by NATO — to weaken Russia and eventually loot its resources is a flop." So why do I read Jim still? Well, you have to peek over the fence every once in a while. He's still capable of quite cogent analysis when he's not being a raging anti-Muslim, anti-woke racist. "The hidden truth now is that the USA war blob needs to cut its losses in Ukraine and wants to bug out. The trouble is: how to do that in a way that does not amount to another gross American strategic humiliation? That’s Russia’s problem, too: how to adroitly work the conclusion of this fiasco in a way that doesn’t humiliate the USA to the degree that we resort to some new act of geopolitical insanity in compensation." See? That wasn't so hard. ]]> https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=4921 2023-12-31T17:28:02+01:00 https://earthli.com/users/marco

, "Some commentators are still MIA" , "Moar unhinged commentary" , and "Strawman battles: rape is never OK!" . Just in case you think I'm picking on him, here's part of... ]]>

, "Some commentators are still MIA" , "Moar unhinged commentary" , and "Strawman battles: rape is never OK!" . Just in case you think I'm picking on him, here's part of his last post of 2023 "Inflection Point 2023" by Scott H. Greenfield . "[...] the Hamas terrorist attack of October 7th and its ensuing war in Gaza has bubbled up the fundamental differences between a liberal democratic nation and the swell of simplistic authoritarianism of the young. "Others in my position have adopted the woke view of the world, some because they needed the validation that comes from espousing the popular views of progressives, and others because they were never quite as serious as I thought. Or hoped. But how many more marches by the young and unduly passionate who justify terrorism and suddenly find rape and murder acceptable when done by those their tribe tells them to favor?" He's now just going to be part of the "old guard" defending "liberal democracy" from authoritarianism. Who do you see as being on your side? Who is for liberal democracy in the current political climate? Chuck Schumer? You might want to check carefully there. He's certainly on your side in the current phase of the long Israeli war against Palestine, but he can't seriously be said to be a supporter of liberal democracy. He can't seriously be considered non-authoritarian. That goes for pretty much anyone in that party, from Nancy Pelosi on down. I'm almost certain he's not looking for sanity from the leading lights of the Republican party. And he makes sure to mention again that everyone seems to love rape as long it's Jews and/or Israelis being raped. He thinks that these students are protesting for no other reason than to show their support of terrorism against Israelis. He thinks that every last one of them is happy that Israelis were killed and raped and hope that it happens more. Did I perhaps misread what he wrote? Am I not being generous enough to what he thinks? "I never would have believed in my old man head that we would be back to open Jew hatred again. Yet here we are, and tens of thousands of people who would claim the mantle of progress fully embrace the end of Jews. Never in its wildest dreams would Hamas have believed that raping and beheading Jews would turn them into progressive darlings, but here we are." Nope. He's pretty clear. Most progressives hate Jews and love rape and terrorism. Black on white. Want more? He's not done. "Will this cause young progressives to recognize the error of their ideology? Will they realize that their sudden existential concern for Palestinians when they cared nothing about them until it meant they could openly hate Jews." Who hurt him? I mean personally? He used to be so level-headed. Now he's completely derailed. [image]I don't know how he could sanely come to that conclusion, but this is his go-to topic now. He's not letting go. How will he possibly reconcile with anyone outside of a pretty tiny circle of people who are going to agree with that extreme viewpoint? Does he care? Probably not. But this is the slippery slope to grumpy, old, out-of-touch-man territory. He's basically the same as any person who watches FOX News and unquestioningly agrees with their wildest ideas about what's happening. You poor, lost guy. I wish you the best of luck in 2024. ]]> https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=4913 2023-12-26T23:09:53+01:00 https://earthli.com/users/marco

for at least 20 years. When I worked in Chicago a few times for a client, I tried to get up to Evanston to the bar -- Cary's Lounge -- under what is now the studio, but was never able to meet Chuck. I haven't listened to it as religiously this year as other years, but... ]]>

for at least 20 years. When I worked in Chicago a few times for a client, I tried to get up to Evanston to the bar -- Cary's Lounge -- under what is now the studio, but was never able to meet Chuck. I haven't listened to it as religiously this year as other years, but started walking with podcasts a lot more this winter and stumbled on the "best of 2023" series they've got going. It's awesome! Their listeners chose really, really good interviews! They cover all of the hellish topics that we have to address before we're no longer in hell. In no particular order, here are the ones I liked, with some citations to provide context and pique interest. "Best of 2023: The Long Land War / Jo Guldi" "I think it is so vital right now that we embrace the utopianism that was present in the 1940s and 1950s with land redistribution and use it as a way to guide us in this moment when we have a lot of grassroots voices saying we are in trouble. There is a gun to our head, and yet we seem to be in a moment of paralysis, institutional paralyzes where little seems to shift." "Best of 2023: American Agriculture Is about Money, not Food / Alan Guebert" "This system will collapse under its own weight because it's not now and never has, and therefore can't supply what's really required: healthy, vibrant, growing community. Agriculture should be about what it says it's about. It's a compound word: agri-culture. It should be about food communities. When we get away from that, we are slowly getting away from what's sustainable or even regenerative. In the way of rural America, regenerative and sustainable used to be the way those communities grew and the way they supplied the world, especially your neighbors, your local communities with high quality, low cost food. And after, or maybe hopefully before the collapse is complete, we'll get that message." "Best of 2023: Secret Power: Wikileaks and its Enemies / Stefania Maurizi" "At the moment, I'm sure the moment he leaves the European soil, the moment he leaves London, he's gone, Julian Assange is gone. I'm sure the moment he gets extradited to the U. S. is a dead man. Politically, professionally, he's dead." "Best of 2023: Big Pharma Rigs the Game / Julia Rock" "These are the companies that, that at the end of the day have, have provided us with lifesaving treatments like the government funded, government subsidized COVID vaccine. Companies like modern and Pfizer are jacking up prices on it. There's lots of evil stuff happening…It's difficult to hold those two things in our head at the same time." "Best of 2023: "Luxury Emissions" Doom Us All / Christopher Ketcham" "Under Neoliberalism, the poor, the working class, the lower middle classes, THEY all have to practice personal responsibility, you see, but corporations, and the wealthy who are served by corporations, and the wealthy who are subsidized by government in collusion with corporations: not so much personal responsibility, right? So I think we’re just looking at the hypocrisy of the class system, right? So these social obligations apply, you know, to the lower classes, but not to the upper classes." At 32:20, he talks about technophilic solutions to climate change, "Climate change is just one part, one part of the world problematique, which is overshoot, the global overshoot of population and the overshoot of human economies, right? Beyond the biological carrying capacity of Mother Earth. "And so that overshoot, you know, it can be seen in multiple ways: ozone depletion, loss of tropical rain forest and woodlands, the massive and continuing expansion of domesticated land, the massive die-off of wildlife, the domination of the planet by homo sapiens and our domesticated animals, coastal nitrogen expansion, the fisheries fully exploited, biodiversity crash due to, again, the total domination by homo sapiens -- the almost-total domination by homo sapiens -- of the Earth, desertification, soil loss, chemical/nuclear waste, freshwater shortages, and on and on and on. "But, mainstream environmentalists say 'our only problem is climate change; everything else is fine.' Nope, we're not overpopulated, we're not overconsuming, we're not overshooting the limits to growth on planet Earth. No, that's not an issue. "So, instead, what is offered to the public is a bright, creamy, green dream that technology is going to save us. There's literally goes to be a deus ex machina of solar and wind power and lithium-ion batteries that is going to somehow subsidize -- or continue to subsidize -- our profligate lifestyles and our deranged growth system -- our economic and population growth system -- at the same time that we can wean ourselves off of fossil fuels. "These are all lies. But, again, they are widespread lies. And they lies given the imprimatur of authority by major newspapers and major environmental groups." At 34:00 he says (about Extinction Rebellion's announcement that they will no longer be doing as much their "annoying citizens" kind of protests), "What they're ceasing are the preeminently stupid tactics of laying down in highways, pissing off motorists, who are trapped in the techno-industrial system. This is the system we live in. We drive cars. There are motorways. Our public transit has been eviscerated by the trucking industry (at least in the U.S.) There are many communities that are dependent on cars. If you lay down in the street, all you're doing is pissing off average citizens, who might be in your corner." At 1:00:00, he responds to Chuck's question about how we don't discuss climate change in terms of class, "100%. That is the issue that we're not talking about. Remember, there's no classes in the United States, man. We're all equal. It's all equal opportunity. [chuckles] Lies, lies, lies. Yes, absolutely. If we don't address class and the implications of class bifurcation and the extreme inequality and the rule by the wealthy and the oligarchy, we're never going to get to a sustainable society. "As I mentioned earlier, elites are buffered by their money from the negative consequences of environmental change. They will resist altering the system -- the system of growth, the system of capital accumulation, the system of constantly expanding ecological footprint -- they will resist altering that system that has benefitted them so greatly, right up to the very end. "So that, effectively, to change such a society, you've got to rid of the elites. And then we're talking about revolution." "Best of 2023: How Corporations Overthrew Democracy / Claire Provost & Matt Kennard" "The corporation is a devilish economic instrument that has gone out of control. The problem is the instrument itself." This one was informative, but wasn't as full of AHA! moments as the ones above. "Best of 2023: Family Abolition: Capitalism and the Communizing of Care / M.E. O'Brien" I started off not really liking this interview, but warmed up completely when I realized that we're on the same wavelength. They came out so strongly against traditional families that I reacted negatively, thinking "the families and couples I know aren't dysfunctional, and they're all pretty traditional." But, then, I slowly realized that they're not pretty traditional. They live in very traditional communities, but several of the strongest families/couples I know are definitely not "male-dominated". Each partner has their strengths, but only some chores/tasks are traditionally assigned. But that's the point! The point is that my family is healthy and strong because it's not aligned along traditional, capitalistic needs and lines. It's already quite communal. The parts of it that are the least communal are the most dysfunctional, actually. At 23:00, they say, "Private households aren't something we all choose because we're all brainwashed or we can't think of anything better. But we pursue private households -- finding a partner to age with, raising children within a private household -- because that is a necessary survival strategy [sic; should be "tactic"] in racial capitalism. "That in the dynamics of labor markets, state policy, of what it takes to survive and reproduce in the world, we form private households that we're then really dependent on. That the private household is a major dimension of reproduction. "And that we, that in our efforts to form alternative families -- better families, chosen families -- they often end up reproducing many of the problems that we are trying to get away from. "That the contradictions of trying to survive in a capitalist society put tremendous pressures on people, that end up fragmenting chosen relationships, and reproducing all sorts of gender inequality and class inequality within chose family structures, and end up putting a lot of pressure on people, reimposing, in some cases, traditional gender roles." ]]> https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=4898 2023-12-13T22:11:42+01:00 https://earthli.com/users/marco

explains quite well what the subjunctive mood is and how to formulate it. But, it does so in a nearly wholly capitulatory fashion to descriptivism over prescriptivism. It cites example of usage from Twitter FFS, then shows how even F. Scott Fitzgerald used "were" and "was" interchangeably. [image]OK, fine. But, do we really not draw a distinction between "technically correct, but understandable only for those who actually know the language and potentially confusing for those who don't?" and "technically wrong, but understandable to more people who don't know the language, and places the burden of interpretation on the listener or reader, who has to adduce from context that which is not present in the text?" Nope! An official source like Merriam Webster happily prescribes "YOU DO YOU BUDDY" as its official advice for how to write the subjunctive mood. Incredible. I am appalled. Is that not a complete dereliction of duty for a dictionary? Descriptivist trash. We are flying in the direction of a lowest-common-denominator language whose level of expressiveness will be determined by those who demand the least of it. Hooray. Yeah, no. I'm going to die on this hill of grammatical rigor, spouting my sermon in a language become completely incomprehensible to everyone else. As with so much else, Idiocracy saw this coming. [media] Amazing. The video is age-restricted because it uses the word "fag". The same country that can't stop killing thousands of people per day with its war machine -- to say nothing of what it aids and abets with arms sales -- gets its panties in a bunch about the word "fag", whose intent has literally nothing to do with homosexuality in the context in which it was used. Priorities. ]]> https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=4865 2023-11-19T19:02:33+01:00 https://earthli.com/users/marco

writes the following about the allegations against Russell Brand, "The allegations made against him by the Panorama program seem highly credible. They range from sexual harassment to rape. One victim alleged that Brand raped her against a wall of his house. " ... ]]>

writes the following about the allegations against Russell Brand, "The allegations made against him by the Panorama program seem highly credible. They range from sexual harassment to rape. One victim alleged that Brand raped her against a wall of his house. This allegation pertains to 2012. The evidence to support the allegation consists of a text message she sent him telling him following the assault just how frightened she’d been, that ‘no means no’ to which he responded by saying he was ‘very sorry’. In addition, the rape crisis center she went to the next day logged her visit." I can't help but agree that what I've heard of the allegations seems to be credible. It doesn't seem too surprising because Brand has a reputation for sex addiction and "getting around". That gut feeling, though, is tantamount to how we used to prosecute witches. My gut feeling may just be based on wild allegations that I've already internalized without verification from elsewhere. I was never quite able to square this reputation with what Brand says when I've watched his show -- which I haven't done in quite a while, I admit -- or when I've seen him in interviews. He's coherent, well-spoken, and almost overwhelmingly empathetic in his worldview. At any rate, this article is in no way a litigation of Russell Brand's case, one way or another. The rest of this article should in no way be considered to be a judgment or opinion on the details of Brand's specific case. It's more of a musing -- perhaps, a prosecution -- of the current authorial style of lurid hinting and manipulation of circumstantial evidence for ... what? Internet points? I suppose it differs from person to person, but trial-by-media is increasingly the go-to method for punishing the wicked. Perhaps Twitter should introduce an A [1] to be meted out by a public majority. [What is evidence?] I am not a lawyer, but a lot -- if not all -- of the evidence the author listed above does seem to be circumstantial. I am well-aware of how difficult it is to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that sexual harassment or rape has taken place, but that doesn't mean that we should lower our standards of evidence,. Or does it? I think a lot of people think that it does -- especially when it means that you can nail people that you find distasteful. This has been happening more and more lately -- the weaponizing of stigma. It's honestly very hard to know what to believe -- but after the last decade of bullshit stories, I, for one, have become much more careful in believing what I hear from so-called reliable and mainstream sources. Their agenda is not my agenda -- and their agenda colors everything they communicate. The Panorama program is a TV show, with a to-me unknown repute. I can't say what weight I should give to their any evidence they present. Let's assume it's all true, and is as the author laid out. Brand's responding that he's "very sorry" is not necessarily an admission of guilt, He may just have been sorry that he'd so wildly misinterpreted the situation. Even the rape-crisis-center visit is circumstantial, no? What did she do there? Did she report a rape? Did she seek counseling? Did she ask whether they thought she'd been raped? The center's not just there to record rapes, but to counsel women who've been traumatized and to help them process their trauma, whatever may have caused it. This process doesn't always end in corroboration, does it? It is the journalist's job to discover these things before just filling a segment or article with circumstantial evidence, then rounding up. If the center thinks that a person's story doesn't amount to rape, wouldn't it help the person work through what amounted to a combination of horrible circumstance, bad decisions, and others taking advantage [2] and help them avoid them in the future? What is counseling for, if not that? Or is a center like this just considered a rubber-stamp machine to validate the rape claims of every single person who walks through the door? Doesn't it do more damage to an already traumatized person to round their experience up to rape, turning them into a victim, a survivor, where they might have been able to leave the experience behind them instead? Who would such a policy serve? I can't imagine that's the case, so I have to assume that a visit to a rape crisis center implies only that the woman was far more traumatized the day after a "date" than she should have been, but cannot conclude that a rape has occurred. Perhaps with enough circumstantial evidence, it becomes damning evidence, but, again, I am not a lawyer. I'd hope it doesn't work like that. One piece of evidence that, taken alone, amounts to nothing, can be combined with other pieces of similar evidence and, instead of adding several nothings and getting nothing, you get ... something. You get proof...somehow. [Everyone else is a conspiracy theorist] The author continues, "The accusation is a persuasive one, the victim’s account is supported by objective and documented evidence. But for the conspiracy theorist, such persuasive evidence does not speak to the likelihood of Brand’s guilt, instead it speaks to the power of the conspiracy set in motion against him." To counter that, for the conspiracy theorist intent on prosecution, circumstantial evidence becomes "credible" and "persuasive", which gets rounded up to "damning" and "incriminating", and should end in a prison sentence. Anything else is a gross miscarriage of justice that serves as evidence of the patriarchy's chokehold on the system. I don't claim to know anything about Brand's specific case. I don't really care. There are other, far more serious, things to think about, to be perfectly honest. It was just interesting to start skimming an article about how conspiracy theorists can't be convinced by any evidence, in which the author is seemingly convinced by ... any evidence, no matter how circumstantial. The author is clearly putting Brand on trial here. Look at the photo he included of Brand, where he's half-lying on a bed, gazing with what seems to be lasciviously into the camera. I'm sure that wasn't the first picture the author found. He searched for it -- because he was on a mission. With that kind of rigor, you can expect that the evidence lines up nicely. I'm just trying to figure out why more people don't question things when the evidence lines up so nicely? You don't even have to doubt the evidence you've seen -- but maybe you could wonder whether you're seeing only part of the picture? Is it possible you've not seen exonerating evidence? [Maybe sit this one out?] And that, in a nutshell, is what actual trials are for. Even when a case does go to trial, you still sometimes have people being railroaded into a conviction, with suppressed evidence galore. In this case, Brand's history of sex addiction should have nothing to do with the case at hand, but would almost definitely be used to prime a jury anyway. It might even be salient. As I said, I am not a lawyer, and know what I know of law in the U.S. from TV shows and books, if I'm honest. Still, the general rule seems to be, if the accused is your friend, you'll stand by them; if the accuser is your friend, you'll stand by them. That's what friends do. Friends nod and agree that everyone at your office a bitch but you. Friends nod and agree that "she was asking for it." It's not always pretty -- it can be quite ugly, in fact -- but that's what friends are for. For better or worse, they lend a sympathetic ear. As for the rest of us, we have no obligation to lean in any direction but where the evidence points us. What's the advantage to you of publicly voicing an opinion on something not even the lawyers know enough about to decide? Still, if you feel we've gotten enough of the picture to have an opinion, go for it. Have an opinion. But don't set the bar too low. You don't need to look like an idiot when it turns out you didn't wait for enough evidence to turn up. You probably don't want to write an entire article about it until you're a bit more certain. Or maybe you do! Maybe you can make a bunch of money casting aspersions. That's good old capitalism for you. [People gonna think what they wanna think] Having enough evidence or not having evidence is sometimes not sufficient to guarantee justice is served. Even if it does go to court, there are so many cases where the evidence didn't hold up, but the accused is still considered to have done whatever they'd been accused of. Even just considering cases involving famous people: Michael Jackson is just assumed to have been a child-diddler, even though he was "exonerated on all 14 counts" . OJ Simpson is still considered by many to have been a murderer, even though he was "exonerated on both counts" . Kevin Spacey still can't get a job and he's the frequent butt of rape jokes on SNL, but he was found "not guilty on 12 counts against him" . Matt Gaetz, too, is the frequent butt of jokes about raping minors, but "charges have never even been brought against him" . You may have your opinions about whether these people purchased influence or cheated at trial. That's fine. But you're being a conspiracy theorist. You believe that there was a conspiracy to hijack the courts of the U.S. to render injustice. If you think "corruption" every time you don't get the conviction you want, and think the courts are great when they decide "your way", then you have no faith in the justice system. You should own that and consider its implications. There are further implications if you prefer evidence-free trials-by-social-media to a sometimes-broken, but official criminal-justice system. As for non-famous people, check out the "Innocence Project" for a list of people who are on death row after having been railroaded through sentencing and often spent decades in prison for crimes they didn't commit -- and which the police and prosecution knew they hadn't committed, but they needed a warm body -- just waiting for the state to murder them. [But a kook believes me!] "In a well-researched and vigorous piece, the Guardian journalist George Monbiot scrutinizes these kinds of claims." Look, I liked Monbiot's book "Heat" , but in the thirteen intervening years since I've read it, I've found him to be increasingly unreadable. He's unhinged and makes wild accusations, kind of like Russell Brand, to be honest. I consider neither one of them to be reliable sources because they see demons everywhere. I only noticed at the end that Tony McKenna (the author whose article I've cited) wrote a 13-page piece about Russell Brand -- and he can't even spell his name correctly. How seriously should I even take this kind of tripe? [image]I wish these people could see the irony of them accusing someone of being a conspiracy theorist, all the while writing long screeds about other conspiracy theorists' inability to admit to the allegations against them, while citing other conspiracy theorists, and while not even spellchecking the name of the target of their derision. Ah, but one never thinks of oneself as a conspiracy theorist, nor of one's sources. Hell, I'm probably guilty of this sometimes -- or maybe even all the time! How would I know?! Hell, I might even be doing it right now. 🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️ -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- [1] I highlighted that letter with HTML code, but probably social media would land on using 🅰️, even though it's not a "scarlet letter" -- it's a scarlet background with a white letter. In this way, it would fit perfectly with people constantly using the Swiss flag 🇨🇭 to indicate the Red Cross ⛑ (See? Even the emoji that comes up when I type "red cross" is a red hat with a white cross.) [1] Please note that the sentence starts off with the supposition that the center had determined that what had happened didn't fit the legal definition of rape, in which case the reasons for what actually happened are even more hypothetical. ]]> https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=4817 2023-10-25T22:23:48+02:00 https://earthli.com/users/marco

. What an incredible "crash blossom" . The author used one hyphen but more punctuation would have been better. How about: Original Vacuum suction-mounted wireless TV zip lines off faulty walls to ... ]]>

. What an incredible "crash blossom" . The author used one hyphen but more punctuation would have been better. How about: Original Vacuum suction-mounted wireless TV zip lines off faulty walls to safety Add punctuation Vacuum-suction-mounted, wireless TV zip-lines off faulty walls to safety. Remove redundancy Vacuum-Suction-mounted, wireless TV zip-lines off faulty walls to safety. Restore phrase Suction-mounted, wireless TV zip-lines to safety off faulty walls to safety. Use preposition Suction-mounted, wireless TV zip-lines to safety from faulty walls. Precise condition Suction-mounted, wireless TV zip-lines to safety if wall fails. ]]> https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=4797 2023-09-23T21:58:14+02:00 https://earthli.com/users/marco

is quite an interesting discussion, which ranged over some absolutely terrible characterizations of what the concerns of so-called right-wingers are, as well as seemingly obstinately refusing to acknowledge the modern-day use of the... ]]>

is quite an interesting discussion, which ranged over some absolutely terrible characterizations of what the concerns of so-called right-wingers are, as well as seemingly obstinately refusing to acknowledge the modern-day use of the word snowflake, instead clinging to a 19th-century definition, as well as completely misdefining the Dunning-Kruger Effect, and misusing "strawman argument" for good measure. Then he uses the phrase "fractaling forward", which I don't understand what that even means. Still, he makes an interesting point about the categories we currently use to delineate genders and sexual preference being arbitrary. That is, just because we've had certain categories for 100 years doesn't lend them any scientific verisimilitude. The conditions that led to the current list of categories were diverse, and kind of arbitrary. Intervening research has been largely ignored, largely for wholly unscientific and arbitrary reasons. At about 35:00. Hugh says, "Suddenly we have to break apart the queer idea of the 19th century, which was generally called 'the invert', which was kind of like the idea of what we think of trans and intersex mixed together. Well, now we know that there are people who desire other people of the same sex who are not trans or intersex. So, sexologists freak out, and they start to define all of these different categories. We end up picking out lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex as the ones we'll move forward with, but these people are also defining things like 'the identity of the woman who likes to be sexually aroused with hatpins.' That was considered a standalone identity. Pickpockets in the nineteen-teens were considered a biological class the way we might think about homosexuals. Right?" Now, your instinct might be to say, 'yeah, but that was stupid. We know better now." Do we, though? Are we sure we've got it all right now? That we've accounted for all of the nuance of human experience with our handful of categories? I'm not saying we put litterboxes into classrooms -- because nobody shits in the classrom, you goddamned idiots, whether you identify as a cat or a human. No shitting in the classroom. A relatively easy rule to impose, I would say. So, Hugh's point is that this has all happened before, and that it was all bullshit based on prejudices and arbitrary choices before -- and that's all it is this time. Humans love to make arbitrary choices for no known rhyme or reason -- or for spectacularly stupid, petty, or racist/discriminatory reasons -- and then completely forget that they've done so. Stir, wait a few decades, and everyone is utterly convinced that it wouldn't be the way that it is without good reason. Which takes us to pronouns and identifies and sexual/gender identification. Look, science is screaming from its desk that there are only two genders as far as gametes are concerned. There are people who are both genders. There are people who don't feel like either gender. There are people who have the biological equipment for one gender, but are genetically the other gender. It's not like it happens all the time, but it can happen. There are people who are one biological gender, but absolutely feel like the other one. Leave them all be. Honestly, there are so many ways to be an awful human being and huge detriment to society -- and absolutely none of those things listed above are any of those ways. If the worst thing you can find about a person is that they are acting like other than their biological gender, then you've found an incredibly good person. For Christ's sake. If a person looks very much like a man to you and they ask to be addressed as "she" and "her", then you be polite and do your best to accommodate them. Their job is to not jump down your throat if you don't get it right the first few times. It's just as if someone named Robert asks to be called "Rob" or "Bob" -- if you keep calling them Robert, you're just being an asshole. Or you don't care what they think. That's a perfectly good reason to not call people by the monikers they prefer -- but be aware that you're burning bridges. So, we have to clean up some terminology and we have to make sure the people do stay focused on solving actual societal problems -- instead of focusing all of their energy on helping trans or intersex people and then calling it a day, which is also not cool because we really do have a list of things to do, in priority order, and it would be absolutely awesome if helping a handful of people and children feel more at home in their own skins were at the top of the list, but it's just not. It's just not even close. Just in the same price range, there are children who are hungry every damned day and we're not doing enough yet to make sure they're fed, to say nothing of whether they feel OK in their own heads. They can't think straight because they're hungry. Let's solve that one and then see how they feel. They'll probably feel that they'd like fresh air and fresh water and less climate change and a fuckload fewer billionaires sucking all of the value out of humanity like an engorged tick. So, yeah, priorities. But I'm getting off course again here. Even with cleaning up terminology: this is not the first time we're dealing with pronouns, FFS. Most of the people complaining about pronouns barely even know what one is -- and they're not even close to mentally equipped to examine the linguistic environment that we already inhabit and notice that there already is a framework of pronouns and titles, some of which is based on biological gender, and some of which is just cultural baggage. There are languages that don't recognize gender as much as English -- e.g., Turkish -- and there are others that have a neutral form -- e.g., German and Russian -- and those are languages that are relatively close to the European family of languages. I have no idea what's going on in Hindi, Thai, Vietnamese, Chinese, Japanese, or any of the thousands of other languages used on this planet. What I'm saying is that there is no God-given way of addressing someone. There is only the way that that person prefers to be addressed. In programming circles that don't suck, people are incredibly concerned with making forms that stop asking for "first name" and "last name" because it's incredibly culturally myopic. It barely even works in Europe anymore, to say nothing of the rest of the world. Instead, you should just ask for a person's "official name" -- where they fill out as many names as they want -- and their "preferred name" -- where they, again, fill out as many names as they want. In fact, we still have so many forms that ask for gender -- MALE or FEMALE PLEASE -- or that ask for title, chosen from a dropdown list -- Mr., Ms., Mrs., etc. -- because everyone has one of those, right? What about Dr.? What about someone who doesn't want to reveal their marital status with their name? Oh, then use "Ms.". What if you're a guy? Oh, then just ... use "Mr." What about if you're a woman who identifies as a guy? Oh, FUCK IT, just stop asking for that information. [image] Hell, we still have standardized tests that ask for "race". Yikes. When I took the SAT, I told them I was a "Pacific Islander" because I knew, even then, that it absolutely does not matter. Honestly, we're past it and it never mattered in the first place. It only mattered as long as we had laws that discriminated against certain genders, skin colors, races, countries of origin, marital statuses, etc.. Now that we've cleared out a bunch of that juristic detritus, we're faced with the possibility of just building a set of rules that make sense [1], rather than whatever bullshit we've cargo-culted from our more overtly colonial age. [2] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- [1] I am aware, of course, that I am being wildly optimistic here. It's utterly naive to think that anything important could ever be regulated by common sense. [1] C'mon, we're still an empire with colonies everywhere we can grab them, but we pretend that we're not. I don't think it's the first step toward getting rid of the empire, but it's at least an acknowledgment that you can no longer just put your boot on someone's neck and call it day, knowing that the escalator to the heavenly ever-after is ready to carry your moral and principled ass upward. No, now we know that empires are an immoral thing, but we also know that they are an incredibly lucrative thing, so we continue to have an empire, but pretend that we do not. I have no idea what my point is, just that we've been forced to put some effort into hiding something that we used to be inordinately proud of. This may very well be a local maximum, as, now that it's hidden, the U.S. empire is a cancer that will almost certainly be much more difficult to excise from the body of humanity -- because no-one even knows that it's a problem. ]]> https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=4772 2023-08-27T03:41:34+02:00 https://earthli.com/users/marco

https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=4775 2023-08-27T03:04:39+02:00 https://earthli.com/users/marco

https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=4735 2023-05-14T00:25:55+02:00 https://earthli.com/users/marco

https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=4725 2023-05-07T07:39:49+02:00 https://earthli.com/users/marco

described something I'd been only vaguely aware of. "Most deepfake videos are of female celebrities, but creators now also offer to make videos of anyone. A creator offered on Discord to make a" ... ]]>

described something I'd been only vaguely aware of. "Most deepfake videos are of female celebrities, but creators now also offer to make videos of anyone. A creator offered on Discord to make a 5-minute deepfake of a “personal girl,” meaning anyone with fewer than 2 million Instagram followers, for $65." Customized porn of anyone is novel to me. I'd never read it hypothesized in any of the incredible multitude of stories . [image]Jesus, it's one thing for a celebrity like Scarlett Johansson, but can you imagine if schoolteachers have to worry about their students viewing them through the lens of the hardcore pornography they've been faked into? The boys and girls pool their money and get Ms. Jenkins on her own highlight reel. An AI facilitates the whole operation. Everyone knows that this can't be stopped. They will try. They will shut down access for everyone, they will make up sweeping rules that are far too broad, that stifle reasonable expression and creativity. But they will try to stop this from happening -- and it absolutely cannot, not without turning society into an authoritarian hellscape. And, even then, they will find a way, they will just have been criminalized for doing what they absolutely are going to find a way to do, which is to see Ms. Jenkins engaged in enthusiastic intercourse. And you might say, well, Ms. Jenkins should have known what she was getting into because she's a middle-school 8 or 9 and she became a teacher anyway. But this also means that anyone can make porn of anyone. Maybe if they have more video, it helps make it more convincing, but even if they only have a picture or two, have a look online to see how well they can make that picture match up to an animated face or the face in a video. People who don't look too carefully will believe it. And someone will pay to make it because someone will think it's hilarious. "“More and more people are targeted,” said Martin, who was targeted with deepfake sexual abuse herself. “We’ll actually hear a lot more victims of this who are ordinary people, everyday people, who are being targeted.”" Can you imagine a job interview where the interviewer has watched fake porn of the interviewee, but they would naturally have their opinion influenced despite knowing it's fake. Porn is embarrassing, but can be explained away as too "ridiculous" to be true, but what about faking mugshots or arrests or trials? How long until there's a service for people to torpedo rivals by generating FUD that HR will believe, or that HR AI will believe? Powerful tools. Completely irresponsible herd into which they're being released. "“It’s not a porn site. It’s a predatory website that doesn’t rely on the consent of the people on the actual website,” Martin said about MrDeepFakes. “The fact that it’s even allowed to operate and is known is a complete indictment of every regulator in the space, of all law enforcement, of the entire system, that this is even allowed to exist.”" I understand the angry reaction, but I don't think regulation can possibly stop this. I think people will have to get less sensitive and society has to be less trusting that all content is real. Maybe a "Light of Other Days" quantum leap is needed. We kind of have this already with ubiquitous public filming and facial recognition. We tried to avoid it, but the relentless march of authoritarianism coupled with purely-for-profit capitalism has created surveillance states everywhere that they can afford them. Or maybe a de-pruding of society is needed, where nobody cares if you've done porn just like nobody cares if you've played softball. "Martin successfully campaigned to outlaw nonconsensual deepfakes and image-based sexual abuse, but, she said, law enforcement and regulators are limited by jurisdiction, because the deepfakes can be made and published online from anywhere in the world." You won't be able to stop this unfortunately. Only an ethical increase in the worldwide population would devalue this business model, whereby people would refuse to consume faked data, which obviously isn't going to happen. Maybe we'll get something like organic-content labels? ]]> https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=4731 2023-05-07T07:22:58+02:00 https://earthli.com/users/marco

https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=4721 2023-04-16T12:15:58+02:00 https://earthli.com/users/marco

https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=4649 2023-01-09T22:34:58+01:00 https://earthli.com/users/marco

https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=4560 2022-12-10T11:10:06+01:00 https://earthli.com/users/marco

https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=4595 2022-12-04T22:43:17+01:00 https://earthli.com/users/marco

https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=4599 2022-12-04T22:37:43+01:00 https://earthli.com/users/marco

quite well. As a few colleagues with whom I've spoken about what I do have said: "that sounds like much more than"... ]]>

quite well. As a few colleagues with whom I've spoken about what I do have said: "that sounds like much more than standard DevOps." My job certainly is more than what most people would consider to be standard DevOps -- but I think that might be because most people think of the implementors of DevOps rather than the designers or architects of it. My role is very much about helping departments and teams figure out how they can integrate, benefit from, and leverage the services available from DevOps and the synergies they get from working more openly and more closely with other teams. [The Position Description] I've highlighted a few of the phrases that stuck out to me as especially relevant for what I do, but also perhaps not what people typically think of when they think of the DevOps role. [The perfect candidate] The position we are looking for is a DevOps Engineer with a deep understanding of CI/CD, automation, source control systems, packaging and deployments. [...] The software in this area is written in C#/C++, therefore being able to read and understand code is needed. The candidate has to be communicative, engaged and shall be able to drive individual tasks to successful completion. [Tasks & Responsibilities] * Independent delivery of complex, broadly defined DevOps assignments Specification, planning, implementation, testing, and documentation of these assignments and drafting/definition of tasks for others * Independent planning and implementation of complex internal and external sub-projects by involving several employees, or responsible for an area of technological activity * Executes with high accountability to schedule and quality * Participates actively in detailed design, code reviews, bug/issue triage, and supports well-informed decisions towards business and engineering goals * Review expert for other project groups * Internal and external knowledge transfer * Defines overarching concepts for the entire product area * Responsible for driving new technology inputs in the projects [Must Haves] * Min. Bachelor degree in Computer Sciences or similar * Min. 5+ years of experience as DevOps Engineer, preferred in [a] regulated industry * Hands-on experience of DevOps, CI/CD, automation (pipeline, infrastructure), source control systems, packaging and deployment * Hands-on experience and strong knowledge of Docker and GIT * C# experience from the last two years (recently) * Experience in Microsoft Azure DevOps, Kubernetes, LxC and LxD / IaC, Linux experience (Debian or Ubuntu) and Debian packaging and Debian configuration management * Fluency in English (spoken and written) * Proactive personality * Solution-oriented and ability to work in a team ]]> https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=4580 2022-11-06T22:18:06+01:00 https://earthli.com/users/marco

recounts some horrifying behavior on the part of the people tasked with patrolling the EU borders, especially the southern maritime border in the Mediterranean. According to a surviving witness, "[...] the waves were" ... ]]>

recounts some horrifying behavior on the part of the people tasked with patrolling the EU borders, especially the southern maritime border in the Mediterranean. According to a surviving witness, "[...] the waves were generated deliberately, thrown up by the maneuvering wake of a Greek coast guard boat at the borders of the European Union (EU). “They intended to kill us,” says Jeancy. Even in the most generous interpretation, the coast guards were indifferent to the deadly danger their actions posed to the men, women, children, and baby on board the dinghy. Jeancy recalls the guards watching in amusement as his friends drowned. Their laughter may have been the last thing he heard. The guards made no attempt to retrieve the body." The survivors were packed into a dinghy with nearly no maneuverability and basically left to die on the high seas. After having been abandoned by the Greeks (the EU), they were eventually rescued by Turkey. It shouldn't be surprising that this happens, of course. It's far, far away from view. Europe is an oasis of wealth amid a desert of inhospitable climates, of regions on which the scars of colonialism, far from having faded, still glow lividly. The article "Roaming Charges: Up in Smoke, Down in Mirrors" by Jeffrey St. Clair writes, "Meanwhile, Bangladesh suffered its worst blackout in 8 years, when half of the country (nearly 100 million people) lost power. The country, like Pakistan and India, has been struggling to import enough LNG to keep its power plants running, after getting priced out by European nations." Small wonder that people want to flee wherever they live and go to Europe, a place whose propaganda about being a bastion of moral rectitude had well-preceded it. Not only that, but Europe is also the place that continues to "price out" nations on essential supplies, like food and energy. You can either get angry about it and try to get them to stop doing it -- leaving your own country without food and electricity -- or you can just accept that that's how it's going to be, and try to go live where the bounty of wealth is. It's piracy, pure and simple. You can call it the globalized market, if you like. You can pretend that it's fair to have countries with vastly different buying power all competing for the same resources in the same market. But it's not. The countries with the most buying power have that buying power because of all of the resources that they stole from those who have little buying power. This is the way of the world and so has it always been. ]]> https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=4597 2022-11-06T21:39:46+01:00 https://earthli.com/users/marco

. That post is pretty short and includes the following plea, "There is still a slim chance that this disaster can be staved off but, even if it isn’t, it will be a shameful memory to have abstained, or voted for a third party with no chance, in this last real election. That’s true whether the decision is out of laziness, hopelessness or a pseudo-left (in reality, aristocratic) view that both sides are equally bad. If you fall into one of these categories, (or if you actually want a Trumpist dictatorship), please don’t comment on this post, or interact with me in any way from now on." This "dude" is not even American. He's Australian. His panties are bunched up so tight about anyone who disagrees with him about the futility of voting in America that he's willing to just burn them all. You do you, John Quiggin, but Australia has more than enough problems of its own that you could focus on before you start castigating any American who doesn't vote or votes wrong. His use of the phrase "this last real election" means that the poor guy has probably been inundated with emails and tweets and other propaganda from the ruling party about the absolutely dire state of democracy. Sure, sure. I've heard it all before. It is absolutely breathtaking when, in a two-party system, one party declares that their loss would mean the end of the whole system. And people like this chump Quiggin swallow it hook, line, and sinker and then start yelling at all of their friends and readers. Honestly? I would welcome an end to the system as it is now. It's not been a democracy for a long time, if you've actually been paying attention. Citizens United was the nail in the coffin, but it was a long time coming. Quiggin's just an Australian economist, a dilettante who dabbles in American politics and thinks he knows what's actually going on. A vote for either party is a vote for the continued corporate rule. Neither one of the parties seems to believe that the populace can influence their power in any real way. [Not understanding what democracy is] He ended with, "Everyone in the world will be affected by the end of American democracy, but the great majority of us have no vote. All we can do is appeal to those who do to make the right choice, as I am doing here." There is no right choice, you dipshit. That's the problem. You've told us that we're not allowed to hate both parties and we're not allowed to even try to vote for a third party because we have to destroy democracy in order to save it [1] and because now's not the time. It never is, is it? That's how those two shitty, shitty, shitty parties remain in power. Quiggin screams about "voting for democracy (please!)" then orders people how to vote. Because he's not self-aware, he then accuses anyone with an alternate opinion of being "aristocratic", a glorious hypocrisy and case of pot-calling-the-kettle-black at the same time. For good measure, he then tells everyone that in his democratic world, he's not even willing to listen to anyone with a different opinion. An Australian ordering Americans to vote a certain way in order to save democracy -- NO DISCUSSION -- is deliciously ironic. Even more so because "shut up. your opinion doesn't matter. do what I say" is exactly the attitude that got us into this mess in the first place. It's not going to work particularly well on anyone I know in America. It tends to make them vote the other way, really. [What did I do?] I decided not to vote in the midterms for the first time in as long as I can remember because I had the choice between an absolute criminal of a Democrat and two Republican idiots. I decided that my vote wasn't worth the price of a stamp from Switzerland. I vote in New York State. I suppose Mr. Quiggin above simply cannot understand how I would be unable to bring myself to vote for Chuck Fucking Schumer. [What are the choices?] The country could go in two directions: One is, possibly, toward a less-democratic future, but it remains to be seen if what the Republicans campaign on is what the Republicans do. They rarely have before. Instead, they're more likely to increase corporatization of the state, which is quite a coincidence, considering their competition. The other direction is whatever Chuck Schumer's agenda is, which is the increased corporatization of the state. He campaigns on something completely different, like anti-racism and rainbows and sunshine -- or, more recently, just anti-Republican -- but he's laser-like focused on helping the rich get richer. He always has been. I honestly don't know how he's not a Republican. He's almost certainly delighted that Netanyahu is back in Israel. Also, he'd just love to start another war in Iran. And Taiwan. But, yeah, Quiggin, you're right. You, as an Australian, know better than any American how to handle this situation. You order everyone you know to vote Democrat or you'll never speak to them again. It must be nice being your friend. [What could you do?] People of America: vote your hearts. Your (0ur) country has been fucked up for such a long time and has been going in the wrong direction for such a long time, that there's really no saving it as it is currently constructed. The silver lining here is that you also can't really make anything worse. It's honestly hard to imagine how incremental change would bring about the necessary course correction. Maybe a horrific intermezzo of Republican Ayatollahs is what it will take to wake people up. Who the fuck knows? I've been wrestling with that question for decades. I don't have any simple answers, unlike Australian economics professors. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Not an hour after I posted this, I saw the article "The Politicians Who Destroyed Our Democracy Want Us to Vote for Them to Save It" by Chris Hedges , which sums itself up as, "We should have walked out on the Democratic Party and mounted a serious opposition movement while we still had a chance." ...and... "The bipartisan project of dismantling our democracy, which took place over the last few decades on behalf of corporations and the rich, has left only the outward shell of democracy. The courts, legislative bodies, the executive branch and the media, including public broadcasting, are captive to corporate power. There is no institution left that can be considered authentically democratic. The corporate coup d’état is over. They won. We lost." ...and... "This puts liberals in a terrible bind. They have every right to fear the far right. All the dark scenarios are correct. But by backing Biden and the ruling corporate party, they ensure their political irrelevance." ]]> https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=4582 2022-10-16T18:51:08+02:00 https://earthli.com/users/marco

describes a "a single sentence of seven morphosyllables spoken in seven different ways according to what"... ]]>

describes a "a single sentence of seven morphosyllables spoken in seven different ways according to what the speaker wishes to emphasize." "Wǒ méi shuō tā tōu wǒ qián. "我沒說她偷我錢。 ""I didn't say that she stole my money"." The article lists all of the ways that you can change stress in Chinese and create a different meaning. He rewords the English sentence and indicates the stress word in English as well. However, the stressing in English can be applied to the original sentence without changing it at all. Read the sentences out loud or in your head with stress on the bold word. The first version is unstressed and neutral, simply expressing a single thought. The subsequent sentences prioritize a different meaning by stressing a word. * I didn't say that she stole my money. * I didn't say that she stole my money. (someone else said it) * I didn't say that she stole my money. (I indicated it some other way) * I didn't say that she stole my money. (someone else stole my money) * I didn't say that she stole my money. (she did something else with my money) * I didn't say that she stole my money. (she stole someone else's money) * I didn't say that she stole my money. (she stole something else) Huh. Seven different meanings, all without changing a single letter. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- [1] I do not speak Chinese in any way whatsoever. ]]> https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=4568 2022-09-16T16:34:16+02:00 https://earthli.com/users/marco

contains a perfect example of the quality of reporting you get when someone reports on a country they know little about. "According to the Swiss newspaper Blick, those who violate the 66 degree heating limit could face as many as three years in prison!" ... ]]>

contains a perfect example of the quality of reporting you get when someone reports on a country they know little about. "According to the Swiss newspaper Blick, those who violate the 66 degree heating limit could face as many as three years in prison!" The Blick is about as reliable as The New York Post: sometimes, but not nearly always. There is no prison sentence for heating your apartment. He gets all wound up: "Prison time for heating your home? In the “free” world? How is it possible in 2022, when Switzerland and the rest of the political west have achieved the greatest economic success in history, that the European continent faces a winter like something out of the dark ages?" And we're off to the races. I can't wait for my father-in-law to ask me about how many sweaters I'm wearing at home to avoid going to prison. ]]> https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=4511 2022-05-29T22:16:59+02:00 https://earthli.com/users/marco

shows a group of tween or teen girls assaulting a mascot at a theme park by dousing them with water. A friend sent it to me in a group chat. I wrote back: I would have to work much harder than I’m willing to do right now to express... ]]>

shows a group of tween or teen girls assaulting a mascot at a theme park by dousing them with water. A friend sent it to me in a group chat. I wrote back: I would have to work much harder than I’m willing to do right now to express my disdain for nearly everyone in that video. Those girls with their stupid phones in the air, each starring in their own movie, are just older versions of the 8- or 9-year-old kid I saw on the train yesterday, listening to a Japanese anime cartoon synchronized in German, without headphones, just on for the whole train to hear, slouched in his seat with a bag of chips open to his side, shoving a handful in every few seconds, loudly crunching and smacking, mouth never fully closing, oblivious to the world, oversized baseball cap crushed over greasy hair. Across from him sat a teen-aged version who was bent nearly double over his phone, watching a footie match. At least he had headphones in. My only solace was the wide smile and fervent head-nod I got from the African guy sitting across from me as I told my friend in a combination of English and Swiss-German about how scenes like that always bring the phrase and movie “Decline and Fall of Western Civilization” to mind. My wife would have defenestrated the little one without blinking an eye. ]]> https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=4497 2022-05-29T22:09:01+02:00 https://earthli.com/users/marco

https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=4500 2022-05-03T22:39:19+02:00 https://earthli.com/users/marco

for more details. "Regardless of what you might think about either publication’s output — like any publication, a reasonable reader will find pieces at both that they agree and disagree with — this is a frightening attack on press freedoms. Faceless tech bureaucrats have unilaterally cut two serious independent media outlets off from a vital source of funding with no prior warning, no ability to appeal, and no explanation besides a vague reference to “potential risk,” all at a time when critical debate about the most dangerous conflict in most Americans’ lifetimes is being stifled in a climate of fear and repression." The article "PayPal’s IndyMedia Wipeout" by Matt Taibbi covers the same issue. "Adley believes the chief crime of MintPress is that it exists as an alternative to monolithic messaging surrounding issues like Ukraine. Moreover, she believes it’s in trouble with PayPal not for being false, but precisely for printing true uncomfortable things, like McLeod’s NATO-to-TikTok story, or Dan Cohen’s recent piece about the 150-odd Western public relations firms working with Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry. Several of these MintPress pieces about Ukraine have gone viral in recent weeks.""All of this is going on at a time when the Biden administration just announced the formation of a dystopian “Disinformation Governance Board,” preposterously headed by a bubbly former Kennan Institute fellow, Nina “The Singing Neoliberal” Jankowicz. In a detail Jonathan Swift couldn’t have written better, Jankowicz — who once cited the author of the greatest news hoax of our generation, Christopher Steele, as an expert on the “evolution of disinfo” — last year put out a video of herself as the “Mary Poppins of Disinformation.” In it, she sang a variation of “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious” [...]" ]]> https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=4451 2022-02-25T21:59:43+01:00 https://earthli.com/users/marco

, the Opera is made for viewing via video: "Even more significant is the fact that the director employed pioneering multimedia technology to bring the" ... ]]>

, the Opera is made for viewing via video: "Even more significant is the fact that the director employed pioneering multimedia technology to bring the topicality of Verdi’s Macbeth to life and turn it into an inspiring experience for millions via cinema and television outlets." In fact, they claim that video is better: "Only the “distant” audience is up close when Lady Macbeth celebrates her successful murder plot with a vulgar jig in a lift, or when she sneeringly looks down on those assembled at the bottom from a dizzy height. The audience at La Scala in Milan, on the other hand is restricted to what they can see from their seats." The whole show is available from Arte here, "Giuseppe Verdi: Macbeth: Saisoneröffnung der Mailänder Scala" (German and French). [image] ]]> https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=4452 2022-02-22T08:13:06+01:00 https://earthli.com/users/marco

https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=4413 2022-01-04T17:29:17+01:00 https://earthli.com/users/marco

suggests that the BBC's standards are perhaps not what they used to be. I read through the article, but it contains nothing but unsourced conjecture and anecdotes. There's "Social posts show", "numerous complaints on"... ]]>

suggests that the BBC's standards are perhaps not what they used to be. I read through the article, but it contains nothing but unsourced conjecture and anecdotes. There's "Social posts show", "numerous complaints on social media", and "One video showed a resident appearing to [...]" It's not that I don't believe that this is happening to at least some degree. Of course not. In a city of 13 million, anything and everything will happen. It's that I would have hoped that the BBC would actually hunt down some leads instead of just publishing a bunch of conjecture from the Internet, where we all know that everything is fake until proven real. The only source they've named is Radio Free Asia, which is laughable, as it's a CIA cutout. It was built by the CIA and there are no signs that they are no longer associated with them. See this 45-year-old article in the NY Times called "Worldwide Propaganda Network Built by the C.I.A." . They didn't really pull punches in 1977, I guess. I'm more sad at how poorly written this BBC article is. For example, "Netizens were also shocked by an unverified post that went viral on Monday. A Xi'an resident said their father had died after he suffered a heart attack and was turned away from a hospital due to the city's Covid situation. The hospital has yet to respond." Netizens ... which ones? Twitter? Or Weibo? Netzikens are always shocked. That's their jam. "The hospital has yet to respond" to an unsourced and evidence-free allegation. That is not surprising, unless you've become accustomed to any entity having to "spin" its way out of crises manufactured by nigh-professional shit-stirrers online who'll do anything to "get a rise" and pump their own numbers. I am not accusing this resident of having done that; I don't even accept that the resident has to exist in order to manufacture this "quote". I'm accusing those who run with it for clicks (e.g. the BBC). Or look at this sentence: "China has been wedded to this approach since the beginning because it's likely the leaders from Xi Jinping down consider anything less would cause illness and death on a scale that would be politically, economically and socially unacceptable." That's just an awful, nearly incomprehensible sentence. Commas, please! It seems to be trying very hard to make it seem like a policy of not allowing "illness and death" is a bad thing that is only politically motivated? Or this one, "There is a broad acceptance of this approach, and the stringent restrictions it can bring, among many Chinese who for decades have not felt they can rely much on the public health system. So illness and the prospect of losing your job, let alone your life, are existentially daunting." If you've going to use run-on sentences, at least use some commas, for God's sake. Or put them in places that would be meaningful rather than scattered around like parsley flakes. Again with this sentence, it seems to be saying that the Chinese people never trusted their health-care system, but now they do? Or what? There is a "broad acceptance" of China's COVID policy despite existential fear of the health system otherwise? I don't get it. How is having a job tied to a public health system? Did the author confuse China and the U.S.? It's all quite difficult to follow. ]]> https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=4412 2022-01-02T11:39:44+01:00 https://earthli.com/users/marco

There are already far too many of them. [image] ]]> https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=4411 2022-01-01T12:12:30+01:00 https://earthli.com/users/marco

... ]]>

is intended as satire, but as with all satire, there is supposed to be an underlying truth to it. That's what give satire its bite. In one way, this take is kind of funny, ""2021 was just the worst," said Marley Buchanan while sipping on organic chai tea and munching on fish tacos he had summoned to his house in only 15 minutes using a pocket-sized supercomputer. "It was just a horrible, horrible year. My anxiety disorder and depression have never been worse. I have to see my therapist 3 times a week now." " One thing to note is that someone's internal trauma is real to them. Psychosomatic effects are real to the people to which they're happening. They may look ludicrously self-imposed to an outside observer, but saying that doesn't make the problem magically go away for the other person. "Suck it up, buttercup" is a perfectly appropriate response for a single instance, but when a large proportion of people seem dissatisfied or disappointed with a system, despite the system's protestations about how awesome things are, then it's time to take their complaints seriously. Maybe it's just a case of marketing, of people not being able to see how far the Overton Window has shifted on what they expect from life, but maybe its an intrinsic problem with society and how it functions on a base level (spoiler alert: it is). "Studies have found that lifespans are longer, quality of life is better, infant mortality is lower, air travel is safer, war and violence is lower, and food is more delicious than at any time in mankind's history. In spite of these and many other amazing facts, humans seem to be getting more miserable." It would be funnier if these things were actually true -- because otherwise this kind of satire risks sliding into the same part of town as propaganda. It's interesting how this citation comes from a satire article, but it could have just as well come from the official press release of an authoritarian state. In reality, lifespans in the U.S. (and several other countries) are shorter for the first time in a very long time, infant mortality in the U.S. is shockingly bad relative to the amount of money that is poured into the health-care system there -- and considering how many resources and how much wealth the U.S. arrogates from the rest of the world. It seems that we're wasting it on ... something? Perhaps the money-funnel that benefits the 1%? War and violence is lower overall (I guess? Those numbers probably don't include economic war), but there is still so much unnecessary war, especially waged by or supported by the U.S. It's not that it's not lower than in e.g. the 20th century, but that we shouldn't break our arm patting ourselves on the back when we've basically done the bare minimum and it could be even more way lower if we would stop being such greedy assholes. Those things are provably wrong, so the satire hat sits a little crooked, unfortunately. The suggestion is that people are provably whiny bastards if they're not happy, but it's actually perfectly reasonable to experience a feeling of malaise, to be uncomfortable with how things are going. Hell, even just the phrase "fish tacos he had summoned to his house in only 15 minutes using a pocket-sized supercomputer" sounds superficially utopian, but it's also a reminder that we've killed nearly all of the wild fish, that we have an economy that pushes an underclass into an underpaid army of the "self-employed" that spend each day every day running all over urban centers delivering bullshit no-one needs to their spoiled, overpaid overlords, and that pocket-sized supercomputer is totally amazing, but it's only affordable because it's built with slave labor and its essential materials are stolen from under the poorest nations on Earth. We've obviously expended a tremendous amount of effort and money on things like COVID and haven't got as much to show for it as the receipt would suggest. We're not making any real progress on medium- and long-term planning for climate change. We're still stirring up shit in places in the world where it's wholly unnecessary. There seems to be a lot of wealth and productivity and value, but it all ends up in a very few select pockets. You can really only be happy with how things are going if you're blissfully ignorant of how it's actually going. If you're not dissatisfied, then you're a dupe or a predator or both. People with principles and moral fiber (as, ironically, would be expected of followers of a Christian satire web site) should definitely feel that we didn't do very well at distributing the largesse of a successful society. That it seems that this largesse was created for a select few on the backs of others who do not benefit. That there's a feeling that the way things are going is down the wrong path and, while things are still temporarily awesome for yourself, it's not going to last. This could easily lead to a perfectly justified ennui that seems quite at odds with a superficial luxury. The podcast "WTF Happened in 2021? w/ Thomas Frank" by Useful Idiots has the following summary, which would seem, at first, to fall into the "whining about how awesome things are" trap suggested by the satire article above. But, if you look at the description of the show, it suggests that it is basing its judgment on the ways in which we unnecessarily lost ground on several major and important issues. That is, it laments the time we wasted eating caviar on the deck of the Titanic. "2021 was a shit show [...] So what happened in 2021? Democrats and Republicans definitely both sucked. Covid got better and then a lot worse. Dems didn’t do the one thing to ensure they’d never lose another election. And politics turned from policy to pure culture war. "We go through it all, why it happened, why it sucked, and what it means for 2022." It's not enough for things to be superficially good. That is a distraction to keep you from examining whether the underlying system needs to change. It breeds complacency. So, while some people -- maybe everyone you know, if you're in the right class! -- personally did well, it's not at all spoiled or blind or privileged for them to still consider a year to have been bad for everyone else. It's called empathy. It's called foresight. It's called thinking for yourself. ]]> https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=4404 2021-12-29T10:36:01+01:00 https://earthli.com/users/marco

includes this quote from a reader, "I am now officially: seriously impressed—by your prediction that aliens/space-based lunacy would be the Next Big Thing. [1]" The letter goes on, "But here it is, with timeline included: Home – NetflixThe movie “Don’t Look Up” [2] with a massive all-star cast, including headliner Leonardo DiCaprio, gives the predictive programming [...]" It is unclear why the writer chose to emphasize Leonardo, but it's probably because he's known as an eco-warrior? Because climate-change doesn't exist? I'm not that far into the scene that I can discern every nuance. At any rate, the author seems convinced that this entertainment movie is propaganda by the government to soften up the populace for continued subjugation and that it's "conveniently timed to the midterm elections!" Wait, what? Those elections are over 11 months away. How does that make this movie's release "conveniently timed"? That's the conspiracy mindset, though. Everything's a sign, man. I know that it seems like low-hanging fruit to engage this kind of stuff. It's like shooting fish in a barrel to make it look silly. But it's important to try to understand what makes these theories -- and their promulgators -- tick because we do have to live in a society together. We need to understand them and they need to understand us. We have to make our case to them just as much as they need to make their case to us. For that, we need communication. The first step is to listen to what they're saying. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- [1] I continue to be fascinated by how people communicate with one another, especially in how they use punctuation. The do it like sprinkling salt and pepper into a dish: you're not really concerned with where each individual salt or pepper grain lands, but more that there is enough. That colon between "officially" and "seriously" and the M-dash between "impressed" and "by" cannot really be explained in any other way. [1] This person clearly has no idea what punctuation is for. Either that or it's an AI grasping at the rules. ]]> https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=4350 2021-11-17T22:42:34+01:00 https://earthli.com/users/marco

, I'm currently between jobs. I've been asked a few times, "what do you really want to do?", to which I usually answer, "what don't I want to do?" There are a lot of things I'd like to do that I think would be useful, but for which I'm currently... ]]>

, I'm currently between jobs. I've been asked a few times, "what do you really want to do?", to which I usually answer, "what don't I want to do?" There are a lot of things I'd like to do that I think would be useful, but for which I'm currently unqualified, or only non-officially qualified. I'm a fast learner, but sometimes that's not enough. You have to be able to hit the ground running. There's other stuff for which I'm eminently qualified and for which I have a lot of experience. I've heard about a few of those already. Irons in the fire. Anyway, I usually answer that I'd like to do something useful, something where I can leverage my years of experience and technical expertise to really help a company develop a product or project, where what I can offer is what they're missing, be it in an organizational, architectural, or programming capacity (or all of them). I think there's a huge benefit to knowing why you're building something -- and then making sure that it does those things in an automated, repeatable way. Optimally, I'd like to help save the world or at least make it a better place. I'm currently teaching at a local university, which is a decent start, I guess. A few days ago, I stumbled across this "comment on an article on Ars Technica" by Tofleru : "Currently, I'm a lead engineer on an aviation software project certifying to DO-178C DAL A. (Translation: if our code is buggy, we can lose an aircraft and its occupants.) We document, review, and verify all of our software design and implementation. We test the hell out of it, from high-level integration testing to low-level testing, while achieving 100% statement, branch, complex condition coverage (MCDC). We have 5-20 lines of test code per line of flight code. Expensive, but that's what good life-critical SW costs!" That sounds wonderful. ]]> https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=4356 2021-11-09T08:37:31+01:00 https://earthli.com/users/marco

]]> https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=4308 2021-08-01T12:19:30+02:00 https://earthli.com/users/marco

and stumbled upon a delightful collection of synonyms for "sucker": "chump, dupe, gull, mug [chiefly British], patsy, pigeon, pushover, sap, soft touch, tool" That was just the beginning, though. The related words went on for much longer than I could reasonably have expected: "cat's-paw, mark, target, victim, schlemiel (also shlemiel), butt, derision, laughingstock, mock, mockery, booby, dodo, fool, goose, half-wit, jackass, lunatic, monkey, nincompoop, ninny, nitwit, simp, simpleton, turkey, yo-yo, loser, blockhead, dolt, dope, dumbbell, dummy, dunce, idiot, imbecile, moron, schlub (also shlub) [slang], schlump [slang], schnook [slang]" Wonderful. ]]> https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=4267 2021-05-18T08:55:13+02:00 https://earthli.com/users/marco

. ]]> https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=4225 2021-04-11T23:10:59+02:00 https://earthli.com/users/marco

, which I'd gotten to because it's actually Yasha Levine's SubStack and his wife is sharing it with him. She wrote about Matt Taibbi, "Makes one think about all this cancel culture outrage that you’re manically producing these" ... ]]>

, which I'd gotten to because it's actually Yasha Levine's SubStack and his wife is sharing it with him. She wrote about Matt Taibbi, "Makes one think about all this cancel culture outrage that you’re manically producing these days. You constantly write about how dangerous this new wave of censorship is to art and culture and speech and self-expression, and how stifling it is. But Gogol — your literary hero — proves the exact opposite of your argument: writers have been able to publish radical political novels while under heavy censorship." That's the "art is suffering" argument, I guess? I'm almost certain that the point isn't that we should stop complaining about censorship because Gogol managed to write sublime texts despite censorship -- or is the argument that he was pushed to dizzying heights of sublime prose because of censorship? That it was the barrier of censorship that made him write the way he did? It's possible, I suppose. I wonder how he would have written without censorship? Would his text have been banal and lazy, formulated in the first way that came to mind, rather than squeezed through several tortured filters designed to evade censors, transforming it into a diamond of wit and erudition? Her riposte that "proves the exact opposite" doesn't do that at all. It just shows that censorship isn't total, which no-one is arguing. Perhaps Gogol could have written even better works if he hadn't had to expend so much effort evading the censors. Perhaps there were hundreds of other Gogols lurking in Russia at the time who never wrote a word out of fear. That Gogol existed despite the censors doesn't prove that censors ... are good? I'm honestly not sure what the actual point was of the argument -- other than Matt Taibbi is wrong and I'm the one to point it out to him. She even writes that she started off writing a private mail to him, but then thought it more important for her brilliant takedown be published publicly. Perhaps she did it for the same reason Taibbi published his musings: they both need to feed the content beast -- at least a little bit -- because they have subscribers now. Content that would, in the past, have gone unpublished -- or reconsidered -- is thrown out as a first draft for the world to see. This, in order to keep up "engagement" and online presence. Far better to let it sit for a day or two or a week and see if you still feel that virulently about it. I'm not certain why Evgenia has such an axe to grind with Matt Taibbi -- she writes at the beginning that she signed up for his newsletter. But she immediately accuses him of "manically producing" his topics -- which has, to my ear, negative connotations -- instead of, say, "passionately pursuing", which is, if nothing else, neutral. She calls him "a bourgeois armchair journalist", which is plainly inaccurate, considering how many decades of his career he spent actually on the road being a journalist. If you've read his books, he spends a seemingly inordinate time in courtrooms and not in an armchair. He may be bourgeois, but that's just a snarky way of saying "middle class", which most of us are -- or wish we were, if only for the financial security and accompanying peace of mind. Unless she meant one of the other "definitions" , like "marked by a concern for material interests and respectability and a tendency toward mediocrity" or "dominated by commercial and industrial interests", neither of which is, in any way, an accurate description of Matt Taibbi. Bourgeois seems to be a casual and evidence-free smear. even if you choose the most generous definition. This constant oneupmanship between people who have no reason to be in opposition to one another is tedious -- it's as if they think that the online audience is a zero-sum game or that there is some way of "winning" the act of writing. It seems there is no place in amateur online critique for empathy or trying to gently help one another. There is only "darn the torpedos" and "in for the kill". It's a weird and off-putting way of doing things and can't be very pleasant for anyone involved. Instead of two people who clearly love Gogol coming together, to the initial plaudit "I really like Gogol for these reasons!", the riposte is "everything you know about Gogol is wrong and it's unlikely you've even read him in the correct language and, if you have, you misunderstood him to a degree where lobotomization can be the only explanation and you are so bad at writing about these things that you should never try again." To recap: she subscribed to Taibbi, but doesn't want to read about "cancel culture" or his literary pretensions. Does she think that a blog is like a restaurant? That you can just order what you want? Don't people just write about what comes naturally to them? I know I do, to a large degree. I have projects that I'd like to work on -- and I do, when the mood takes me -- but mostly my writing consists of screeds inspired by something I'd just read (like this ever-growing essay). But this level of complaining is like subscribing to Glenn Greenwald and then immediately telling him to stop writing in run-on sentences. I imagine that Matt is the same -- and he has a subscriber base to which to cater. When he's planning on writing something he considers to be salient to the feed, but gets distracted by thoughts of Gogol, then why not just write about Gogol? Perhaps it inspires someone to actually read Gogol -- even if, in Evgenia's opinion, they would be doing so for all the wrong reasons -- which would be a nigh-miracle in this age of tweets and clickbait. I don't think of a SubStack as a newspaper -- not really -- but more as a blog, where a writer writes. It's going to be a mixed bag. Instead of writing "nice try, but...", she went with a brutal takedown that seems to think that Matt is not only a traitor to everything worth believing in, but also a terrible writer who barely understands anything he reads. Why this scorched-earth approach? Is there no room for actually considering a writer's oeuvre and not assuming the worst? Not assuming that they've capitulated 25 years of writing? Perhaps to assume that you might have missed something? Or that they had a bad day? I can't say whether Evgenia is more authoritative than Matt. She makes it sound like it, but that's the intent of a know-it-all -- not to learn or even to impart knowledge, but to do an end-zone dance. There is information in her essay that I found interesting, but you have to look past the tone and past all of the parts that are clambering over the corpse of an unnecessarily slain "enemy" in order to get to it. Writing and discussion really shouldn't be like Highlander I came to that website because I'm a long-time fan of Yasha Levine's writing (Evgenia is, I think, his wife) and I'd just listened to an interview with him on the Moderate Rebels podcast. He'd made some excellent points (and some more-rambling, hand-waving ones about how the app Signal is compromised because "your phone can still be hacked", but, hey, it was a long interview and he couldn't go into detail about everything), so I came here to see what else he's writing. The top of his SubStack is this essay by his wife and birth announcements and, when the first comment on his wife's screed against Matt Taibbi's literary pretensions -- a rare deviation from his journalistic output -- reads as follows: "I’m so… disappointed, I guess, with the direction Matt seems to have taken. Professionally and personally. Meh.", Levine "liked" it. The tone, so far, is pretty bitchy and kind of "king of the mountain". I don't defend everything Taibbi writes, but it's kind of a "glass houses" moment when the guy who writes about nothing but government secrets and infiltration into all ways of life (Levine) thinks that the guy who writes about censorship and the class war in books like The Divide or I Can't Breathe is too obsessed with censorship. It's a mystery how Yasha and Evgenia manage to produce the distinct impression that there is no common ground between them and Taibbi. I suppose this is how "the man" always manages to drag us down: it's just way too easy to get clear allies squabbling amongst themselves. The second comment, by Boris Petrov, expresses the same sentiments I've expressed here, though he goes so far as to posit that this tension is due to "a bit of envy to Matt's success, recognition and his wide span of topics". I wouldn't pretend to know what the reason is, but it's a shame nonetheless, that this sort of purity test and jostling for position has to occur among what should otherwise be allies, if not friends. Maybe our culture has been broken by the Internet and its latest excrescence "social media" to the point where people really can't help themselves anymore. It's nice to see someone like "Boris Petrov" is able to make a balanced and diplomatic plea for sanity. Maybe Evgenia had a bad day and just had to dump on someone. That's too bad, but it's also out there now. Taibbi wrote an essay about a favorite writer of his (which, as a subscriber, I found to be a nice departure from his other work) and she wrote back to tell him that he likes the writer for all the wrong reasons and should himself probably stop writing altogether. Considering he'd done nothing to shoot across anyone else's bow, it's hard to see how she's justified in torpedoing him for that. ]]> https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=4085 2020-11-08T22:41:11+01:00 https://earthli.com/users/marco

3. Download weekly list of unread articles to Kindle 4. Read articles on Kindle, highlighting and annotating 5. Mark articles as "Liked" and "Archived" on "Instapaper" (Instapaper Likes are automatically posted to "Twitter" ) 6. Copy highlights/annotations to "Notes" on "earthli News" 7. Start article drafts on "earthli News" with other content 8. Publish articles on "earthli News" (also automatically posted to "Twitter" ) The further down the list I get, the more time I invest in writing and copy-editing. * A "like" on Instapaper shows up for people who've subscribed to the newsfeed or are following me on Twitter, but there's no context about why I liked it or what I liked about it. * I just started the "Notes" as a way to add context without a huge time investment on my part. [1] * Articles, as ever, require more time and inspiration. [Tools] I use the following tools to retrieve and manage content. "NetNewsWire for Mac" A fast and easy-to-use news reader; I've used it for years and years. "Apple Podcasts" This product was spun off from iTunes a few years ago. It's a decent podcast player with few frills, but it does what it needs to. "Apple Notes" This product is included with MacOS and tracks formatted notes with cloud synchronization. "Amazon Kindle PaperWhite" An E-Reader with highlighting and note-taking functions. I can transfer highlights and notes as a simple text file. "Project Gutenberg" A source of free E-Books for out-of-copyright, older material. "New York Public Library" A source of more current E-Books. "Instapaper" An online tool with browser plugins to which you can add articles to read later. It strips the articles down to the text and can also send "newsletters" to a Kindle. [Inputs] At the beginning of the chain are inputs. I prefer textual input, but I listen to videos and podcasts as well, occasionally transcribing passages I find interesting. Newsfeeds The largest amount of information comes from Newsfeeds (RSS and Atom; I don't really care). I use NetNewsWire for MacOS. I read some right away, but mostly go through them quickly, adding articles to "Instapaper" . "Hacker News" A tech-heavy web site with a pretty decent algorithm for choosing relevant and interesting articles for the home page. I scan the short home page once per day for a couple of minutes. "Reddit" A news/social-media web site on which I've built a few multi-reddits that yield some interesting stuff, but I use it more for fun than research. Lately, the quality of content has dropped, so I use it much less. A couple of minutes per day. Podcasts I listen to some podcasts regularly and sometimes transcribe information for articles. I much prefer reading, but there's lots to learn in long-form interviews. "YouTube" I rely on YouTube nearly exclusively for videos and have a subscription (it came with Google Play Music). I use the main Watch Later list a lot, moving longer videos to custom "Watch Later" lists for Public Policy/Philsophy, Tech, and Music. I sometimes transcribe information for articles. Books I read books with no real agenda, going from non-fiction to fiction and back as I please. I have a bunch of wishlists at both the "New York Public Library" and "Amazon" , though I prefer to loan digital works from a library than to buy them. Once I've read a book, I don't really need it anymore (mostly because I track citations in "Book Reviews" ). [Outputs] From all of these inputs, I publish to various outputs, ranging from automated lists and feeds to self-authored articles. This is a hobby; my main interest is to organize information for my future self. Therefore, the publishing schedule isn't very predictable. I've included approximations for the different types of content. ["earthli News" ] "earthli" is my personal web site, where I publish my blog "earthli News". "Notes" Citations and quick annotations on articles I've read. One per week. "Articles" In-depth essays on various topics, usually including citations from articles, podcasts, or videos. At least one per month. "Movies / Series Reviews" Synopses/impressions of movies or series I've watched. I'll generally collect 10 movies/series reviews per article, so usually about 12 per year. "Book Reviews" Citations and synopses/impressions of books I've read; I'll generally have one article per book and then a big wrap-up article per year. Usually about 24 per year. ["Instapaper" ] * "Liked" : A running list of all article I've liked. Several per week. * "Archived" : A running list of all article I've read. Several per week. ["Twitter" ] My Twitter consists nearly solely of auto-posted content from my "Instapaper Likes" and "earthli News articles" . Several per week. ["YouTube" ] The following are public playlists to which I occasionally save links to videos. Anyone with a YouTube account can subscribe to these. * "Fellow Agitators" : Public Policy, generally left-leaning. * "Encodo Suggestions" : Technology and Programming, originally created for co-workers at "Encodo Systems AG" . -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- [1] I currently have over 2500 published articles over the last 20 years or so, but also over 1100 drafts. Some of the drafts are huge but were never polished enough to publish or their time had come and gone. Some of the drafts are collections of links and citations that I've meticulously collected, but also never published, always thinking "I'd get to it." I don't have that kind of time or energy, so I invented "Notes" to at least make an in-between version with some context. This isn't because I think my choice of citations is particularly clever, but because I use several sources that do something very much like this and I appreciate it very much. ]]> https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=4072 2020-10-04T22:17:57+02:00 https://earthli.com/users/marco

https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=4071 2020-10-04T21:58:48+02:00 https://earthli.com/users/marco

https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=4067 2020-10-04T12:42:56+02:00 https://earthli.com/users/marco

is based on the transcript of a speech he gave. [1] It is an excellent summary of both the history of U.S. media and its current business model. The basic thrust is that the media has always been in it for the money. There is no golden age of principled objectivity... ]]>

is based on the transcript of a speech he gave. [1] It is an excellent summary of both the history of U.S. media and its current business model. The basic thrust is that the media has always been in it for the money. There is no golden age of principled objectivity to which to return, in that sense. The news was more objective in olden days, but only because it made more sense to be that way. The media catered to the broadest possible audience for two reasons: 1. The technology and data weren't yet available to enable them to target audiences more precisely 2. Until 1987, the "Fairness Doctrine" required balance on public airwaves After 1987, the Reagan administration released the media's id and it could finally make a ton of money appealing to the lowest common denominator of market segments. As with any other entertainment, it took some "preparation" of those markets -- with advertising and messaging that amount to brainwashing -- but the markets were very amenable to having everything boiled down to a satisfying "us vs. them" basis. It's just easier that way, isn't it? And who has the time and energy for anything more complicated? The conservative media dove much more quickly into this business model -- but that was only because the liberal media had some trouble finding reliable bait with which to enrage its own audience. There were a few ideas here and there, but nothing with the staying power to build a powerful, slavering cult as the right side of the aisle had. That all changed in 2015 when Trump hit the campaign trail. "Media companies figured out that all they had to do to secure high ratings was wave Trump at people all day long." With Trump, the news media emerged from its chrysalis, transformed to what is essentially the WWE -- with just as much veracity. "What’s happened since 2016 is the news landscape has split into news for people who love Trump, and people who hate him. "The world as represented in news programs is now almost exactly Crossfire. We only see two ideas. These ideas are shown to be in constant combat. There is no pretense of a hope for cooperation or accommodation. (Emphasis added.)" The final sentence is the crux: there is no hope of reconciliation because neither side offers a reasonable way out for the other side. (A) there are only two sides and (B) each side views the other as irredeemably evil. This, of course, has a strong effect on people working in the industry, some of whom would have principles, but all of whom have to pay rent. When rent is due, the landlord doesn't take payment in principle. With media in this state, though, it is a self-fulfilling prophecy that it attracts employees who know which side their bread is buttered on. This affects not only the employees, but very much the businesses themselves. "If you work at Fox, you’re not going to do a climate change or police abuse story. You will do a story about corruption at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. If you work at MSNBC, you won’t do a story about problems with NAFTA, or Barack Obama’s drone program. "This sounds obvious, but most people think this is a matter of politics. It is that in some cases, but it’s also very much about money. Once a company has established an editorial approach, and a political tone, departing from that approach will cost it audience, and lots and lots of money – billions in some cases – as well." Understood in this way, the media has painted itself into a corner from which it cannot escape in any meaningful sense -- at least under a purely capitalist model. The only escape would be a state-supported media model as we have in Switzerland or the British have with the BBC. There will still be bias, but decoupling the profit imperative from journalism is, at least, a potential escape valve from the worst ravages of it. Taibbi writes that, as it stands, "Audiences are completely siloed. A Pew study that just came out showed that of the people who say Fox is their primary news source, 93% describe themselves as Republicans. For MSNBC, the number is 95% Democrats. The New York Times is 91% Democrats. Even NPR is now 87% Democrats." That means that most Americans rarely, if ever, hear anything approaching an opposing point of view. They only ever hear information that they a-priori agree with. This is catastrophic and engenders an unthinking, uncritical herd mentality rather than anything approaching individual opinions. This also makes things so much easier for media companies. Because they have ensured that audience opinion is more-or-less uniform, they no longer run the risk of alienating anyone who matters to their bottom line. In fact, pissing off "the other side" is red meat for its loyal viewers and costs it nothing. To ensure loyalty and to continue to titillate, though, media companies travel further along the axis they've chosen for their audience, ending up at the near-lunatic extremism we have in the U.S. today. The media landscape in the States, "[...] creates an enormous risk of the tail wagging the dog. News companies make more money if they pick stories they know will get you upset, and avoid the ones that are confusing to you. They will make sure they wind you up as much as they can not just every day, but every minute. This can be very damaging to your mental health, to say nothing of what it does to society." Not only is it unhealthy for the media companies, but news dissemination does exactly the opposite of a what a functioning republic needs for it to do: inform the citizenry. Not only is the citizenry uninformed, it is misinformed -- with no heed for how damaging that is for those people. People end up recklessly endangering their health in a pandemic and actively support measures that impoverish their own neighborhoods, endanger their livelihoods, and destabilize their own lives. They support ideas that make them insecure -- financially, if nothing else -- and blame the other side for their woe. This self-destruction among so many citizens is a side-effect of the media wanting to make money. The wealthy wield the media as a weapon to keep the peons in line. They never see the misery they cause, while directly profiting from it. Taibbi wraps things up with, "The news is not a public service. First and foremost, it’s a consumer product, like cigarettes or Twinkies. And because we’ve learned that division sells, it can be bad for you, and addicting, in the same way other consumer products can be. We worry about the food we put in our bellies, the air we breathe into our lungs. It’s time to worry about what we put in our brains as well." The mainstream media in the U.S. is not serving any useful societal function; it's a cult. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- [1] His site only has a (possibly soft) paywall. I subscribe to his site and find it well worth it. ]]> https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=4060 2020-09-26T17:58:10+02:00 https://earthli.com/users/marco

is the gold standard for electoral malfeasance in the US, a job he's been doing diligently since before the miscarriage of justice that was the 2000 US presidential election debacle decision, after which he really got down to work. A frequent collaborator of Palast's, cartoonist Ted Rall (also an excellent author and chronicler of injustice in his own right), recently published "Mail-in Balloting, the 12th Amendment and Impending Doom" , which summarizes the situation as follows, "[With a] 16-fold increase [of mail-in ballots] over 2016, [t]he real issue is that the ballots may not be counted on time, triggering the insanity of the 12th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. "The date to remember is December 14th, when the delegations of the Electoral College meet in their respective states. [...] Each delegation can only certify their state’s vote counts if they are 100% complete [...] If the state fails to certify on time, its electoral college votes aren’t counted." If no candidate gets the required 270 electoral votes, then the 12th Amendment stipulates that the Congress selects the president and the Senate selects the vice president. They must select from the available candidates. The relevant text is "The person having the greatest number of votes for President, shall be the President, if such number be a majority of the whole number of Electors appointed; and if no person have such majority, then from the persons having the highest numbers not exceeding three on the list of those voted for as President, the House of Representatives shall choose immediately, by ballot, the President." The Republicans control the Senate -- and are overwhelmingly expected to continue doing so -- and will select Trump. The Vice President continues to be irrelevant. It is unlikely that even a strongly oppositional Vice President could influence the President unduly (e.g. by breaking ties in Senate votes). Mitch McConnell will continue to prevent any votes of relevance coming before the Senate in the first place. Voting in the US is already rife with undemocratic practices, from long lines to closed voting centers to unconstitutional poll taxes and identity checks and throwing people off of the voting rolls. Though mail-in voting avoids some of these problems, it's hard to feel that the envelope will find its destination and actually be counted. [Actual Mail-in Voting] I'd recently gotten an email from the elections board in Queens (where I'd last declared residence in the States before I moved to Switzerland) with instructions on how to get my "electronic ballot", which seemed promising. What this meant was that, were I to succeed in identifying myself, I would be able to download PDFs for the ballot and the envelopes. [image][image] As shown above, the "electronic" mail-in ballots include a PDF for the envelope as well as instructions for performing the origami required to protect this vessel of democracy on its journey across the ocean to NYC. I'd done this a couple of years back and the construction feels pretty shaky -- not least because all of the templates are fitted for the LTR format, a paper size found only in the US. These are mail-in ballots meant for people around the world, who have no access to LTR-sized paper. Happily, a real-life, pre-printed ballot and envelope arrived in the mail today, so I was able to fill out my absolutely ginormous ballot without any printing or origami. The ballot is a long sheet of paper in several of the most-common native languages of Queens: English, Spanish, Chinese, and Bengali. The paper is quite grandiose considering I am able to choose a presidential candidate -- from Donald Trump/Mike Pence (Republican), Joe Biden/Kamala Harris (Democrat), Howie Hawkins/Angela Nicole Walker (Green), and Jo Jorgenson/Jeremy Cohen (Libertarian) -- and a single Congressional seat (Grace Meng vs. Thomas Zmich). Despite it looking foolproof, they still, somehow, managed to make the super-simple instructions conflict with the actual ballot. The instructions, shown below, say to "[m]ark the oval to the left of the name [...]" [image] The ballot, though, includes a single oval above the names of the candidates. The oval is to the left of the column, but not to the left of the "nombre de su selección". [image] The mailing envelope, shown below, includes "US postage paid" -- even though they're sending these materials all over the world. Presumably, if you're in the military, whatever base you happen to be on counts as "U.S. Mail" [1], but I had to pay CHF2.- to mail in my ballot. [image] On a final note, from the article above, "Mail-in ballots are manually opened and signatures must be visually compared, sometimes several times, to Board of Election records." It is nearly inconceivable that whatever signature the Board of Election has on record for me -- from almost 20 years ago -- matches the deteriorated scrawl that my signature has become in an age where I hardly ever pick up a pen. Still, were my vote to actually make it across the ocean, arrive in Queens by November 3rd (or postmarked before the election and arriving within ten days of election day), actually be opened and counted -- they reserve the right to leave absentee ballots uncounted if the result is already "clear" [2] -- and were my signature to match whatever they have on file, my vote will be counted in a state (New York) where the result is a foregone conclusion: Joe Biden will win New York State's electoral votes. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- [1] Even on the same envelope, there is no consistency in how to abbreviate United States, with both US and U.S. making an appearance. [1] This is an even more insidious practice when you remember that smaller parties, like the Green Party, must cross the 5% threshold in an election year in order to benefit in the next election from many of the advantages the Democrats and Republicans enjoy over them. This has never happened, and likely never will, due in no small part to a plethora of such undemocratic practices. See the following video for more information, [media] ]]> https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=3954 2020-05-02T09:17:12+02:00 https://earthli.com/users/marco

for at least a decade If I may, I suggest you amend your article and perhaps find other “cons” to add to the list (otherwise it would look odd, no? :-) Thanks for your interest, though, and I wish you the best of luck with your site. Stay healthy and safe Marco --------------- -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- [1] One even responded with a rhetorical flourish of his own, citing the inestimable "Perry Farrell" as follows: "Here is to the primitive progeny who are to be our new overlords ;) In the words of Perry farrel [sic], "we'll make great pets"" ]]> https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=3933 2020-03-30T22:00:15+02:00 https://earthli.com/users/marco

, "The phrase "6 feet under" originated in London, England in 1665. It came about as London was being ravaged by the Bubonic Plague. [...] The mayor of London at the time issued a decree that all plague deaths had to be buried at least" ... ]]>

, "The phrase "6 feet under" originated in London, England in 1665. It came about as London was being ravaged by the Bubonic Plague. [...] The mayor of London at the time issued a decree that all plague deaths had to be buried at least "6 feet under" to help halt the spread of infection." 355 years later, another plague has made the expression "six feet" au courant, at least in those countries still using the imperial system of measurement. Even the nerdy "6-Foot Zone" by Randall Munroe does it. [image] ]]> https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=3922 2020-03-22T15:42:15+01:00 https://earthli.com/users/marco

). [image] ]]>

). [image] ]]> https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=3869 2019-12-29T21:45:30+01:00 https://earthli.com/users/marco

https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=3758 2019-07-07T22:26:57+02:00 https://earthli.com/users/marco

, begging for Netflix to add a setting for adults, one that doesn't auto-play trailers and content all the time. Nothing has changed. The UI is still intensely eager to auto-play videos and... ]]>

, begging for Netflix to add a setting for adults, one that doesn't auto-play trailers and content all the time. Nothing has changed. The UI is still intensely eager to auto-play videos and trailers. It's an incredibly hyperactive UI, almost afraid that if it stops making noise, it will die. If you're using the Samsung TV app, there is almost no way to have Netflix stay silent. The only way is to turn off auto-play and to watch at least one episode of something. Then -- and only then -- will you be allowed to choose when to start watching the next thing. When you startNetflix, it will auto-play whatever it has auto-selected for you -- usually a new show of theirs that you have not yet had a chance to express disinterest in -- within seconds. If you move the cursor somewhere else, it starts playing that next show, if you've already seen some of it. If you haven't seen the show, it aggressively plays the trailer. But it doesn't even hide the chrome all around, showing the trailer with a bunch of text on top. It's a complete disrespect for the content -- it's like it doesn't even matter what it looks like, as long as something is playing. As long as something is making noise to drown out the engulfing silence of being alone with your thoughts -- or lack thereof. There is no way to "cue up" content and start it when you like. Netflix always wants to play your content immediately and doesn't care if you need to go to the bathroom or get a drink or whatever. You have to wait until the content has started and then pause it. Or you have to wait until the unpausable stuff finishes and then pause it. I've resorted to hitting the "back" button on the remote control to make Netflix ask me if I'm sure I want to quit. At least then the modal dialog acts as a sock in its mouth to keep Netflix's fucking mouth shut. And speaking of trailers: guess what happens if you've watched the 11th of 13 shows in season 3 of Jessica Jones and then you leave the cursor on Jessica Jones? You guessed it -- motherfucking Netflix starts playing the season 3 trailer for you. Why? On what planet does that make any sense? I'm already watching the show. I don't need to be enticed into watching it with a trailer. They just always have to be making noise. I don't use the mobile version, but I know that the desktop-website version is also very interested in playing videos. At least in the Samsung TV app, when you click a show, it shows you the details first and waits a few seconds before playing content. In the web site, all but 5% of the glyph for a show -- the little arrow at the bottom, completely outside of the area condoned by Fitt's Law -- starts playing the show immediately. You have to aim carefully if you want to select the show and just add it to your list instead of starting it immediately like the ADHD content-addicted primate that you are. ]]> https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=3698 2019-02-15T18:50:52+01:00 https://earthli.com/users/marco

. [1] Hat-tip to Akroyd's Elwood Blues. ]]> https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=3608 2019-01-08T21:51:27+01:00 https://earthli.com/users/marco

"Avnery, who was one of the first Israelis to call for the creation of a Palestinian state, was 94. He lived a sprawling life. He was born in Germany in 1923 and his family fled to British Palestine a few months after Hitler came to power. As a young man, he dispersed leaflets for the Irgun, a terrorist Zionist organization, and it haunted him for most of his life. Avnery would later play chess with Yasser Arafat and become one of the PLO’s most ardent Israeli defenders." "Uri Avnery: One of My Few Heroes in the Middle East" by Robert Fisk "It was somehow fitting that first news of Uri Avnery’s plight should reach me from one of Israel’s staunchest enemies, the Lebanese Druze leader Walid Jumblatt. One legend sending sad news of another, you see, a socialist preparing to mourn a fellow socialist, sending his sympathy for the 94-year-old Israeli political philosopher. That same philosopher was once a German Jewish schoolboy, originally called Helmut Ostermann, who refused to give the Hitler salute at school, but who was, when I received Jumblatt’s message – still, just – “an indispensable mind to understand the history of fascism, a major destructive element of the 20th century”. Jumblatt’s words. Avnery, he added, also understood “the history of Zionism, another despicable apartheid theory that is an offshoot of fascism”." "I must admit that Uri Avnery was one of my Middle East heroes – there aren’t many – and his story is worthy of a movie, though there will be no Spielbergs to direct it: writer, journalist, leftist, veteran of the Israeli army in the country’s War of Independence – and, as he never forgot, the same war which drove 750,000 Palestinians from their home and lands." The following two citations are from Avnery himself, included by Fisk in his article. "[citing Avnery]: I will tell you something about the Holocaust. It would be nice to believe that people who have undergone suffering have been purified by suffering. But it’s the opposite, it makes them worse. It corrupts. There is something in suffering that creates a kind of egoism." "[Again, citing Avnery]: You are presuming you know what they [Netanyahu’s government] want and you presume they want peace – and therefore that their policy is stupid or insane. But if you assume they don’t give a damn for peace but want a Jewish state from the Mediterranean to the Jordan River, then what they are doing makes sense up to a point." Finally, I dug back through my as-yet unpublished notes to find some I'd taken from Avnery's missives from the last couple of years, just to give an idea of what I liked about his writings. I found notes from 2006--2018. "Who's the dog? Who's the tail?" by Uri Avnery "Two Nights and a Dragon" by Uri Avnery "The authors do not call into question the Lobby's legitimacy. On the contrary, they show that hundreds of lobbies of this kind play an essential role in the American democratic system. The gun and the medical lobbies, for example, are also very powerful political forces. But the pro-Israel lobby has grown out of all proportion. It has unparalleled political power. It can silence all criticism of Israel in Congress and the media, bring about the political demise of anyone who dares to break the taboo, prevent any action that does not conform to the will of the Israeli government." "That year, during Black September, I held a press conference in Washington DC, under the auspices of the Quakers. It seemed to be a huge success. The journalists came straight from a press conference with Prime Minister Golda Meir, and showered me with questions. Almost all the important media were represented – TV networks, radio, the major newspapers. After the planned hour was up, they would not let me go and kept me talking for another hour and a half. But the next day, not a single word appeared in any of the media. Thirty-one years later, in October 2001 I held a press conference on Capitol Hill in Washington, and exactly the same thing happened: many of the media were there, they held me for another hour – and not a word, not a single word, was published." A very astute reporter of foreign affairs -- in particular, those of Israel and Palestine -- discusses Obama in "Two Americas" by Uri Avnery . "The great message of Obama is Obama himself. A person who has roots in three continents (and another half: Hawaii). A person whose education spans the wide world. A person who can see reality from the viewpoints of America, Africa and Asia. A person who is both black and white. A new kind of American, an American of the 21st Century." This is lovely prose, but, as with many other Obama supporters, one gets the feeling that more is being said by the supporter than by the supportee -- the utopic views expressed so lovingly cannot be provably extrapolated from Obama's actual, stated policy. However, in the same breath Avnery acknowledges this and justifies it better than any other, to date: "I am not as naïve as I sound. I realize that in his speeches there is more enthusiasm than content. We can't know what he will do once elected president. President Obama may disappoint us. But I prefer to take a risk with a man like this than to know in advance what the two routine politicians, his competitors, will do." This is an excellent statement of support, which is wholly realistic and accomodating of America's very limited political spectrum. "Israel in Deadly Denial" by Uri Avnery : "All this matter of “recognition” is nonsense, a pretext for avoiding a dialogue. We do not need “recognition” from anybody. When the United States started a dialogue with Vietnam, it did not demand to be recognized as an Anglo-Saxon, Christian and capitalist state." "How Many Divisions?" by Uri Avnery talks about propaganda in the case of the ongoing attack on Gaza. "The trouble is that propaganda is most convincing for the propagandist himself. And after you convince yourself that a lie is the truth and falsification reality, you can no longer make rational decisions." "Hundreds of millions of Arabs from Mauritania to Iraq, more than a billion Muslims from Nigeria to Indonesia see the pictures and are horrified. This has a strong impact on the war." "Even if the Israeli army were to succeed in killing every Hamas fighter to the last man, even then Hamas would win. The Hamas fighters would be seen as the paragons of the Arab nation, the heroes of the Palestinian people, models for emulation by every youngster in the Arab world. The West Bank would fall into the hands of Hamas like a ripe fruit, Fatah would drown in a sea of contempt, the Arab regimes would be threatened with collapse. "If the war ends with Hamas still standing, bloodied but unvanquished, in face of the mighty Israeli military machine, it will look like a fantastic victory, a victory of mind over matter. "What will be seared into the consciousness of the world will be the image of Israel as a blood-stained monster, ready at any moment to commit war crimes and not prepared to abide by any moral restraints. This will have severe consequences for our long-term future, our standing in the world, our chance of achieving peace and quiet. "In the end, this war is a crime against ourselves too, a crime against the state of Israel." "Ship of Fools 2" by Uri Avnery "The Israeli government rules Washington, D.C., more firmly than ever. The new Congress is even more loyal to Israel than the old one, if that is possible. Just now, the outgoing House unanimously passed a resolution objecting to the declaration of Palestinian statehood. After his resounding defeat in the midterm elections, Obama must start to think about the presidential election in two years’ time. It’s difficult to imagine that in these two years he would dare to provoke the mighty Israel lobby, which can now rely not only on the Jewish organizations and the millions of evangelical Christians, but also on the people of the Tea Party (many of whom are anti-Semites like Nixon, as revealed in the tapes: he despised the Jews and admired the Israelis). "Obama can say what he wants: in a real test he will have to veto any Security Council resolution which is distasteful to the Israeli government. He will have no choice. And he will also supply Israel with all the airplanes it desires – and more." As put so nicely in the article, "Bin Laden Is Dead, but What About His Ideas?" by Uri Avnery "A new Caliphate in the 21st century is as unlikely as the wildest creation of the imagination. It would have been diametrically opposed to the zeitgeist, were it not for its opponents: the Americans. They needed this dream—or nightmare—more than the Muslims themselves. "The American Empire always needs an antagonist to keep it together and focus its energies. This has to be a worldwide enemy, a sinister advocate of an evil philosophy. "[...] "American freedoms have to be restricted; the U.S. military machine grows by leaps and bounds. Power-hungry intellectuals babble about the Clash of Civilizations and sell their souls for instant celebrity. "To produce the lurid paint for such a twisted picture of reality, religious Islamic groups are all thrown into the same pot—the Taliban in Afghanistan, the ayatollahs in Iran, Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in Palestine, Indonesian separatists, the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and elsewhere, whoever. All become al-Qaeda, despite the fact that each has a totally different agenda, focused on its own country, while bin Laden aims to abolish all Muslim states and create one Holy Islamic Empire. Details, details." "A Putsch Against War" by Uri Avnery "For eight years, longer than most of his predecessors, Dagan led the Mossad, Israel’s foreign intelligence service, comparable to the British MI6.[...] And here, after leaving office, he speaks out in the harshest terms against the government’s plans for an attack on Iran’s nuclear installations. Not mincing words, he said: "This is the stupidest idea I have heard in my life."" "This week he was overshadowed by the recently relieved chief of the Shin Bet [Yuval Diskin]. (Shin Bet and Shabak are different ways of pronouncing the initials of the official Hebrew name "General Security Service.") It is equivalent to the British MI5, but deals mostly with the Palestinians in Israel and the occupied territories. "According to Diskin – and who would know better? – Israel is now led by two incompetent politicians with messianic delusions and a poor grasp of reality. Their plan to attack Iran is leading to a world-wide catastrophe. Not only will it fail to prevent the production of an Iranian atom bomb, but, on the contrary, it will hasten this effort, this time with the support of the world community. "Going further than Dagan, he stated that the only factor preventing peace negotiations with the Palestinians is Netanyahu himself. Israel can make peace with Mahmoud Abbas at any time, and missing this historic opportunity will bring disaster upon Israel." "The New Mandela" by Uri Avnery "For some time now, the world has lost much of its interest in Palestine. Everything looks quiet. Netanyahu has succeeded in deflecting world attention from Palestine to Iran. But in this country, nothing is ever static. While it seems that nothing is happening, settlements are growing incessantly, and so is the deep resentment of the Palestinians who see this happening before their eyes." Contrast to how Pakistan was treated when it was (illegally) created a nuclear weapon. "A Bird’s-Eye View" by Uri Avnery "The settlers assert that not a single settlement has been set up without secret government consent. And indeed, all the “unlawful” settlements have been connected at once to the water and electricity grids, special new roads have been built for them, and the army has rushed to defend them — indeed the Israel Defense Forces have long ago become the Settlements Defense Forces. Lawyers and shysters galore have been employed to expropriate huge tracts of Palestinian land." "Another Superfluous War" by Uri Avnery "Was there an alternative? Obviously, the situation along the Gaza Strip had become intolerable. One cannot send an entire population to the shelters every two or three weeks. Except hitting Hamas on the head, what can you do? "A lot. "First of all, you can abstain from “reacting”. Just cut the chain." "A Lady With a Smile" by Uri Avnery "It would cut the ties between the Israeli state and more than 20% of its citizens. Some Israelis may dream of evicting the Arabs altogether from the historical country – all six million of them in Israel proper, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip – but that is a pipedream. The world in which this was once possible does not exist any more." "Trump and Israel’s Anti-Semitic Zionists" by Uri Avnery "True, he is sending a rabid Jewish-American ultra-right Zionist as his ambassador to Tel Aviv (or to Jerusalem, we shall see.) A person so right-wing that he makes Netanyahu himself almost look like a leftist. But at the same time Trump has appointed as his closest assistant a radical white racist with full anti-Semitic credentials. Perhaps, as some believe, it depends entirely on Trump’s moods. Who knows what his mood will be on the morning of the first important UN vote on Israel? Will he be Trump the Zionist or Trump the anti-Semite? Actually, he can be both. No problem, really. The avowed aim of Zionism is to ingather all the Jews in the world in the Jewish State. The avowed aim of the anti-Semites is to expel the Jews from all their countries. Both sides want the same. No conflict." So tongue in cheek. Keep on truckin', Uri! "Syria: Cui Bono?" by Uri Avnery "[the] day before, Trump was despised by half the American people, including most of the media. Just by launching a few missiles, he has won general admiration as a forceful and wise leader. What does that say about the American people, and about humanity in general?" "Yes, Israel Can Accept the Right of Return" by Uri Avnery "When the British withdrew from Palestine in 1948, there were in the country between the Mediterranean and the Jordan about 1.2 million Arabs and 635,000 Jews. By the end of the war that ensued, some 700,000 Arabs had fled and/or were driven out. It was a war of what was (later) called "ethnic cleansing". Few Arabs were left in the territory conquered by Jewish arms, but it should be remembered that no Jews at all were left in the territory conquered by Arab arms. Fortunately for our side, the Arabs succeeded in occupying only small slices of land inhabited by Jews (such as the Etzion bloc, East Jerusalem et al.), while our side conquered large, inhabited territories." "Who is the Vassal? Israel, the US and Iran" by Uri Avnery "The US is still far from war with Iran but we are not. Perhaps we are already in it, without believing it. These days – or should I say, these nights – our brave boys fly over Syria and bomb Iranian army installations there. Until this minute, the Iranians have not reacted, except for a feeble attempt that was quickly answered by a massive Israeli air strike." "The Brainwashing of the Israelis" by Uri Avnery "How is this done? It’s quite simple, really: one has to suppress all other voices. One has to make sure that the citizen hears only one voice. One that repeats a few messages over and over, endlessly. This way the lie becomes truth. In such a situation, the ordinary citizen becomes convinced that the official line is really their own personal opinion. This is an unconscious process. When one tells a citizen that they are brainwashed, they are deeply insulted." "The use of these terms, hundreds of times every day, clearly constitute brainwashing, without the citizens noticing it. They are getting used to the fact that all Gazans are terrorists, mekhablim. This is a process of dehumanization, the creation of Untermenschen in the Nazi lexicon. Their killing is allowed, even desirable." "There is in the country a tiny band of commentators who are not afraid to tell the truth, even when this is considered treason. Gideon Levy, Amira Hass, and a few others. We must ensure that their voice is heard. They must be encouraged." "Israelis Just Keep Killing People, Stealing Land" by Uri Avnery "It has been said that a clever person is able to extricate himself from a trap into which a wise person would not have fallen in the first place. Stupid people do not extricate themselves. They are not even aware of the trap." ]]> https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=3652 2019-01-07T22:25:26+01:00 https://earthli.com/users/marco

. As usual, his jokes highlight the topics he wanted to discuss. He is a philosopher who many would call a contrarian. I think the reason that he generally sees things differently than others is due to (A) his being extremely widely and well-read and being able to provide a context to topics that others don't have, as well as an ability to see similarities in topics and themes that are not evident to others and (B) most people not being able to even follow along with (A) and assuming that, because of his dirty jokes and his multitudinous tics that he's just a showboat preening for attention. Nothing could be further from the truth. If you read any of his books and truly understand it, you'll be the better for it. To me, his reasoning is clear as a bell. Perhaps that makes me mad, as well. Here's his first joke: "A group of Jews in a synagogue publicly are admitting their nullity in the eyes of God. "First, a rabbi stands up and says: "“O God, I know I am worthless. I am nothing!” "After he has finished, a rich businessman stands up and says, beating himself on the chest: "“O God, I am also worthless, obsessed with material wealth. I am nothing!” "After this spectacle, a poor ordinary Jew also stands up and also proclaims: "“O God, I am nothing.” "The rich businessman kicks the rabbi and whispers in his ear with scorn: "“What insolence! Who is that guy who dares to claim that he is nothing too!”" Here's another joke: "It's a very cruel joke and I discovered with wonder and respect that there is a whole tradition of Jewish jokes about Auschwitz. Not making fun of it, but drawing out the paradoxes. "There is something very deep in this. [...] For tragedy to take place, it must happen within certain limits, where the victim maintains his dignity -- you know, the tragic victim. When things get really terrifying, a mote of comedy has to enter, which is not comedy where you have to laugh, but horrifying comedy (i.e. gallows humor). "In Paradise, some Jews who'd been killed at Auschwitz were talking about how they'd been killed. One says to the other, ""Do you remember, Jacob, when they dragged you to the death chamber, you slipped on something and died even before you entered the gas chamber?" ""Oh, yeah, that was so funny!" "Then God, taking a break, walks by them, listens to their jokes and says: ""Sorry guys, I just don't get it." "[digression explaining background of joke for the young audience [1]] "One of the Jews goes to God, embraces him in a patronizing way and says, ""Don't worry, our Lord, you weren't there, so, of course, you don't understand." "You know what's the beauty: it's not that God cannot understand the horror. He can. He's all-powerful. He cannot understand it's possible to make a joke out of it. God doesn't get the joke." And what a world it is that we live in, when Slavoj answers the question of what he thinks of the Gilets Jaunes with almost the same wording as Pamela Anderson. Watch the video to see his answer (I don't feel like transcribing any more), but Anderson's answer is from "Pamela Anderson on Europe’s Turmoil: an Interview with Pamela Anderson and Srecko Horvat" by David Broder "I agree with Srecko. As I said, when I was commenting on the gilets jaunes, the real question is whether the disobedience can be constructive, what comes the day after: can the progressives in France, and all over the world, use this energy so that instead of violence we see equal and egalitarian societies being built?" It's a funny world. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- [1] He explains the reason that the joke is funny: because it is always said that divinity was absent from the Shoah, particularly Auschwitz. ]]> https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=3645 2019-01-01T23:08:59+01:00 https://earthli.com/users/marco

, the illustrious journalist takes a break from writing about the tragedies arising from near-constant, western meddling in the Middle East to relate more uplifting stories... ]]>

, the illustrious journalist takes a break from writing about the tragedies arising from near-constant, western meddling in the Middle East to relate more uplifting stories on this first day of 2019. Near the end, there's a bit that -- to my admittedly tinhorn American ears -- is one of the most British things I've ever read: "Earlier this month we went for a drink and a meal to the wonderful Shipwright’s Arms, one of Kent’s most attractive pubs, which is located in the Ham marshes between Oare and Faversham, just below a dyke which protects it from the waters of the Swale estuary. We sat down in front of a blazing fire, got a glass of mulled wine [...]" I have no further point other than that that sounds perfectly lovely. ]]> https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=3622 2018-12-24T12:57:33+01:00 https://earthli.com/users/marco

was founded 14 years ago. as Mansef, a portmanteau of the owner's names. It has since acquired nearly every significant online pornographic... ]]>

was founded 14 years ago. as Mansef, a portmanteau of the owner's names. It has since acquired nearly every significant online pornographic presence: Playboy, YouPorn, RedTube, PornHub and more. They've not only cornered the market in free, online pornographic video, but also hoovered up most of the classic producers and distributors, like Digital Playground, Hustler, Vivid Video, Brazzers and more. They are almost certainly a monopoly. Doubtless there are those who have a "favorite" site -- but the content all comes from the same distribution company and from the same servers, tailored for different tastes in presentation. The only report I could find about distribution and numbers was "Vampire Porn" by David Auerbach . The "vampire" refers to the fact that they cannibalize their own content by having one arm of the company produce content whose price is killed instantly by it being uploaded online for free by another arm of the company. "[...] industry workers have been in the difficult situation of seeing their work pirated on sites owned by the same company that pays them—imagine if Warner Brothers also owned the Pirate Bay. The way Siri puts it, it’s as though Walmart drove mom-and-pop stores out of business “and then to top it off, went into the mom-and-pop shops and literally stole all of their products to be resold at Walmart.” It’s a tough time to be a mom-and-pop porn shop." ]]> https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=3621 2018-12-24T11:48:50+01:00 https://earthli.com/users/marco

. * Meagan Day interviews Kristin Ghodsee about her ... ]]>

. * Meagan Day interviews Kristin Ghodsee about her book Why Women Have Better Sex Under Socialism. They talk about life under socialist regimes (DDR lässt grüssen) made men and women both more comfortable and try harder to be good people (i.e. trophy wives couldn't just be bought) in "No Scrubs" by Kristin Ghodsee [1] * The greatest trick the devil ever pulled is convincing us that plastics are garbage: "The plastic backlash: what's behind our sudden rage – and will it make a difference?" by Stephen Buranyi * Speaking of tricks. Ricky Jay, the sleight-of-hand artist/genius, has died. Here’s a lovely biographical piece from the New Yorker (1993): "Secrets of the Magus" by Mark Singer . It's worth it for the nicely related anecdotes about Jay's feats. [2] * And, finally, there's a long and sobering article on the loss of about 80% of our insect biomass over the last 40 years, "The Insect Apocalypse Is Here" by Brooke Jarvis . Dontworryaboutitwerefine. [3] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- [1] Some more extended citations and notes from that article (all emphases are added): "Right now, Bulgaria and Romania have the highest percentage of women working in tech in the EU. The reason is that there were policies in place that allowed women to enter fields that in the West have remained dominated by men. There was a concerted effort on the part of state socialist governments, going all the way back to the thirties in the Soviet Union and the fifties in Eastern Europe, to integrate women into formerly more masculine parts of the economy — law, medicine, academia, banking. Women were even trained in the military, as pilots and snipers and parachuters.""Male employment was often better remunerated. But, on the other hand, wages don’t matter as much when the state is providing a huge array of social services. The state guaranteed jobs, housing, health care, education, and things like daycare and extended paid maternity leaves. Women were not compensated as well as men, but they still had a greater degree of economic independence from men than they do today.""The theory became a reality after 1917 in the Soviet Union, with the support of Lenin and especially of Alexandra Kollontai, who was the commissar of social welfare. Kollontai tried to put into place the socialization of child care in the creation of children’s homes. She wanted to create public canteens where people could eat. She wanted to create public laundries. She also wanted to create mending cooperatives, because back then mending was a huge task that women had to do at home and she thought it would be more efficient if done collectively, reducing the burden on individual women. This was all attempted in the early twenties. The problem is that the Soviet state wasn’t wealthy enough and it collapsed. All of these laws were reversed by 1936 because Stalin said essentially, “We have to take our resources and file them into the industrial economy, and it’s much more affordable for us to get these women doing this work at home for free.” But importantly, those same policies that Kollontai tried to implement in the twenties made a resurgence in Eastern Europe after 1945.""And it turns out that when men have to be “interesting” in order to attract women, they are. They actually end up being better men. It’s not that difficult a concept. I don’t know why people are so shocked by this.""There were brilliant socialist feminists in the seventies, people like Silvia Federici and others, who were making the case that large structural changes would reorganize relationships between men and women. What happened is that, as Nancy Fraser has written about, feminism was largely co-opted by neoliberal capitalism. So we ended up getting a kind of Sheryl Sandberg-style “lean in” feminism, which is all about individual success and creating conditions for a handful of women to be as filthy rich as a handful of men are.""For a host of reasons, care work for the elderly or the ill or certainly for children often falls into the lap of women. Given that this work has to be done, societies have a choice: they can reduce the burden of care work on women by transferring it from the individual to society, or they can completely devalue it and shove it into the private sphere where women do it for free. [as Stalin did]""We shouldn’t ignore the purges and the gulags and the state violence, but we have to be clear that it wasn’t like that all the time." Just like we shouldn't ignore the horrific and varied violence of state capitalism. "Because I’m an ethnographer who’s been doing field work in Eastern Europe for twenty years, I know many people who will tell you that life was much more nuanced and complex, and not as overwhelmingly negative as Westerners imagine. Certainly not everybody was marching around in Mao suits with shaved heads, or starving in the streets and begging for a pair of jeans." Ah, the myths we learn to avoid seeing greener grass. [1] A quote: "Yet far more than Malini’s contemporaries, the famous conjurers Herrmann, Kellar, Thurston, and Houdini, Malini was the embodiment of what a magician should be—not a performer who requires a fully equipped stage, elaborate apparatus, elephants, or handcuffs to accomplish his mysteries, but one who can stand a few inches from you and with a borrowed coin, a lemon, a knife, a tumbler, or a pack of cards convince you he performs miracles.”" [1] Some more extended citations and notes from that article (all emphases are added): "A 1995 study, by Peter H. Kahn and Batya Friedman, of the way some children in Houston experienced pollution summed up our blindness this way: “With each generation, the amount of environmental degradation increases, but each generation takes that amount as the norm.” In decades of photos of fishermen holding up their catch in the Florida Keys, the marine biologist Loren McClenachan found a perfect illustration of this phenomenon, which is often called “shifting baseline syndrome.” The fish got smaller and smaller, to the point where the prize catches were dwarfed by fish that in years past were piled up and ignored. But the smiles on the fishermen’s faces stayed the same size. The world never feels fallen, because we grow accustomed to the fall.""There was a reason for the wariness. Society members dislike seeing themselves described, over and over in news stories, as “amateurs.” It’s a framing that reflects, they believe, a too-narrow understanding of what it means to be an expert or even a scientist — what it means to be a student of the natural world.""But extinction is not the only tragedy through which we’re living. What about the species that still exist, but as a shadow of what they once were? In “The Once and Future World,” the journalist J.B. MacKinnon cites records from recent centuries that hint at what has only just been lost: “In the North Atlantic, a school of cod stalls a tall ship in midocean; off Sydney, Australia, a ship’s captain sails from noon until sunset through pods of sperm whales as far as the eye can see. ... Pacific pioneers complain to the authorities that splashing salmon threaten to swamp their canoes.” There were reports of lions in the south of France, walruses at the mouth of the Thames, flocks of birds that took three days to fly overhead, as many as 100 blue whales in the Southern Ocean for every one that’s there now. “These are not sights from some ancient age of fire and ice,” MacKinnon writes. “We are talking about things seen by human eyes, recalled in human memory.”""It is estimated that, since 1970, Earth’s various populations of wild land animals have lost, on average, 60 percent of their members. Zeroing in on the category we most relate to, mammals, scientists believe that for every six wild creatures that once ate and burrowed and raised young, only one remains. What we have instead is ourselves. A study published this year in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found that if you look at the world’s mammals by weight, 96 percent of that biomass is humans and livestock; just 4 percent is wild animals.""Thomas believes that this naturalist tradition is also why Europe is acting much faster than other places — for example, the United States — to address the decline of insects: Interest leads to tracking, which leads to awareness, which leads to concern, which leads to action." Or, that the "profit motive" comes between concern and action. ]]> https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=3470 2017-12-10T22:32:02+01:00 https://earthli.com/users/marco

, the AP Stylebook and the Chicago Manual of Style agree: "When a compound modifier–two or more words that express a single concept–precedes a noun, use hyphens to link all the words in the compound except the adverb very and all adverbs that end in -ly." [Compound Adjectives] Furthermore, I tend to agree with the AP Style, which writes that "[c]ompound adjectives beginning with “well” are hyphenated no matter where they are in the sentence." The Chicago Manual of Style thinks that "[w]hen such compounds follow the noun they modify, hyphenation is usually unnecessary, even for adjectival compounds that are hyphenated in Webster’s", which I consider to be blasphemy. If it's defined in the dictionary, it seems quite arrogant for a style guide to leave hyphenation up to the author and/or editor. They helpfully note that it's "usually unnecessary", meaning that the reader will often be able to figure out what's going on from context, so go ahead and put the burden on the reader. Oxford (American version) muddies the waters even more by opining that the hyphen is required when the adjective comes before the noun but not when it comes after. Madness. [Compound, compound adjectives] Additionally, if you have multiple hyphens, you can emphasize the secondary one (or ones) by using an n-dash rather than a hyphen. For example, the phrase "a red-jewel--encrusted dagger" needs two hyphens. The n-dash is between "jewel" and "encrusted". If you don't use hyphens at all, you leave the reader swimming in a sea of confusion. They will probably have to take multiple runs at your sentence in order to make sense of it. * A red-jewel--encrusted dagger (definitely a dagger encrusted with red jewels) * A red-jewel encrusted dagger (probably a dagger encrusted with red jewels) * A red, jewel-encrusted dagger (a red dagger encrusted with jewels) * A red jewel encrusted dagger (an unreadable pileup of words) [Non-hyphenated words [2]] Where things get a bit murkier is when you have two words that form a single word, but have done so for a long time. Eventually, the words agglutinate without a hyphen. For example, the world "hellbent" is written without a hyphen, but it's unclear why. There are also a lot of words starting with the syllable "re" (redistribution, recycling, etc.) that don't take a hyphen. When in doubt, look it up in a dictionary. I do it all the time. We have the knowledge of the world at our fingertips [3] and our spelling and grammar is getting worse and worse. [Coda] Two more things: * The past tense of "lead" is spelled "led", not "lead". * It's either "whence" or "from where", It's never "from whence", which is redundant. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- [1] Do you see what I did there? It's called foreshadowing. [4] [1] There's another one. Other words, like "finger-dry" are hyphenated. [1] More foreshadowing, which is also foreshadowing. [1] That's actually foreshadowing for the final section. ]]> https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=3466 2017-12-10T15:32:03+01:00 https://earthli.com/users/marco

https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=3454 2017-11-12T13:50:11+01:00 https://earthli.com/users/marco

starts off well enough, asking whether we will be able to actually address the giant problem of which Harvey Weinstein's alleged actions are just a symptom, then goes on to indict anyone and everyone who's ever worked with him and anyone who would be willing to watch any movie made by his production company, now that we know those movies were produced by a(n alleged) monster. For example "All this would be egregious enough were it only a labor concern, but the influence of Miramax and the Weinstein Company as media entities must be accounted for, and the cultural products they released reviewed in the context in which they were created. How are we to parse the nuanced gender dynamics of films like Pulp Fiction (1994) and Sex, Lies, and Videotape (1989) now that we know they were brewed in a cauldron of sexualized violence?" We absolutely don't have to parse those movies any differently. That's a stupid thing to think. You are wasting everyone's time with such investigations. There are several other avenues more important to pursue. She continues, "The laughable travails of a woman whose boss takes credit for her labor in Working Girl (1988) makes more sense in a industry that granted virtually no serious power to women; the unacknowledgeable intelligence of the sex worker at the heart of Woody Allen’s Mighty Aphrodite (produced by Miramax in 1995) is also, suddenly, explicable (as is the continued ability of Allen to work in the industry)." Are you trying to say we all just found out about sexism? This lens she's using through which to view everything distorts too much. Weinstein has been "prosecuted" in the sense that the industry has ejected him now that it no longer has anything to gain from him. I don't really care about Harvey Weinstein, but I do care about justice. And justice doesn't just include Weinstein's alleged victims getting their day in court, but also Weinstein not getting smeared unfairly. Or Woody Allen, though it's a bit unclear which smear the author is going for, exactly. "But Weinstein’s legacy—decades of films in which his politics became embedded in our lives—has yet to perish. Here’s hoping I’m proven wrong when I loft this prediction, too: It never will." Nor should it be. Why should they? He didn't make these movies alone. He was barely involved in the creative side of it. Why punish everyone involved in those movies with such a scorched-earth policy? Ah, because that's how people think justice works near the end of the second decade of the 21st century. What makes us unhappy must be eradicated not only from our vision, but from history. Anyone who does not comply is a thought criminal. Moving right along to the next article is "The Hannah Arendt Center’s Dark Thinking" by John Ganz , which writes about German politics, "In January, AfD state leader in Thuringia Björn Höcke called the Holocaust memorial in Berlin, which is flanked by Hannah-Arendt-Strasse, a “monument of shame.”" But that's exactly what it was meant to be, isn't it? Calling it what it is can hardly be deemed anti-Semitic. Part of its purpose is to remind Germans of what they did -- the definition of shame. I can see several reasons for condemning what AfD member think and say, but it's utterly uninteresting to have to defend them when others take a scorched-earth policy to absolutely every statement they've ever made. This is similar to the way that people still pile on absolutely every statement that Trump makes -- as if his stupid ones are still particularly interesting as additional evidence of his inadequacy for the office and as if his more salient ones are stupid when they're not. While the Baffler seems to be stumbling of late (in my opinion), the article "The Weinstein Empire: Extreme as Normal" by Barbara Nimri Aziz addresses the same issue in a more interesting and historical context, starting off with the following citation, "A serious problem in America is the gap between academe and the mass media, which is our culture. Professors of humanities, with all their leftist fantasies, have little direct knowledge of American life and no impact whatever on public policy." This is an excellent point to make, especially in light of the Baffler articles above: many people live in a bubble and don't realize what the rest of the world is doing. That's not to say that they're wrong, in principle, but that their tactics are doomed to failure. Aziz offers the following much-more-useful advice for making something lasting out of the Weinstein revelations (even if nothing official ever comes out of it). "What might help reform the entrenched misogyny that’s been exposed in the Weinstein scandal is this: explore how and why we– young men as well as women– are attracted to power; why our self esteem depends so much on our beauty, being gazed at. Why do we dash after anything that ‘goes viral’? Why do we want far more money than we need to live? Why can we not say “No” to a cleric’s advances, to a sport star’s invitation, to a boss’ wink, to promises of greater success?" Please don't jump to the conclusion that Aziz is blaming the victim. That's a facile interpretation. The interesting point that she's making is that, instead of protecting the victim from the vagaries of the world, we should change the world so that it no longer creates victims. Take away the power that the world has over such potential victims not by transferring that power, but by banishing it from the world. If you don't want what abusers have then you're no longer a potential victim. Instead of trying to beat them at their own game, you can win by not playing at all. "Camille Paglia boldly took on mainstream feminists. In a sustained series of exchanges, many of which appear in her 1992 collection Sex, Art and American Culture she declares, “Feminists keeps saying the sexes are the same…telling women they can do anything, go anywhere, say anything or wear anything. “No they can’t.” Paglia exclaims. She attacks what she sees as mostly white, educated feminists for their “pie-in-the-sky fantasies about the perfect world (that) keep young women from seeing life as it is.” As a result, she argues, “Women want all the freedoms won, but they don’t want to acknowledge the risk. That’s the problem”." [Antifa is part of the Problem] Next up is the article "The Harmful Effects of Antifa" by Diane Johnstone , which continues Johnstone's nuanced discussion of the new, young and purported left. She sees a similar problem to the one I point out above with the Baffler articles: this tendency to black-and-white-ism, to espousing Bush Jr.'s simplistic philosophy of "if you're not with us, you're against us". To that end, they posit a world in which the thing they're against is everywhere, "This fantasy of omnipresent neo-fascism is as necessary to Antifa as the fantasy of omnipresent anti-Semitism is to Israel." And then associate everyone who disagrees in any way whatsoever with that evil, delineating "teams". "Antifa rhetoric specializes in non sequitur. If you agree with some conservative or libertarian that it was wrong to destroy Libya, then you are not only guilty of association with a pre-fascist, you are a supporter of dictators and thus probably a fascist yourself. This has been happening in France for years and it’s just getting started in the United States." Johnstone refers to another article she wrote, "Antifa in Theory and Practice" by Diane Johnstone , in which she offered her initial analysis of that movement. The following are citations that I found interesting. The first two point out that the tactics of Antifa play right into the hands of the state. "I am not suggesting that all, or most, Antifa are agents of the establishment. But they can be manipulated, infiltrated or impersonated precisely because they are self-anointed" "The moral of this story is simple. Self-appointed radical revolutionaries can be the most useful thought police for the neoliberal war party. I am not suggesting that all, or most, Antifa are agents of the establishment. But they can be manipulated, infiltrated or impersonated precisely because they are self-anointed and usually more or less disguised." Johnstone continues, noting that Antifa's "purity tests" are not only ironically fascist tools, but are highly counterproductive. Establishing a policy of ruthless scouring of contrary opinion will always turn around and bite you. "[...] even the most justifiable emotional concerns do not necessarily contribute to wise counsel. Violent reactions to fear may seem to be strong and effective when in reality they are morally weak and practically ineffectual. We are in a period of great political confusion. Labeling every manifestation of “political incorrectness” as fascism impedes clarification of debate over issues that very much need to be defined and clarified." "In another vein, Antifa follows the trend of current Identity Politics excesses that are squelching free speech in what should be its citadel, academia. Words are considered so dangerous that “safe spaces” must be established to protect people from them. This extreme vulnerability to injury from words is strangely linked to tolerance of real physical violence." "In the United States, the worst thing about Antifa is the effort to lead the disoriented American left into a wild goose chase, tracking down imaginary “fascists” instead of getting together openly to work out a coherent positive program." Much of this debate is distracting. And the real enemies (hint: those who are and have been happily and cozily in power) are happy to see so many potential party-crashers wasting their time. As Johnstone puts it, "The truly dangerous people in the United States are safely ensconced in Wall Street, in Washington Think Tanks, in the executive suites of the sprawling military industry, not to mention the editorial offices of some of the mainstream media currently adopting a benevolent attitude toward “anti-fascists” simply because they are useful in focusing on the maverick Trump instead of themselves." "The facile use of the term “fascist” gets in the way of thoughtful identification and definition of the real enemy of humanity today. In the contemporary chaos, the greatest and most dangerous upheavals in the world all stem from the same source, which is hard to name, but which we might give the provisional simplified label of Globalized Imperialism. This amounts to a multifaceted project to reshape the world to satisfy the demands of financial capitalism, the military industrial complex, United States ideological vanity and the megalomania of leaders of lesser “Western” powers, notably Israel. It could be called simply “imperialism”, except that it is much vaster and more destructive than the historic imperialism of previous centuries. It is also much more disguised. And since it bears no clear label such as “fascism”, it is difficult to denounce in simple terms. (emphasis added.)" "The fixation on preventing a form of tyranny that arose over 80 years ago, under very different circumstances, obstructs recognition of the monstrous tyranny of today. Fighting the previous war leads to defeat." Johnstone's characterization is eloquent and not at all hyperbolic. Above, we chastise those wasting their time fighting the wrong enemy, chasing chimeras of suspected heresy in pockets of potential supporters. But those of us who see where the dangers really lie must soberly acknowledge that we are also forced to waste our time. Instead of actually fighting the enemy, we expend nearly all of our energy merely trying to convince anyone other than a tiny minority that the enemy even exists. We face resistance on even this front from all sides, including -- sometimes, especially -- those we seek to recruit to our cause. We have basically lost this war and must look to the next one, if we're to be at all honest with ourselves. And that's where Johnstone points out the most destructive feature of Antifa: "Antifa has gone on the offensive against the one weapon still in the hands of the people: the right to free speech and assembly." This is more than shooting yourself in the foot -- it's shooting potential insurrection in the head and setting back any potential cause by years, if not decades. How are you supposed to sow dissent and build insurrection if even your supposed ideological compatriots are undermining your right to even discuss possibly subversive topics? A nearly hopelessly difficult slog is made even harder by such tactics. [The Rest of the World] And what of the now-nearly-year-long propaganda push to blame everything on the Russians? As reported in "The Anti-Empire Report #152" by William Blum , as recently as June 2017, that opinion is oddly not shared by the Pentagon. "The Pentagon’s Defense Intelligence Agency issued a report in June entitled “Russia: Military Power: Building a military to support great power aspirations”. Here’s an excerpt: Moscow seeks to promote a multi-polar world predicated on the principles of respect for state sovereignty and non-interference in other states’ internal affairs, the primacy of the United Nations, and a careful balance of power preventing one state or group of states from dominating the international order. To support these great power ambitions, Moscow has sought to build a robust military able to project power, add credibility to Russian diplomacy, and ensure that Russian interests can no longer be summarily dismissed without consequence. … Russia also has a deep and abiding distrust of U.S. efforts to promote democracy around the world and what it perceives as a U.S. campaign to impose a single set of global values." The Pentagon used quite flowery language, but they are basically saying that Russia's only mistake is not granting primacy to U.S. interests. For that, they must be eliminated. The U.S. is stuck in a mindset that will no longer be tenable once we've burned out our resources. The climate is shifting already. It will be a different type of society from our soft, privileged and somnambulant one to survive it. The article "Making Ourselves Small That We May Be Large" by Kim C. Domenico discusses the transition from what we have now to what we must become. "My husband chides the climate activists whose proposals suggest the pending climate disaster can be turned around by tweaking our technology, without giving up our western, “de-sensed” world. These voices are less marginalized than the more radical ones who aren’t inclined to “mince words.” Those who see the catastrophe headed straight for us, those acting as our elders “leaving out flattery and retaining the criticism,” point the way we must go in for the collective good, not for the short term good of those currently profiting/profiteering/plundering. They recognize that everything has to change; our much convenienced way of life must return to its basis in relatedness, for life as we know it is coming to an end." "From this perspective, catastrophe is the necessary defeat that can return one to being human, which I am calling “making ourselves small,” or as Powys expressed it, “sinking into ourselves and into Nature.”" The article "The Serious Price of the Hyperconvenient Economy" by Ralph Nader pleads with us to try to control our fates, to not be fooled into wanting that which is offered by our would-be enslavers. "Technology driven by narrow commercial interests needs to provoke us into asking, “What’s all this convenience doing over the long run? What kind of community and society is coming out of this unassessed marketing?” For a better future, we must mobilize, community by community, for some inconvenient thoughts and organization. Unless, that is, the corporate future doesn’t need us." In that sense, other concerns shrink to insignificance. When a handful of tech and media companies control most people's thoughts from dawn 'til dusk, elections have become mostly moot and climate catastrophes are piling up, what exactly is the point of something like nation states? Won't we see an increasing balkanization? It's hard to care specifically about a single one, like the one in the ostensibly quite-wealthy Catalan. The article "Catalan Independence Flounders on the Rocks of Reality" by John Wight discusses how even that effort is receding into the mists of public memory, much as the various Arab Springs did. "In politics, as in war, knowing when to retreat is as important as knowing when to advance; with the former often more difficult and requiring of more courage than the latter due to the challenge it brings of managing the unrealistic expectations and demands of some within your own ranks – those for whom any backward step is tantamount to betrayal. With this in mind, it is clear that Puigdemont, faced with the choice of acting sensibly in the face of the aforementioned balance of forces militating against UDI, or succumbing to the pressure exerted against his leadership from within his own movement, opted to succumb." It is a shame that we can't pay enough attention, because there is a deeper battle to be fought: against the poisonous neoliberalism that sucks the remaining life from humanity's failing husk, feeding a tiny group of the privileged. The longer we let them continue, the more difficult any transition will be. But revolution always comes late, not early and nearly always catastrophic, by definition. The overthrown will burn the world rather than give up their throne. "Moreover, it bears repeating that its underlying is the same one that has fuelled support for Scottish independence in recent years; the same one that drove Brexit and which is behind the emergence and traction of anti-EU parties across Europe. That cause is an economic model, neoliberalism, whose sustainability was shattered irrevocably by the global financial crash and ensuing recession, starting in 2008. (Emphasis added.)" "Yet instead of burying the corpse of neoliberalism, as they should have, political elites have for purely ideological reasons extended themselves in trying to breath life back into it with the imposition of austerity programs that have sown even more misery and dislocation in the lives of millions of their own citizens. Thus they are authors of their own demise." The key takeaway here is: they are the "authors of their own demise" -- and most of them know it, but don't care. They will fail upwards, as they always have and will suffer little. The article "By Killing ISIS Fighters Instead of Bringing Them to Justice, We Become as Guilty as Our Enemies" by Robert Fisk discusses the untenable attitude toward justice in modern discussions. Some people just have to die, right? "When George W Bush talked about bringing the bad guys to justice after 9/11, I wrote that I very much doubted if any justice would be coming Osama bin Laden’s way. And I was right. He was assassinated by the Americans. And nobody, naturally enough, complained about it. Live by the sword, die by the sword. But bin Laden’s death – and the ocean of drone attacks that followed – gave a gently, dark signal that it’s OK to murder these bad guys. Forget about courts, evidence, trials, justice and the rest. Just obliterate them. Who is going to complain?" This applies just as well to the various pillory-by-media stories we've been reading of late. An uncomfortably large number of people seem to be just fine with letting Twitter and Facebook and the media decide who is guilty and deciding which punishment is fitting. This is vigilante justice and no different than witch trials. The initial (and alleged) perpetrators may feel deserving, but we will be ill-equipped to notice -- or be able to complain -- when the people on trial's crimes are less clear-cut. The precedent will have been established and the power of judgment will have landed securely in the hands of an unelected, mercurial and extremely vindictive minority. But the article "The End of Empire" by Chris Hedges is much better at describing the way the world looks to the 99% (most of whom do not live in the U.S. or Europe, by the way). Hedges is an inspiring speaker, but his conclusions are often sobering to the point of depressing, even as you find yourself unable to disagree in more than minor details. "Our democracy has been captured and destroyed by corporations that steadily demand more tax cuts, more deregulation and impunity from prosecution for massive acts of financial fraud, all the while looting trillions from the U.S. treasury in the form of bailouts. The nation has lost the power and respect needed to induce allies in Europe, Latin America, Asia and Africa to do its bidding. Add to this the mounting destruction caused by climate change and you have a recipe for an emerging dystopia." What will happen after the U.S. finally burns itself out in a supernova of hubris and stupidity? The ersatz nation-states called multinationals that were born in the crucible of its neoliberal policies will smoothly take over, with nary a whimper from their pliable and mostly willing citizens. See "All of the World’s Money and Markets in One Visualization" for a visual overview of how large certain individuals and corporations have become relative to nations and their money supplies. "[...] perhaps there will be a multipolar world carved up among Russia, China, India, Brazil, Turkey, South Africa and a few other states. Or maybe the void will be filled, as the historian Alfred W. McCoy writes in his book “In the Shadows of the American Century: The Rise and Decline of US Global Power,” by “a coalition of transnational corporations, multilateral military forces like NATO, and an international financial leadership self-selected at Davos and Bilderberg” that will “forge a supranational nexus to supersede any nation or empire.”" Our new multinational rulers' brand of bullshit may have an even shorter half-life than that of the U.S., which has survived for a long time on the inertia of the world's misplaced gratitude after World War II. It will be painful to be around when it crumbles and the next rulers step in. They are unlikely to be more benevolent, cut as they are from the same cloth as their progenitors. We can already see traces of their power in the ongoing transition from national to corporate power today. "England was able to hold its empire together from 1815 to 1914 before being forced into a steady retreat. America’s high-blown rhetoric about democracy, liberty and equality, along with basketball, baseball and Hollywood, as well as our own deification of the military, entranced and cowed much of the globe in the wake of World War II. Behind the scenes, of course, the CIA used its bag of dirty tricks to orchestrate coups, fix elections and carry out assassinations, black propaganda campaigns, bribery, blackmail, intimidation and torture. But none of this works anymore." The article "The Simulacra Democracy" by John Steppling is long and somewhat rambling, but included several eminently quotable bits. It discusses the massive propaganda machine that is the mainstream media. It discusses how this media is -- and always has been -- an arm of the Pentagon and the government's secret agencies, if not in name, then in spirit. The U.S. government could not have wished for a more supportive and compliant media over the decades. "[...] a nation in which 87 percent of eighteen- to twenty-four year olds (according to a 2002 National Geographic Society/Roper Poll survey) cannot locate Iran or Iraq on a world map and 11 percent cannot locate the United States (!) is not merely “intellectually sluggish.” It would be more accurate to call it moronic, capable of being fooled into believing anything …” — Morris Berman" "If one only gets one’s news from MSNBC or FOX or CNN then one will take away mostly pure propaganda. Rachel Maddow has a career based on craven parroting of DNC approved talking points and conclusions. Bill Maher, whose show is on HBO, is of late pimping for war. Sunday news talk shows do not invite radical voices, not ever." "But Americans are discouraged from thinking in terms of class. They see individualism and identity. Get me more women directors they cry….which would give us more versions of Zero Dark Thirty, I guess. Gender equality matters, something every single socialist country in history has emphasized. Something Chavez saw fit to write into the Bolivarian constitution on day one. Chavez, who liberal avatar Bernie Sanders dismissed as a “dead communist dictator”. Chavez, who feminist avatar Hillary Clinton worked overtime to oust from power. (Emphasis added.)" What did Trump say about Chavez? Who cares? Could it have been worse than what the supposed leading lights of liberal democracy said about him? Essentially promulgating state lies? Do they honestly believe it? Or are they cynically repeating what the Pentagon and deep state wants to hear in order to get closer to the nexus of power? Who cares? It doesn't matter to those of out here, in the cold. To us, they are part of the problem, no matter their reasons. "Mike Pompeo, head of the CIA, recently stated that his agency would become a “much more vicious agency” in fighting its enemies. Its actually hard to imagine what that might look like given CIA history. More vicious than rendition, drone killing and black site torture? Remember it was the U.S. and its School of the Americas that trained those death squads in Central America. Hollywood makes comedies about this. In any event nobody in Hollywood complains. Just as none of the actresses assaulted by Weinstein (and countless others) said anything lest they lose career opportunities. Just as nobody complains about the racism and demonizing of Muslims or Serbs or North Koreans or Russians lest they not get the job. Coercion is silent and a given. It is also absolute. Most actors and directors simply don’t think about it, and most know little beyond what they hear on corporate news or read in the NYTimes. (Emphasis added.)" "A good rule of thumb is if the U.S. targets a country or leader, then its worth questioning the western-generated propagated propaganda in mainstream media about said country or leader (think Syria, Gadaffi, Aristide, Milosovic, Iran, North Korea). The U.S. does not go after countries who welcome western capital." Our national amnesia leads to our doom. Our poor understanding of history -- or our internalization of government propaganda as real history -- makes us easily manipulated. As Steppling concludes: "It is a world created by writers under thirty, largely, and certainly under forty. These are worlds created by people who themselves know very little of the world. They know even less about having to work for a living. The entire universe of film is absent any class awareness. History is simplified the better to appeal to a wider audience. Everything feels and sounds the same. And it is stultifying. There are films and TV from Europe, even from the U.K. that have merit, have heterogeneous sensibilities, but not from Hollywood." And Hollywood controls a great deal of what people see and hear, when they're just relaxing and trying get away from news. It is then that they are most pliable, most easily brainwashed. It is then that pick up what they will come to think of as their "own" opinions. It is difficult to think of a way of fighting such an insidious, gigantic and omnipresent machine. ]]> https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=3432 2017-07-29T23:40:41+02:00 https://earthli.com/users/marco

https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=3424 2017-05-22T17:12:30+02:00 https://earthli.com/users/marco

tool actually does or whether it does it well. [image] All I know is that it definitely doesn't do it seemlessly. ]]>

tool actually does or whether it does it well. [image] All I know is that it definitely doesn't do it seemlessly. ]]> https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=3375 2017-02-19T22:29:22+01:00 https://earthli.com/users/marco

. That certainly helped. ]]> https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=3364 2017-01-29T20:30:22+01:00 https://earthli.com/users/marco

is interesting enough and by one of my favorite writers at The Baffler, but she, too, makes the mistake of writing lead as the past tense of lead. "My inability to pay attention to details or engage in repetitive work ledlead to (or perhaps only exacerbated; it’s a" ... ]]>

is interesting enough and by one of my favorite writers at The Baffler, but she, too, makes the mistake of writing lead as the past tense of lead. "My inability to pay attention to details or engage in repetitive work ledlead to (or perhaps only exacerbated; it’s a chicken-and-egg thing) an anxious, grinding depression, and the sneaking suspicion I was actually totally unemployable." Please stop doing this. It's confusing. I can put up with other transmogrifications of the grammar and spelling that I learned (oh so long ago) and to which I've become accustomed, but this is not an improvement. It leads the poor reader of English in the wrong direction. It's a pity because the piece was otherwise well-written and copy-edited. I mention this case because it feels like we now have an entire generation for whom the spelling of the past tense of lead was never led. I'm not a prescriptivist, but I don't think everything should be descriptivist, either. It has to make sense and to not conflict with other elements of language. I'm a software programmer and this is more akin to a compiler error than a warning. ]]> https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=3354 2017-01-10T19:56:22+01:00 https://earthli.com/users/marco

, though. Meryl doesn't take long to cozen to her crowd by identifying them as foreigners, vilified in a nearly identical fashion as their own Mexican gardeners. "Just to pick up on what Hugh Laurie [2] said: You and all of us in this room really belong to the most vilified segments in American society right now. Think about it: Hollywood, foreigners and the press." Exactly right, Meryl! Where "foreigners" per se have done nothing to earn opprobrium, one could argue that Hollywood and the press are now forced to lie in beds they made. If they are at the point of attack, then maybe they should think about doing something other than kowtowing to power and regurgitating state propaganda in myriad subtle and not-so-subtle ways. She underscores Hollywood's diversity by listing the birthplaces and circumstances of a bunch of her friends, many of whom are at least partially non-American. Clearly they can all sympathize with the true target of ideological ire: the illegal immigrant who's taking jobs from red-blooded Americans. How could they not? Both groups are "vilified" to an equal degree and can identify so much commonality for a fight against the forces that oppress them. One group has a teensy bit more power, though. One hopes that they don't stop fighting once they're sure Trump will leave them alone. Typically, after identifying falsely with the oppressed -- although I'm honestly not sure how much this identification is just spotlight-stealing -- Meryl broadsides the deplorables with "And if we kick them all out you’ll have nothing to watch but football and mixed martial arts, which are not the arts." Remember kids: Dame Meryl says that football is stupid and so is MMA, neither of those have any redeeming characteristics or worthwhile entertainment value. You're welcome. Here's your free DVD of Mamma Mia! so you can learn you some culture. I think that fully a quarter of the speech is about that one time that Trump mocked a disabled reporter. Among the list of legitimate grievances against Trump, this doesn't even really show up on the radar, but that's the one that the liberal elite feels is the most important. It highlights what a bully Trump is. It's nice that Meryl's paying attention now, but where was her disdain for Clinton and Obama when they spent the last eight years (well, Clinton only 4) bullying the world? if you're of a liberal and honest mindset, isn't a bully the perfect figurehead for the U.S.? Clinton blew up a pharmaceutical plant in Sudan; Obama droned an American citizen and then his son without a trial and Trump is a dick. But, by all means, let's focus on the guy who's not even tasted presidential power yet. Because he's not on our team. "We need the principled press to hold power to account, to call him on the carpet for every outrage." Who the fuck is she talking about? The "principled press"? I'm sure she means the New York Times or the Washington Post, both paragons of principle, neither of which has ever seen or heard of a war that they couldn't support. But then she asked all of her friends to donate money to the "Committee to Protect Journalists" , which seems like a good idea, actually. It looks like a decent organization. Their focus seems to be on countries where press freedom is constrained in ways that include torture and death -- not just opprobrium or "denial of access" from on high. So one hopes that not a lot of money goes to domestic U.S. sources, which are the ones Streep was talking about. I just don't understand why this "speech" is so uplifting and inspiring and worthy of discussing in the same breath as one of Churchill's or FDR's. She talks about her friends, obliquely refers to what an asshole Trump is, exhorts her rich friends to support freedom of the press around the world (to reiterate: this is a good thing [3]) and then wraps up with some standard pablum about what a privilege it is to be in acting. But the Democrats/liberal elite have gone mad for it, breathlessly telling everyone that the simply have to watch it. This sort of pretentiousness is nothing new in the liberal-Democratic world. The article "Withering on the Vine" by Thomas Frank nicely captures how remote these supposed liberal heroes are from the workaday, how isolated they are from the stench of the hoi polloi as they live most of their lives ensconced in the wealth and privilege that they are so convinced that they earned. "Our Martha’s Vineyard Democrats like to talk about inequality. It makes them sad, but it’s also a problem they have almost no desire to tackle. Not only does it not touch them personally, but their instincts, their inclinations, and their deepest unspoken convictions tell them it isn’t a real problem to begin with. People get what they deserve out of life—or, rather, they will get what they deserve once we have ensured everyone’s equal access to the SAT—and for a person with a grade-school education to complain about the hardships of minimum-wage work is the purest sort of folly." Finally, there's the article "Against Meryl Streep" by Eileen Jones , which takes much more personal exception to Meryl Streep than I do. "In America, classiness will get you everywhere, and there’s no better demonstration of it than the teary-eyed adoration generated by every move Streep makes. She strikes me as about the worst possible spokesperson imaginable for the Left in an era of working-class rage, so naturally she’s embraced even more tightly by liberals doubling down on their delusional Clinton Democrat worship." Well put, Eileen. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- [1] President-elect Donald Trump, for those of you who are still hung over from playing the "do a shot whenever Meryl does or says something pretentious" drinking game. [1] I like Hugh Laurie, but if he had the temerity to whine about how oppressed he and Hollywood are, then fuck him too. [1] I haven't done more than examine the home page and the blogs, but the footer shows that their content is all licensed under a Creative Commons License and most of their content is focused on oppressive regimes abroad. It seems like a cause worth looking into. ]]> https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=3332 2016-12-31T06:28:06+01:00 https://earthli.com/users/marco

and tell me that he doesn't sound more reasonable than you give him credit for. Do you really believe that Bernie is just barely better than Trump? That kind of statement is so shockingly vacuous that the humor drops out -- not least because your shrieking delivery makes it clear that it was not intended as a joke. At best, it makes you sound uninformed and, at worst, unhinged. You're talked about that finger-waving thing Bernie did to Hillary. I have no idea what you're talking about. I'm not going to look it up. But could Bernie's attitude toward Hillary perhaps arise from his disdain for her corporatist platform? Or stem from his having served for 40 years while she served for 10? [5] Of course you're right when you argue that "we have to fight every case of misogyny, racism, etc. etc." but I feel like you're letting yourself be distracted by tempests in teacups. A lot of this kind of news is meant specifically to distract us. [6] I wish it didn't distract you so much. So fight away, but maybe prioritize? Like maybe make sure you're actually talking about fascism or Nazism before condemning even minor deviations from your worldview as such? "From Hell's heart I stab at thee" is a great quote, but perhaps reflect that you're citing not Melville himself but rather his character Ahab, a madman whose rage at and hatred for his enemy became his only reason for being, to the exclusion of everything else and the diminution of himself. [What to Do?] I think you're at your absolute best -- and this is why I've been listening to the show for years, and have recommended it to others -- when you're very funny, witty, trenchant or "wide, but shallow", as you yourself have put it. Or, when you're insightful, but not funny. Both of those Gregs are interesting. The Greg who browbeats anyone with a different opinion, is mostly wrong about his own and isn't even funny about it, is not a good Greg. I think you used to be better than this. Maybe that's me confabulating, but I remember thinking much more often when you deliberately mispronounced or misquoted facts that you were being quite clever...because you were otherwise so spot on. The balance has shifted now so that I spend far too much time wondering whether you meant to be wrong or are just mistaken. I'm not going to say you've lost a listener because you haven't. Nor do I want you to change if you really don't want to. But I've found that when someone tells me something is wrong with what I'm doing that, in a moment of quiet reflection, I might find that they're right. Then I start to change it and pretend it was my idea in the first place. But please don't think I'm expecting a come-to-Jesus moment from you, as at the end of an intervention. Instead, I hope that you take time to reflect, to wonder whether perhaps I might be a little bit right, and to decide whether who you are on your show right now is who you want to continue to be. I've waited several shows to see whether you'd move through the stages of grief at some point. But you seem to have settled in and exchanged a measure of your humor for anger. And I don't feel it suits you, in the long run. Signed, A middle-aged, cisgen, white, heterosexual male. P.S. There definitely is a Swiss accent, but it differs from North to South. But Swinglish has a clearly identifiable tone to it. You should totally do a show here to see for yourself. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- [1] Just for example. Not because she's a woman and can't possibly know what she's talking about. It's that she's been less and less credible over the years, utterly independent of her gender or sexual orientation. Plus, I'd already used Chris Matthews. [1] I've quoted you in the past in "Greg Proops on San Francisco" , "Extemporizing with Greg Proops" as well as a review of "Greg Proops: Live at Musso & Frank" (which I bought). [1] You do eventually get around to criticizing the CIA later in the show but just 15 minutes before you were citing them as an unimpeachable source so you're a bit all-over-the-place. I know that your show is extemporaneous (although I've seen you use notes) but still, the juxtaposition of the two vastly divergent opinions of the CIA's reliability is suspect. It seems it's OK to cite the CIA when it's convenient. [1] When given the chance to provide evidence, the "White House fails to make case that Russian hackers tampered with election" by Dan Goodin . [1] At best: she spent the last two years of her second senate term campaigning for president, no? I mean, Bernie did the same thing, of course. They all do. Does anyone even notice when they go missing? [1] Your primary news sources seem to be NYT, Slate et. al. which are well-known for avoiding any real meat. ]]> https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=3221 2016-02-21T22:46:49+01:00 https://earthli.com/users/marco

does. Where Israel is only now seriously considering getting rid of parliamentary representation for the 1/5 of their population that they don't consider to be citizens, Switzerland's 1/4 of the population that have never been citizens have never had the possibility of parliamentary representation. This disparity bothers very few because the Swiss will naturally do the right thing because they are morally superior (see points 2 and 3 above). ]]> https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=3191 2015-12-20T20:56:47+01:00 https://earthli.com/users/marco

https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=3028 2014-08-15T21:06:59+02:00 https://earthli.com/users/marco

https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=2999 2014-06-08T15:07:50+02:00 https://earthli.com/users/marco

, but it describes quite accurately what I attempted to do when formulating a response to the essay "Nobody. Understands. Punctuation." by Peter Welch . Below is the text of my mail to him. I’ve read a few of your essays since you made such a splash with what... ]]>

, but it describes quite accurately what I attempted to do when formulating a response to the essay "Nobody. Understands. Punctuation." by Peter Welch . Below is the text of my mail to him. I’ve read a few of your essays since you made such a splash with what you are probably aware is your making-it-to-the-big-time essay "Programming Sucks" by Peter Welch and I enjoyed the last one propounding descriptivism over prescriptivism. A descriptivist is ordinarily well-shielded from any sort of grammatical suggestions because even the most bull-headed of grammar Nazis should know a lost cause when they see one. But I detected more than a whiff of someone who was interested in language and expression and, more than anything else, being *understood*. I liked the description of writing as being a medium through which "writers are trying to transfer the voices in their heads into yours.” [1] I read through as you lavished attention on semicolons, the beloved em-dash, colons and commas. But you paid only lip service to the dash or hyphen, leaving it without an example in your essay. I write because I thought that my dear friend the hyphen could have been more enthusiastically represented in a few other places in your writing. [2] I stumbled only a few times when reading your essay, across what I like to call “speed bumps”, which are where a punctuation choice causes me to read a sentence in an unintended manner until I end up in a dead end of sorts — a parsing error — from which I must back-track until I find the fork in the sentence at which I stopped following the author’s intent. In my experience, these forks often arise from a missing hyphen; that was the case in the following sentence: "Punctuation started with periods that told the speaker when to take a breath, and as both a long time proponent of using the run on sentence to better communicate the ranting rage in my head over the nonsense that people choose to fight about in this country and a person who is occasionally asked to read his work out loud, I've come to value this original function in a visceral way." I would have had an easier time reading the sentence above had you included a hyphen between “long” and "time” and, ironically, “run” and “on”. Perhaps it’s just me and my penchant for hyphens. Their absence online and in many otherwise excellent essays by excellent authors occasionally gives me pause and reason to wonder whether my expectation of them is wrong-headed. Perhaps others are much more easily able to read “wrong headed” as a single word without a hyphen, or “back track” or “bull headed". But, when I look these words up in a dictionary, there they are, defined in the official dictionary as having a hyphen. I hope you take this missive in the spirit in which it was offered — and also as what it quite clearly also is: just a bit of fun writing on my part. I hope too that you are open-minded enough to consider whether maybe, just maybe, the hyphen could be paid a bit more attention and perhaps even wend its way into your writing where it would not only be grammatically correct but genuinely useful to the task of conveying meaning and fostering understanding on the part of the intended audience. Cheers and keep up the good work. I follow your blog with pleasure. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- [1] As your essay made abundantly clear, it’s not that a descriptivist doesn’t care about punctuation, but rather that punctuation rules shouldn’t become a distraction from the main task of imparting meaning. For example, I am strongly of the opinion that it matters not at all whether I place a period or comma within or without an ending quote because it has zero effect on the pacing of the sentence. I chose “inside” for old-time’s sake. [1] As an aside, I want to stress that my attitude toward punctuation lines up quite closely with your own. [3] Did I consider briefly whether I should surround “the hyphen” in the previous sentence with commas? I did, but decided that my mental oration of it didn’t require them, so I left them out. Did I also consider whether “briefly” in the second sentence of this footnote should be bracketed — nay, strait-jacketed — with commas as well? I did, and moved on, once again, without them. [1] Am I also a fan of footnotes as a source of humor and tangential information? I am. ]]> https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=2945 2014-02-09T23:02:52+01:00 https://earthli.com/users/marco

was more reasonable, I felt. He wrote, "I know I’m treading a delicate path here, and opening myself up to accusations of “blaming the victim.” However, I’m merely floating scenarios to consider, and you can think what you will. But if Mia’s account is true, it means that in the middle of custody and support negotiations, during which Woody needed to be on his best behavior, in a house belonging to his furious ex-girlfriend, and filled with people seething mad at him, Woody, who is a well-known claustrophobic, decided this would be the ideal time and place to take his daughter into an attic and molest her, quickly, before a house full of children and nannies noticed they were both missing." That the accusation bases on such an improbable chain of events, events that lacked enough evidence for the police to have even charged Allen at the time, suggests that the whole allegation should be looked at very skeptically. Of course, that doesn't stop other bloviations like the article "Debating Woody Allen On Super Bowl Sunday" by Andrew Sullivan . Sullivan isn't really an evidence-based reality guy -- he's really only a level or two higher on the food chain that Kristof, which isn't saying much -- so he feels free to tell us that "[t]he only thing I can infer with absolute certainty from the anguished letter Dylan Farrow has written to the New York Times is that she is expressing incandescent rage". Yeah, no kidding. As I said, I didn't read her open letter, but there is rarely a doubt that the person making the accusation of child abuse believes it wholeheartedly. If nothing else, it helps make the case to others. But we live in a world of "repressed memories" that turn out to have been manufactured ex post facto through endless repetition and reinforcement. We have hundreds of studies showing how easy it to get people to remember things that never were. I am not making a judgment of this case. I am simply pointing out the shaky basis of evidence for the prosecution. Even without 20 years of confabulation layered over it, there wasn't enough for police go on when it actually happened. Sullivan concludes his evidence-free musings by intoning "[t]hose with the greatest gifts can get away with the greatest crimes." Well, not really. Those with the most money can do that. Those with the most power. One of Sullivan's favorite people ever, whom he cheerleaded (cheerled?) in his endeavors to lie his way into way with Iraq, is George Bush. Though Sullivan has since admitted that he "seriously misjudged Bush's sense of morality", he hasn't seen fit to condemn Bush in anything approaching the severity that he just condemned Woody Allen. This, despite the evidence for their respective crimes to be inversely proportional to Sullivan's judgment. So, let's just toss Sullivan on the same pile as Kristof, shall we? As yet another inconsistent, judgmental dumbass who feels its OK to prefer the writings of a woman who feels she's been wronged just because that accusations she's making are so horrific. Doesn't that mean that our requirements for evidence should be even higher? Instead, we hear the word pedophile and give the accuser every benefit of the doubt -- just in case. Why would someone make the accusation if it weren't true? (we ask) I don't know. But it happens -- and not as rarely as we think. And it's not necessarily lying -- often the accuser believes the story wholeheartedly, but that doesn't make it true. Given the power that such an accusation has to ruin a person's life, shouldn't we muster our best effort to making sure that a person is innocent until proven guilty? ]]> https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=2937 2014-01-26T20:49:34+01:00 https://earthli.com/users/marco

. The following partial citation is from a blog post titled "Christ, I hate Blackboard" by davenoon that, I feel, has some real nuggets of gold, some shining exemplars of the kind of literary genius that can only result from the collision of some (possibly heretofore nascent) writing talent and a particularly aneurysm-inducing piece of software. I have elided some of what I considered to be the more hyperbolic portions that distracted from rather than enhanced the white-hot fury of this man's rage. "Hundreds of years from now, after disease and fire and famine have thinned the human herd to a shrunken patchwork of sagging, skeletal bands of [...] half-mad wraiths [...] a remote spur of humanity will somehow recover the capacity to speak, an ability long since abandoned by their ancestors, who were mute-struck with the unfathomable despair of those cursed to watch everything they love die. [...] these distant people will bring forth a new language to survey the boundaries of their pain. "On the outskirts of this new language, lurking on its crimsoned frontier, will lie words that will themselves have been cast into exile – foul offgassings within a lexicon that itself stands as a towering monument to the boundlessly obscene, words that will curve backward and devour themselves, each one an afflicted universe in the process of total collapse, words that exist for microseconds before streaking, unremembered and unmourned, into the void. "These are the words, [...] that I would use to catalogue the depth of my loathing for [INSERT TARGET OF HATRED HERE]. When I die, I want my whiskey-pickled body larded into a cryonic chamber, then buried deep in the earth. A thousand years from now, I want these loping, crookspined human gargoyles to dig me up and reanimate me. I will learn their language; I will amble to the profane horizon of their blood-gorged vernacular; I will force them at spear-point to build me a time machine; then I will murder them all with my bare hands. I will return to all of you then to bear witness, in a rapturous tornado of filth, to my contempt for that unholy [INSERT SHORT DESCRIPTION OF TARGET OF HATRED HERE]. (Emphasis added.)" The second paragraph I left untouched for reasons that I hope are obvious. It is gold. The last sentence as well. Please not that I have also converted the tirade into an easy-to-use template, ready to be directed at targets of similar opprobrium, that have truly earned this level of obloquy. Hat-tip to "Epic software rant" by Mark Liberman . ]]> https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=2911 2014-01-03T23:20:54+01:00 https://earthli.com/users/marco

discusses a change in focus in recent years at Netflix -- actually since they switched to emphasizing streaming content over DVD delivery. Netflix has started to position itself more as a television company than a "great movies" company because of... ]]>

discusses a change in focus in recent years at Netflix -- actually since they switched to emphasizing streaming content over DVD delivery. Netflix has started to position itself more as a television company than a "great movies" company because of purely economic reasons. As Salmon puts it, "Netflix’s big problem, it seems to me, is that it can’t afford the content that its subscribers most want to watch." The big blockbusters that people actual want to stream aren't going to be affordable at only $8 a month per subscriber -- not when on-demand services from cable companies are asking that same price per movie. He goes on in more detail, "Once upon a time, when a movie came out and garnered good reviews, you could add it to your list, long before it was available on DVD, in the knowledge that it would always become available eventually. If you’re a streaming subscriber, however, that’s not possible: if you give Netflix a list of all the movies you want to watch, the proportion available for streaming is going to be so embarrassingly low that the company decided not to even give you that option any more." In the good old days, Netflix would use quite a sophisticated algorithm to score its enormous backlog of DVDs to find and suggest movies that you really would end up liking. But that enormous back-catalog is not available as streaming content. Why? Trademark and licensing issues, of course. Economically and ecologically, it would make more sense to stream movies instead of producing DVDs and shipping them around the country, but now is not the time to start arguing IP law. Instead, Salmon explains what Netflix does instead: "So Netflix has been forced to attempt a distant second-best: scouring its own limited library for the films it thinks you’ll like, rather than simply looking for the specific movies which it knows (because you told it) that you definitely want to watch. This, from a consumer perspective, is not an improvement." OK, now it should be clear that while Netflix has a pedigreed history in quality movie delivery, movies can't be Netflix's future. But why the emphasis on television rather than movies? How does that improve matters? Salmon again, "One huge difference between TV and movies is that audiences have much lower quality thresholds for the former than they do for the latter. [...] TV shows are cheaper to license than movies are, and people tend to be much more addicted to their TVs than they are to watching movies [...] Netflix [...] just wants to feed me more and more and more of the same, drawing mainly from a library of second-tier movies and TV shows [...]" The goal is to secure eyeballs and ad revenue, the same as standard television today but with an IP-based content-delivery model. So Netflix retains its name, but not its original purpose. Other services will replace it, I'm sure. ]]> https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=2866 2013-10-07T19:06:55+02:00 https://earthli.com/users/marco

. The online experience is somewhat better but still has some mysterious bugs and omissions -- it's hard to believe that this software has been in use for years -- and by millions of users. [Where's the Zürich] ... ]]>

. The online experience is somewhat better but still has some mysterious bugs and omissions -- it's hard to believe that this software has been in use for years -- and by millions of users. [Where's the Zürich Hauptbahnhof?] One example comes from the list of suggestions returned when a user types in the "from" or "to" field in the route finder. One day, I entered what I thought was an easy match, one of the largest and busiest train stations in Switzerland: Zürich main station. In German, it's called the "Zürich Hauptbahnhof", which is what I typed, as shown in the screenshot below. [image] As you can see, it utterly failed to match that train station (again, the "largest [...] in Switzerland" and one of the "busiest [...] in the world", according to "Wikipedia" ). You'll note that I was using the site in German and I entered German text. The trick to finding the Zürich main station on the SBB web site is to use the abbreviation "HB" instead, as shown below. [image] Only if you use the abbreviation does the list of suggestions contain the Zürich main station. This is totally unacceptable; both should match but, if they had to choose just one, shouldn't it be the actual name of the station? [Math is hard?] The other example I found occurs once you've managed to get a route between two stations. For the route shown, the web site indicates when the train leaves ("ab") and when it arrives ("an"). It also takes care of the math for you and shows how long it takes, listing it under "Dauer". In the screenshot below, however, the site seems to have subtracted incorrectly in every instance, mysteriously adding 10 minutes to each result. [image] I can attest that the ride from Zürich Altstetten really does take only 6-8 minutes. Why is the site adding these incorrectly? I ran the search again today and got the following results: [image] Instead of a constant 10 minutes, the site added 10, 0, 11, 10, 11 and 0 minutes respectively. Despite the confusing representation and the SBB's less-than-stellar reputation, I was still convinced that there must be method to their madness. Curious, I expanded the first of the suggestions, as shown below. [image] The times are from when you enter the first train and leave the last one, not for the whole journey. If the trip includes a walk between two trains, then that walking time is included in the "dauer"; if, however, the walk is before the first train or after the last train, that time is not included. Good to know, I guess. ]]> https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=2856 2013-07-05T08:57:46+02:00 https://earthli.com/users/marco

a call. We can help you fix this. [Prologue] When I renewed my monthly train ticket a month ago, the lady behind the counter told me that I could have gotten it from a machine instead. She handed me a little pamphlet that explained how to use their ticket machines. I gave it back. In hindsight, this may have been a bit hasty. [The setup] My monthly pass was about to expire. I didn't need to get a whole month this time, so I figured that I'd just buy a six-pack of one-day tickets, in order to save money. How hard could that be? [Initial encounter] Instead of heading back to the human-powered ticket desk, I took the lady's advice and approached a machine. I got to the train station about eight minutes before my train, confident that this would be more than enough time for me to exercise my not insignificant technical skills to prise forth a ticket. On the screen, I poked a smiling SBB stock-photo customer in the eye to begin. I chose a normal ticket. I entered my destination. Then I elected to change the starting point (I already had a ticket covering part of the trip). Done. This was too easy. Now to get a multi-day ticket. Multi-day, multi-ride...what's the difference? I touch the info icon on each. A wall of text. Scanning doesn't elucidate anything. Tick, tock. I select multi-ride just to keep moving. [1] I'm done early. All that remains is to pay for the ticket. I slide in my card... It's blocked. I turn it around and try again. Blocked. The card reader's apparently broken. The machine is blissfully unaware of this and pops up a helpful message, asking whether it should just forget the whole thing and cancel my transaction. I tell it not to cancel, but to go back to payment-method selection. Going back incurs an interminable pause. Tick, tock. I'll pay cash! The machine gives a maximum of twenty bucks in change. I have no twenties; only fifties. Can't pay cash. Wait! I have some change! What if I get a single-day ticket? *Type, type, type* That's only CHF5.80. *Scrounge, scrounge* I have CHF5.60. Tick, tock. Can I just tell the conductor that the machines are broken? Does that even work? [2] I look over at the second ticket machine. There's a man standing in front of it, looking back and forth between two credit cards in his hands. Tick, tock. He seems to be having trouble deciding how he will pay for his ... CHF197.-- ticket. [3] Tick, tock. The dam has broken. He's decided. Printing... Tick, tock. I jump on the machine after he's finished. I type in the same commands as I'd typed in just a minute before on the other machine, my fingers flying over the keys, marveling at the comparative speed of the ZVV machine vs. that of the SBB one. Wait...why can't I change the starting point of my journey like on the other machine? Where did that option go? Start over. Tick, tock. Why can't I choose a multi-ticket from this machine? Where did that option go? Fine. Get a single ticket. Anything at this point. Type in both towns again, muscle memory helping me along. Laaaaagggggg as I type. Why is searching a list of a few thousand items so slow? Choose a single ticket. Wait, why is it cheaper now? What changed? I could pay for this one with my change now. [4] No time to think about it. Tick, tock. The bell is ringing. The barrier is lowering. The train is coming. There's the button for multi-card! It's on the final screen instead. I barely have time to register that this is a much better place for that button as I punch it. I can feel the rumble of the approaching train in my heels. I jam in my credit card. The reader works! Huzzah! I type my code. Nope, the reader's still warming up. Please hold... Tick, tock. I type in my code. I can hear the train now. Start printing! Tick, tock. Oh, the machine wants me to decide whether I want a receipt before it will do anything else. Yes, I want a receipt! Now start printing! The printer has started! I see the flashing light alerting me to the imminent arrival of my hard-won train ticket, still warm from the innards of the machine. A paper drops into the slot, lying awkwardly in the tray. It looks rather large. "One of your products could not be printed." I reach in and pull out a forty-centimeter--long, curled monstrosity that purports to be my multi-ticket. In my haste, I assumed that this was a valid ticket. That this hideous thing with ink staining the front of it every which way was the product that my labors had brought into the world. I assumed that the aforementioned product that could not be printed was my receipt. I thought that while I might be in trouble with bookkeeping back at the office for not having a receipt, that at least I had a ticket for the train. [5] Never mind all of that. I had a multi-ticket. An overlarge and misshapen one, perhaps, but nonetheless a ticket. Now, one final step to make it valid. Tick, tock. The train is gliding into the station I hurried over and proudly punched my ticket, the ink delineating today's date mixing illegibly into the mess of ink already printed there. [6] I didn't care. The ticket had printed. I had paid. And I was getting on that train legally. With a valid ticket. Whether I could prove it to a conductor or not was another question, but my conscience was clear. I folded my ticket three times and put it in my backpack -- because it wouldn't fit in my wallet. Despite my misgivings, no conductor came to make me reveal my shame. [The ride home] I got to the office and somehow the SBB came up in conversation that afternoon. I remembered my ticket and hauled its weighty length out of my backpack. My colleague laughed and expressed sincere doubt that this was a valid ticket. He thought I might slip by with it, but was almost certain that it had been annulled. This seemed like a reasonable theory, but I was beyond caring one way or the other. Still, when I arrived at the station three minutes early for my trip home, I spotted a ZVV machine on my platform. Brimming with confidence, muscle memory and experience, I staged an assault, fingers flashing as I once again unerringly entered my order. I was flying along, typing my destination, when... "Your order encountered an error and could not be completed." The screen froze, wiped itself clean and restored the introductory graphic. You know, the one with the people grinning their way through a day made more magical by having been able to purchase their tickets from one of these wonderful machines. I turned and walked away. I would take my chances with my malformed freak of a ticket, blissful in the knowledge that the SBB couldn't hurt me anymore. I had stopped caring. I napped on the way home. No conductor dared to disturb my peace. [The ticket purchase. Take #2.] The next morning, I was at the station early again. More level heads had convinced me to try again and a good night's rest had restored my optimism. I went straight for the ZVV machine, avoiding the squat and grimly brooding SBB machine with its slow screen and faulty card reader. *Type, type, type.* Destination; starting location; multi-card; full days. Wait. What? CHF70.-? For six days? A whole month costs CHF119.- Argghhh. Now what did I do wrong? Back, back, back. Tick, tock. Choose multi-card; 1-hour. CHF30.- For 6 trips? That's three days of commuting. Dammit. This is a waste of money; I might as well just get a month. Back, back, back. Tick, tock. One month. Personal or transferable? Personal is cheaper; personal. Personal card number? What? Oh, it's on my half-fare card. *Dig half-fare card out of wallet* Tick, tock. Train's a'comin'. Start typing my half-fare card number. Crash. "Your order encountered an error and could not be completed." Breathe. Start over. The bell's ringing. The barrier is lowering. The train's a'comin'. Just get a six-pack of 1-hour tickets. It's the cheapest option that lets me avoid having to buy a ticket again this evening. It's the least typing I can do. Tick, tock. Got it. Sweet Lord almighty, I think have a valid ticket. No, really. This time I think I have a valid ticket. *STAMP* Now it's valid. [Epilogue] On my way to my destination, I did the math again and realized that I would need another ticket in three days. A chill ran down my spine. Time to give up. I would return to the SBB counter and just buy a monthly ticket from a human being. At the counter, I asked for a renewal on the recently-expired monthly ticket I handed to him, but starting on the next Monday, my hand simultaneously cramping at the thought of how much touchscreen-typing that would have entailed. In seconds, he renewed it and handed me the new ticket, chirpily telling me, "You could have bought this ticket on the machine instead. Just three taps and you'd have been done!" That night, as I lay in bed, I wondered whether his family missed him yet. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- [1] This would turn out to be incorrect, but it would also turn out not to matter (keep reading). Multi-day is a 24-hour pass for the day on which you stamp it; multi-ride is a 1-hour pass. The former is obviously more expensive than than the latter. [1] A colleague would later tell me that, if you call the SBB and tell them that the machine is broken, and give your name, that you're free and clear. This seems like a lot of work on the customer's part. You try to pay for a train ride and end up working for the train company. [1] Considering how my purchase on that machine turned out, I was happy that it had elected to mess with my purchase and not his, as he seemed to have had a much longer trip before him than I. [1] It turned out that on the first machine I'd selected a daily ticket whereas my flying fingers had selected a one-hour ticket on the second machine. It was about 20% cheaper and fit my coin budget but I would have had to do everything again in Altstetten had I chosen that option. [1] It turned out that I was wrong. Another colleague would tell me that day that this is the machine's way of telling me that the ticket is invalid. When it said that the second item -- my receipt -- could not be printed, it was notifying me that it had nullified the entire transaction. With a whole screen of space, the machine could have told me that in much clearer terms. [1] Not only was the ticket invalid, but I had somehow managed to purchase the wrong zones anyway. Of the text I was barely able to decipher, I was almost certain that I didn't have the zones I needed. It explained why my ticket purchases on the next day would seem so much more expensive. ]]> https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=2842 2013-06-01T23:31:46+02:00 https://earthli.com/users/marco

https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=2832 2013-05-16T22:46:39+02:00 https://earthli.com/users/marco

https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=2734 2012-12-16T22:34:43+01:00 https://earthli.com/users/marco

* "Life Coaching" by Penn & Teller * "Self Helpless" by Penn & Teller * "Death Inc." by Penn & Teller * "Safety Hysteria" by Penn & Teller * "Alternative Medicine" by Penn & Teller * "Feng Shuit / Bottled Water" by Penn & Teller * "P.E.T.A." by Penn & Teller I wrote down observations and comments as I watched, included below. These are more impressions than an article with a topic and conclusion. The interesting thing is that the fools -- there really is no other word for it -- that attend these seminars (the Self Helpless episode, in particular) are self-selecting. A skeptic can't imagine being in any of these groups without blowing up and screaming "bullshit!" but, with everyone else in the group nodding away, they all reinforce each other's belief that they're being helped. If you're in a session like this and have doubts, you need only look around to see that no one else has doubts and your own will melt away. As Penn puts it in one of the shows: "One of the tragic things about this industry is that it attracts those people that are the most vulnerable and the most easily taken-in. You get this rush of adrenalin and this rush of endorphins and you just feel like your whole life is just different." But they just feel better without actually being better. Feeling better is important -- it can often give you the confidence and courage to actually make things better. But, if your problem is debt or unemployment, your problem is not only still there in the morning, it's likely been exacerbated by the financial drain of the self-help courses, psychics or life coaches that imparted the fleeting good feeling. A good example is the cost of a coffin from the Death Inc. episode: $24,000 for the top of the line. For a casket that will molder in the ground. Almost required reading for this episode is the ground-breaking The American Way of Death by Jessica Mitford (originally written in 1963 and updated several decades later). The main problem isn't that people believe these treatments -- God knows that they're suckered every day by allopathic cures, as well -- it's that there are so many of these people, all with too much disposable income and too little brains, willing to throw away their money to con men. A prime examples is the reflexology guy who berates his potential student to start using the "science" before she's taken a single class -- in order to pay for the classes he wants to give her. Or the fake "snail facial" in the Alternative Medicine episode: the psychosomatic effect and people's ability to convince themselves does absolutely all of the work. That and the "tightening", rejuvenating effect of snail slime drying on your cheeks and forehead. The first part of Feng Shui/Bottled Water isn't bad, but you definitely have to check out the "bottled water" by Penn & Teller part. As you can imagine, the suckers did all of the legwork in praising L'eau de robinet (tap water in French) and Agua de culo (ass water in Spanish) to the high heavens. And, again, this would be funny except that people are convinced to pay a 1000 times markup for tap water. I thought that the P.E.T.A. episode was the weakest -- not because P.E.T.A. is beyond reproach, far from it -- but because Penn & Teller only interviewed morons in defense of animal rights. See how well you do against Peter Singer, Penn; your bombast will only take you so far. And then they yell that they discovered that P.E.T.A. believes that "sometimes the only kind option for some animals is to put them to sleep forever". If you're halfway enlightened rather than trying to make every last act perpetrated by an enemy organization look bad, you'd ask yourself why euthanasia couldn't be considered ethical treatment? It just seems like they went for the easier arguments here rather than digging in to the philosophy of it (and I'm aware that this is Penn & Teller, not a high-minded symposium on animal rights). Inviting Ted Nugent to play the voice of reason on your show? You lose all credibility immediately. And that jackass radio host Dennis Prager, who bloviates that the "stupidity [...] and opinions" that he hears could only be the result of "higher education". That is such a stupid thing to say; I guess that, according to his logic, he must be an educated man. And then they have him put the final nail in the coffin of anyone who cares about animals: that they don't have any bigger problems to be worried about. Well, yeah, that may be true but, if so, that fact should be celebrated. And what is the argument there? That people should be thankful for what they've got -- that life in the 21st century is better than being a Jew in 1930s Germany -- and shut their f$&king, whiny mouths? That seems like a typical argument coming from a right-wing radio-show host. So everybody should shut up but him, especially when he's telling immoral, destitute sluts to stop getting abortions. Penn & Teller should have chosen their interview subjects more wisely -- although there's a good chance that Penn is a weird mix of indignant liberal and wide-eyed/wild-eyed libertarian. The presence of Ted Nugent is serious warning sign. [Update: Vaccinations] It's March 2021 and we're wasting a lot of breath looking a gift horse in the mouth. We have a vaccine that is better than we'd even dared dream it could be and it came 4x faster than we thought it would and we're worried about post-vaccination symptoms that nearly always clear up. There are 10M vaccinations per day and the new focuses laser-like on the one or two people per week worldwide who have complications. [media] ]]> https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=2683 2012-09-27T21:23:21+02:00 https://earthli.com/users/marco

) to promote a film. Jon Stewart was not only bedazzled by her, but also by her having had Christopher Hitchens as a babysitter when she was much younger. They lauded good ol' Hitch for a while 'cause he was such a stand-up guy, especially... ]]>

) to promote a film. Jon Stewart was not only bedazzled by her, but also by her having had Christopher Hitchens as a babysitter when she was much younger. They lauded good ol' Hitch for a while 'cause he was such a stand-up guy, especially for someone who was a raging alcoholic (their words). When Jon asked her how her family had gotten Hitch as a babysitter, she responded that her family was part of a wonderful group of journalists that all worked together at one point but that they were "unfortunately all dying out". She was clearly thinking of Hitchens, who'd recently died of cancer but may also have been referring to Alexander Cockburn, her uncle, who was also a heralded writer and who'd also recently died of cancer. [image]They went on to discuss a recent trip she'd taken to Africa in the company of Nicholas Kristof, of the New York Times. Kristof is well-known as a hack and a shill for the elite and those in power. That he recently started paying attention to the plight in Africa and is lauding micro-financing as the way forward, out of poverty -- there's probably a catch where it will benefit his usual clientèle, but I won't hazard a guess as to what that might be. This recent zag toward something potentially useful to the hoi polloi in no way redeems the decades he spent zigging in the other direction, spewing one power-kowtowing column after another -- in what he doubtless considered to be a form of journalism -- into the miasma that is the modern American media. [image]Now, here's the thing. Hitchens gets not only mentioned but posthumously lauded on the Daily Show. This despite having spent his last decade essentially cheer-leading for the neo-conservatives and the Bush administration in every foreign clusterfuck they saw fit to stumble America into in the name of eradicating what Hitchens considered a scourge on the Western way of life, Islam. The only reason people -- perhaps Jon Stewart included -- even know of Hitchens is that, once he'd made his turn toward a political sun that gelled with America's tastes, he was invited onto talk shows and news channels to share his erudite opinions in his unquestionably loquacious and vocabularily lush manner. Americans are kind of a sucker for the British accent, even now. At the time to which Ms. Wilde referred to Hitchens as having been a member of a group of journalists, he was a leftist -- a Trotskyist -- with dashes of Marxist and anarcho-syndicalism thrown in for good measure. They all were and they fought the good fight for the little guy. He used to write for the Nation (still the preëminent leftist magazine in the States), as did Alexander Cockburn. Her father, Andrew Cockburn, is a regular contributer to "CounterPunch" , an amazing source of independent -- and...wait for it...left-leaning -- journalism. Her other uncle, Patrick Cockburn, is also a regular contributor and is one of the best sources of balanced and untainted news about the Middle East available anywhere (perhaps equaled by Nir Rosen or Robert Fisk). She didn't mention any of these people, even though they are all much better people than the self-serving drunk, Hitchens. [1] [image]Alexander Cockburn's roots are in Ireland and he'd been living in America for 40 years when he died. He never, ever kowtowed and he never compromised his principles and he was always open to rational argument. This isn't to say that his shit didn't stink -- some of his views took some nuance and squinting to see where he was not exactly supporting them but supporting their potential rationality -- but he believed in science and fact and didn't buy into the "us vs. them" mentality that gets so many in the end. He gave amazing interviews and was a nearly peerless writer and would have been an amazing guest on the Daily Show -- he had a lovely rhythm to his diction and was easily as erudite as Hitchens (see the links below). Alas, Stewart is a great guy and seems to have his head on straight, but he's still an American and his show is still run by an American company, which means no out-and-out leftists (although Cockburn claimed that his views had more than a bit of libertarianism thrown in). In fact, leftists can't be mentioned by name at all. Hitchens and Kristof could be mentioned -- and lauded as wonderful chaps -- because they know how to align their opinions with the American mainstream. Buck the trend and even your own niece won't mention your name on TV. If you'd like to hear Alexander Cockburn at the top of his game, then you can listen to a "Tribute to Alexander Cockburn" . This is Hell! is a four-hour radio show that airs on Saturday mornings from the campus of Northwestern University, run by the venerable Chuck Mertz. [image]There's another "archival show" where you can find interviews with the clearly self-enamored Christopher Hitchens (a relatively regular visitor to the show) to which you can compare, if you'd like. That show also features a great interview with Greg Palast, who's an American journalist but is blackballed because of his relentless efforts to shed light on the corrupt elections process in the States. He's not doing too badly, though: BBC NewsNight has had him on staff for years now -- at least they can still recognize good journalism. So there you go, Hitchens and Kristof are acceptable because they're right-wing enough for the American media and don't make anyone uncomfortable. Greg Palast is working in England because no major U.S. news organization will hire him. Alexander Cockburn is persona non grata because he never compromised and never went over to the dark side, fighting for truth to the bitter end. Ironically, his bitter end came in Germany, where he'd gone for his final cancer treatment -- a final implicit ding on the state of things in America, perhaps, a shot over the bow of the American health-care system. Another American, Noam Chomsky, arguably the leading American moralist/political analyst for decades has been on This is Hell! many times but is utterly ignored by the mainstream media. Perhaps Cockburn himself summed it up best when he responded to Chuck Mertz's apologies about not having had him on in a while [2]: "I know, I know, I know, I hear these things ... it saddens me, but what do I care? Man is a fallen creature." -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- [1] It's not that I didn't like some of Hitchens's work, but he went so far off the rails in his last decade that it became harder and harder to excuse him of it just for the pleasure of reading what was often entertaining and well-written prose. [1] It's at the 156:00-minute mark in the interview linked above and is delivered so wonderfully off-the-cuff and in his smoothed-over Irish brogue. He will be missed by some at least. ]]> https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=2611 2012-01-28T13:02:02+01:00 https://earthli.com/users/marco

. It tells of a traffic accident: "Scotty Plunk, the driver of the truck, was killed. The driver of the Toyota, 19-year-old Joel Vann, had been drinking so" ... ]]>

. It tells of a traffic accident: "Scotty Plunk, the driver of the truck, was killed. The driver of the Toyota, 19-year-old Joel Vann, had been drinking so much that he did not remember the accident." Plunk killed by teenage drunk driver, Vann. The story is about why Haley Barbour -- notoriously corrupt governor of Mississippi -- pardoned him. "It is unclear what persuaded the governor to pardon Mr. Vann; his clemency application contains glowing references and a case study." The two parts of this sentence directly contradict each other. I'm almost certain the author meant to write "It is clear". That's a pretty major slip-up so early in the article (the part that even the worst editor will actually read). The next couple of sentences are even more mysterious. The letter applying for clemency came from Vann's father and "traced [young] Vann’s path from rehabilitation through college, marriage and fatherhood". That seems like a lot of living to pack in to 19 years. Either the guy's age was given incorrectly at the beginning of the article or Vann did all of that either while pending trial or while in jail. The article settles down after that and is quite an interesting read about the pardons made by Haley Barbour on his way out the door: "he issued 10 times as many as his four predecessors combined". The people released were both overwhelmingly white and overwhelmingly well-connected. "Many of the applications contain the type of recommendations that a poor person could be hard-pressed to collect: character references from state legislators or local elected officials." One guy -- "serving 33 years in prison for growing eight pounds of marijuana" -- spent $1000 he barely had to apply for a pardon and never heard back. The basic problem is that the law even allows such a sweeping override of the judgments of courts by an official. The problem with executive override also exists at a federal level. "Grants of clemency are solely at the governor’s discretion, and he is not obligated to give his reasoning." Not only does the governor (or president) have final say, there is no way to prove corruption because he or she has power of fiat. ]]> https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=2515 2011-03-27T19:42:15+02:00 https://earthli.com/users/marco

and shows a protester taking aim at the police with a baguette [1]. [image] I just couldn't help thinking that the cops were surprisingly nonchalant considering the guy pretending his bread is a gun is part of a revolution. Would anyone... ]]>

and shows a protester taking aim at the police with a baguette [1]. [image] I just couldn't help thinking that the cops were surprisingly nonchalant considering the guy pretending his bread is a gun is part of a revolution. Would anyone like to hazard a guess as to what would have happened to this guy had he tried something like this in a real hot zone, like New York City? Amadou Diallo's family, perhaps? [1] The original article captioned the image as "A Tunisian demonstrator holds his breadstick like a weapon in front of riot police during a protest against the country's new government in Tunis on January 18, 2011." Methinks baguette is more fitting. ]]> https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=2512 2011-03-27T18:00:31+02:00 https://earthli.com/users/marco

comprises Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Jamaica and other islands (watch the video or hit the link above for a full list). * The "Crown Dependencies" include Guernsey, Jersey and Isle of Man. * And, finally, the "British Overseas Territories" (also known as the former Crown Colonies) include Bermuda, the Cayman Islands and the Falkland Islands as well as many more. [image] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- [1] Hat-tip to Kath, who found it on "Video of the Day" by Mike Barish (Video of the Day: The Difference between the United Kingdom, Great Britain and England). ]]> https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=2509 2011-03-21T23:03:38+01:00 https://earthli.com/users/marco

https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=2485 2011-02-09T22:46:12+01:00 https://earthli.com/users/marco

is closing its doors for good this weekend. I've been a member for about a decade and contributed sporadically throughout. I saved my comments from the site before it goes dark and included them below. The context is often not there, but it's an interesting compendium of... ]]>

is closing its doors for good this weekend. I've been a member for about a decade and contributed sporadically throughout. I saved my comments from the site before it goes dark and included them below. The context is often not there, but it's an interesting compendium of issues from the last decade. My stats were as follows: * name: dur * member since: Tue 23 Oct 2001 * karma: 8 (astute scholarly underrated succinct) * favorite words: countries(16), already(10), country(10), issues(10), though(9), world(9), quite(8), democratic(8), without(8), government(7) It wouldn't be the first time that the CIA has arranged for fake weapons shipments to be 'intercepted' by the US. The announcement of the interception follows, everyone swallows the story, no one believes the denials, and the US has political leverage that makes its ally look better and it's ally's enemy look untrustworthy. All without overt involvement. By the time the CIA admits that it was, in fact, behind the shipment, usually at least a decade later, it's far too late to matter. [...] Modded down to irrelevant already. This isn't conspriracy theory stuff. This is the level of skepticism that's required in order to process news today. The fact is that the CIA was and might still be the largest media force in the world. The fact is that the public record, either through released documents, Congressional hearings, etc., shows that the CIA has faked events dozens of times in the past, whether in the Middle East, South or Central America, or Southeast Asia. If you think there is no chance that the CIA is involved again, then you aren't being objective. I'm glad I searched for the book title before pounding out pretty much the same comment as above. I just wanted to add that in The Light of Other Days, it's not a technology that stores the information, and it's not human-made technology that records it. Privacy is gone because technology was discovered that can open a wormhole anywhere and anywhen (in the past), through which it is possible to capture radiation, and thus, light and (through some manipulation) sound. The universe itself serves as recorder and database in this case, so since the universe is reality, you at least didn't have to address the data falsification issues. Come to think of it though, once you have such a database, one that seems infallible, it becomes easier to claim that a certain video is from a wormhole feed and base its veracity on that of the wormhole cam's. Just because the sentences are run-on and punctuation and spelling could be better doesn't mean it's incoherent. Try reading it again: "Is it not true that many of the products that americans buy (even for petty materialistic purposes) cause a direct, and negative effect on these third world countries that lash out at us? Are the problems in Iraq also influenced by America? We get oil from parts of the world everyday that are in a state of complete and utter poverty/turmoil, yet none of our personal profits went to helping these countries become a place where such freedom is enjoyed as America. Would that not be a good business move?" This is relatively straight-forward; not very eloquent, but a good, basic description of the problem. Certainly not incoherent. Is this meta-meta modding? [...] Naming a whole bunch of democracies with which the U.S. has close relations and/or treaties says absolutely nothing about their preferred government. It says more about the limits of their power to influence some countries. If the country is already relatively well-established, the price of overthrow and dictator-installation far outweighs the potential benefits. However, you should read more about immediate post world-war history in several of the countries you've mentioned. In particular, Italy and Greece (though you didn't mention that one) were heavily influenced by the U.S. with bought elections in order to ensure more right-leaning (and fascist) governments. Amen. I too find it interesting to read that most comments are willing to accept the Bush Administration's rationale; letting them lay the ground rules. As you already said: Saddam in known to have chemical weapons. He hasn't used them since he left his alliance with the US. After ten years of sanctions, he can only be weaker than he was immediately after the last Gulf War, when he was allowed to remain in power. Simply because weapons were found doesn't make me any more willing to accept that war is the only answer. #44's comment (and others) almost sound relieved that they no longer have to think about it and can now just flow along on the inevitable tide of war, freed of of all moral obligations. Attacking Iraq is wrong. Just because Bush said that he would only attack Iraq if weapons were found (a lie, of course, they're going no matter what) doesn't mean that he's "right" now to go to war. That's his logic (if it can be called that): not mine. By the way, let this story simmer for a bit; perhaps it too will disappear, like those Al Qaida fugitives loose in the States. First of all, the fact that you got 'concrete' solutions out of that speech is nothing short of remarkable. I do agree that it would be difficult to offer solutions in an hour on the more than a dozen issues Bush raised. It's a perfectly legitimate question to ask how much was Bush lying...or rather, how much was he just saying stuff to try to boost his ratings. AIDS in Africa, hydrogen cars, the environment, reducing prison population...not exactly issues he's ever raised before except to note how they will never happen. Why should we believe him now? And when the hell did environmental, alternate fuel or foreign aid legislation become difficult to pass because of Democrats? That's actually interesting about the French and Russian contracts for oil with Iraq. However, why should they be afraid of their oil contracts in the case of regime change? The new regime would be just as bound to the contracts incurred by the old one, no? It happens all the time in third world nations -- their crushing debts aren't absolved because they get a new leader or government. So why are the Russians and French worried? Because if the US orchestrates the regime change, you can bet your ass the new regime won't honor the old regime's contracts and all of the oil will start to flow cheaply to the US instead. I believe that's quite a legitimate concern on the part of the Russians and the French. So, yes, they are self-interested, but you're not quite explicit enough about why they're afraid. They're afraid the US will cheat them out of their contracts once the dust settles. I found a reference in a NY Times article (registration required): "On Target and Off in 2002 (page 3)" by Colin McGinn, professor of philosophy, Rutgers University "My favorite polling result of the 2000 election was a Time magazine survey that revealed that 19 percent of Americans believe that they have incomes in the top 1 percent, and a further 20 percent believe they will someday. A large majority of us regard ourselves as pretty far above average." Be observant on what Bush is offering here. Just because he's backing off on his insanely strict no-abortion policy doesn't mean he's being reasonable now. The administration is still not supporting abortion, and isn't really even tolerating it. You see how elated he's managed to make some people on Capitol hill feel? "It certainly is a welcome change from their position on family planning funds." He hasn't done anything but instill a draconian policy for two years, then release it just a touch to almost the same level it was before he showed up, and then in only certain countries in which he's trying to curry favor, and all of a sudden he's a compromising hero. You've still got less than you started with. Just because he stopped kicking you in the ass doesn't mean you should thank him for punching you in the face. "the fact that Saddam, by some counts, is blamed for a million deaths" The war is expected to cause between 500,000 and 1,000,000 deaths. That's as if you broke your leg and the doctor cuts it off to fix it. Removing Saddam is good. The solution is bad. "...freeing oppressed peoples from violent tyrants" The problem is that people are starting to believe this. It is good to remove Saddam. He's a monster. People want to believe so badly that Iraq will magically have a democracy after he is gone that they forget the track record of the 'liberators'. Brutal dictators supported? Dozens. Democracies installed? Zero. Countries liberated by the US that were better off afterwards? Zero. If there were a doctor in town who'd killed every patient he'd every treated, would you be excited to see him by your bedside? "By whom?" It comes from the UN. I like the use of etc. after France and Germany. It implies that there are more countries on that list. And if you reply, please don't list Grenada and Kuwait or other similar shining examples of US intervention, like the last post. Afghanistan also doesn't go on that list because if you were still following actual events there, you'd have to know that they aren't liberated....and there are no mechanisms in place to get liberated either...and the US isn't putting anything into helping them liberate either. (Bush administration budget for Afghanistan? $0.) I'm not even saying they should. I'm pointing out that the US has a horrible track record on actually liberating countries. Even the countries liberated from fascism in WWII were carefully controlled to create the right forms of government (certainly not the socialist ones they tended toward in a hasty retreat from fascism). Controlling which governments a country gets to have is not a liberation or an installation of democracy. Did you even read your own post? You plead with the collected, illogical posters on Plastic to consider other arguments, then imply you'd like to see me killed in the last sentence. Only to rescue it with an inane J/K. Bravo. Do you have any idea of the US role in the examples you've cited? The US was a huge supporter of Indonesia's invasion of East Timor, indeed providing most of the weaponry for it, while the Cuban Missile Crisis was almost entirely a US creation. The inneffectiveness of peace deals in the Middle East could be directly related to the US' overwhelming support for Israel (to the tune of $3 Billion per year, give or take). If you check the voting record of the UN, I think you'll find that the ineffectiveness of the UN is largely due to the US' power within as a member of the security council. Many issues which you would expect an upstanding, moral country to support have a single 'no' vote from the US blocking them (though often Israel is the sole accompaniment). Silicone in your ass, your breasts, your calves, your testes, and anywhere else is OK. Botox in your forehead? Go right ahead. Sun-worshipping? Sure. Suck liters of fat out of your body with a vacuum cleaner? Thin is in. Slice your tongue in half? Nope. What's the difference? The first have the weight of industry and economy behind them, whereas tongue-splitting is only done by poor folks; and it's such a bizarre modification, it's unlikely to draw too many adherents. Thus, instead of starting a craze, we get a law. It's quite obvious that corporations pull much more weight than citizens. Another reason Nader wasn't allowed to debate is that the debate was not a publicly-sponsored presidential debate in the way that we assume it to be. It was an event organized by the Democratic and Republican parties; each wanted the debate because they thought they could steal votes from the other. They don't have to let anybody else debate if they don't want to. We don't have publicly-sponsored debates in the States — that would be far less manageable and controllable and is therefore not done. What we are allowed to see of presidential candidates is carefully controlled and distributed — Nader wouldn't have filled that bill at all, especially with his anti-corporate agenda, which is so very bad for both sponsors (in which the media are interested) and campaign coffers (which the parties are extremely interested in filling). "When it stops being about issues and starts being about personal hatred, I turn off the TV." Being unbiased does not mean liking everyone equally not matter what. Just because the Daily Show ridicules the Right more does make the show about 'personal hatred'. That's the same logic that people use when they call anyone against Israel's policies an anti-Semite. If one group is doing more stupid things that hurt more people than another, it's the news' job to report it. Despite Stewart's claims that the Daily Show is a fake news show, it's probably the most informative one the US has got. I think the Daily Show does a great job of presenting issues you don't see every day. An issue may be wrapped in silliness, ridicule and humor, but the fact that it was chosen as a topic for the show is important. That show presents a side of issues we rarely see on American TV. Jon Stewart's 'Waaaaa???' is his way of training Americans to approach all news with the same attitude. When CNN talks about the Democratic debate, they blather on and on about Gore's endorsement of Dean. The Daily Show steps back and shows us how far from actual issues that is. It shows how your standard newscast, liberal though it may be, is still nicely herded into covering the wrong issues or covering them in a placid, uninterested, unquestioning way. So maybe the next some blithe newscaster is showing footage of Iraqis packing a truck with all of their belongings and he/she notes that 'they're all smiling', maybe you'll think to yourself: 'waaaa???'. Some clarifications about what Democrat should mean are necessary here, no? The 'Democrats' mentioned as having a problem with Dean are Lieberman and Kerry, both also pure political machines without a single unpolled opinion. Both also quite conservative Democrats — Republicans running as Democrats (watch the debates, read their platforms, not very left-leaning, are they?) I lump Dean in with them for the most part because his platform and debating suffers the same flaws — he seems to say what he needs to in order to swing polls. I'm happy to hear that the Democratic front-runner has voiced a reasoned opinion about the capture of Saddam, though I fear he's doing it not because he believes it, but because he wants to distance himself from the hoe-down going on in the White House. I mean, he's right, catching Saddam wasn't worth the war, but that he's the anti-war candidate? He's switched opinions several times in the last year. Kucinich and Sharpton are the anti-war candidates. They may not have a chance in hell, but let's be clear. The puerile responses from Lieberman and Kerry shouldn't even be noted: it shows them for the shallow creatures that they are. They are happy to sweep away all the evil the war has brought (and will bring), not because a dictator has been removed (that's good, but what is he replaced with...is it better? Are less Iraqis dying? Are more fed? Watered? Provided with electricity? Jobs?) but because they see political advantage. Dean is right, but he's doing it because he sees political advantage. If Kucinich says it, its because he really believes it and doesn't care about the polls. Dean only says it (even if he believes it) when the polls jibe. "Using Occam's Razor, the simplest reason for why he appeared to be hiding something is that he had something to hide." I don't buy it. Imagine you're parked somewhere, haven't done a thing wrong, just waiting for your spouse to come back out of the Kwik-e-mart and two cops stroll up to you, guns not at the ready, but the little leather snap is undone. The cop says you've got drugs in your car and to 'fess up. You, of course have done nothing wrong, right? If you then refuse to let him search your person or your vehicle, you've got something to hide, right? You're not just standing by your right not to be searched without just cause? Of course not, the fact that you didn't jump out of the car and strip means you're guilty. Occam's Razor. Let's suppose further you notice that one of the cops is the same guy that already beat the living shit out of you once for stealing a candy bar from the Kwik-e-Mart...I'm betting your reluctance to cooperate is a little higher, no? I'm betting you might just tell him to fuck off, just because you can, wouldn't you? He's in deep shit if he beats you down again, when you've done nothing wrong. Or he should be. By the time the primaries have concluded, the Democratic party will have shaken itself loose from every last progressive or populist idea any of its candidates may have had. The Democrats will simply come up with a 'not Bush'. The current front-runner agrees (albeit reluctantly, to maintain the proper image) with Bush on most major issues, including the war in Iraq (sure he disagrees now, but his vote was cast for it ... spineless), the Patriot Act (we didn't know what we were doing ...) and the economy (tax cuts rock ...). So, if, by some miracle, the Rove slime machine doesn't work, and people vote in a Democratic version of Bush, who's a bit warmer and a bit fuzzier, what's the gain? I know, I know, people just to love to have voted for the winner — principles and issues be damned. What exactly is a wasted vote? "What most parents are trying to get through homeschooling is not a better education but one that more closely fits their own ideology, even to the point of downright denial of facts and the censorship of ideas. For the sake of their ideology they exclude knowledge, which is a harm to the child." That's true, but if you take a look at public education in America today, say in the history or social studies areas, I think that "downright denial of facts ... censorship of ideas" applies there as well. Is it worse to indoctrinate your child with your own world view ... or to let your child be indoctrinated with a government-sanctioned worldview intended to create worker drones/consumers that will perpetuate the existing system of power without question? The world view you pick up in American school is only coincident with reality in the sense that it creates and maintains a reality our society needs in order to continue. (anybody else here take High School economics or history in the 80s? Anybody else discover there's not a whole lot of overlap with reality?) Without sufficient indoctrination, the whole system would fall on its face, as 99% of the people wake up and find that they, in fact, are getting screwed. How can a parent screw it up worse that that? US Historians are so adorable...when they talk about world history. here's the example cited at the end of the article, by Kiesling: "It was ugly when the Germans did it, and it didn't (I admit) prevent civil war in Greece after they left. Fortunately, outside encouragement of Iraqi civil war is more limited than it was in Greece in 1946." I really like the part about "outside encouragement" ... I'll give you three guesses which country was doing all of the encouraging ... and the first two don't count. After the end of WWII, Greece, naturally, was quite anxious to purge itself of fascist, and especially Nazi, influence. They were poised to elect an overwhelmingly socialist government with accompanying social reforms. Unfortunately for them, it would have decreased their viability as a US export market, so ... in a now-familiar pattern, we (the US) dumped tens of millions of dollars into their political system in supporting the Nazi-sympathizers the Greeks were so anxious to get out of power. The 'civil war' (as it's called here in the US) was the majority of the people who no longer wanted a fascist government reasserting themselves and finally ousting the government we implanted for them. The reason it's not an exact historic parallel is that we are playing the role of the Germans now ... and it's unlikely that anyone is going to come to our rescue in the way the US helped out German-sympathizers in 1946. ...and, on a completely unrelated note, recent studies show that the ignorant are, on average, 50% more blissful. Kudos and well put. That's one of the most shocking things to confront you when you start to discuss ideas of expression with Europeans if you've grown up in America. You'll be all American and say that you have the right to say whatever you please (even though we Americans exercise it less and less), whereas the European will tell you that the local laws disagree. There are things you cannot say. Art Bell would be in jail by now instead of an underground radio legend. There are many people in Europe who applaud the clampdown on the extreme right because its major proponents are racist shitheads. It doesn't make their laws right. Bad, insidious ideas should be fought with good (or other) insidious ideas, not with state power. People are such sheep when it comes to these things--they'll just piss and moan when it all snaps right back in their face when they're forced to shut the hell up when the WEF comes to town — because at some point it's going to be illegal to speak out against the religion of capitalism too. 1) It's relatively clear what the agenda is when all of the answers default to the worst possible choice — way to bump the numbers for people who would have chosen "don't know". (2) Switzerland's average is 4.1 hectares. My footprint was 4.9. I answered truthfully and I know that my footprint is smaller than most other people around me. I can only conclude that all other Swiss are disgusting liars. (3) I hope Americans get their car questions in MPG, otherwise the numbers could get quite interesting if they're asked about liters/100km. (4) Nice to see almost 2 hectares for goods and services even though I said I almost never use packaged food. Shelter gets 1 hectare even though I live in an efficient apartment building. Nice quiz, morons. Earth Day knows about as much about winning people to their cause as PETA. Replies to your post by the participants: Rush: "Put me in the same group as Moore? You're a communist and a liar! And who the fuck is this Chomsky guy? Sounds like another communist." Moore: "I'm just like Chomsky!" Chomsky: (wry grin) Tell your mom-in-law that Yeltsin was a piker. Bush is the real deal. He is "merely an idiot" in the same way that the ocean is merely wet. Bush is also a recovering alcoholic, has physically destroyed not one, but two, countries, and is putting the finishing touches on his own, all signs indicating that he'll wrap that up well before the Jan. '09 deadline. Afghanistan* has seen quite a bit of bombing over the last 5.5 years, with its fair share of US cluster bombs adding to the already staggering total of land mines just laying around there. Just because we think their country is essentially worthless doesn't change the fact that we destroyed it. And the fact that it was already partially blown up has no bearing on our responsibility for finishing the job. Although I'm sure there are lot of folks out there perfectly willing to forgive the second person to punch them in the face ... no harm done, the nose was already broken and the jaw already dislocated. No worries. *If you like, you can follow a tortuous chain of logic in which the Lebanese lay the Israeli destruction of their infrastructure last summer at America's feet because of our unwavering military support to the tune of $3Billion+ per year. However, since that's been the case for the last 50 years, it would be unfair to lay it at Bush's feet. "I mean, damn, we found mines from the 1980s there while we were trying to build roads. They don't come much more pre-broken than Afghanistan." You're right about the land mines (which I mentioned as well) ... so, the destruction of Afghanistan also cannot be laid at Bush's feet, as that too was started before his time (much more a Carter/Reagan thing). A lot of those land mines are ours though ... just from last century's war there. I agree with you ... it's a damned shame. Afghanistan is like Africa in that it would take such a minor fraction of our war budget to really get them well on their way. Instead we give them more bombs. Ok. Retracted to the destruction of one (1) country that Bush destroyed on his own. Any other destruction was purely business as usual. Even for Iraq, one could argue that Clinton's sanctions were so deadly that they'd already started destroying the country, but Bush has increased the scale of destruction so breathtakingly that I'll happily give him all the credit. First of all, there is no requirement that one be perfect, or even good, at some task in order to provide constructive criticism of someone else's performance at the same task. It might make them a hypocrite, but it doesn't necessarily make them wrong. The US does have problems with its democracy and so, apparently, do the Europeans. I will not attempt to rank them, as that's not really salient to the argument. That said, I think the phrase "subvert[ing] democracy" is a bit strong, as the US also purports to have a democracy and it doesn't let its people vote on constitutional changes either. The US elects representatives and they take care of things until the next election cycle. So, let's leave the bar for declaring a country or conglameration of countries as democratic as being that the representatives of the people are elected in a fair and democratic way. The laws of all of the other EU countries allow constitutional changes without a referendum; Ireland does not. It's arguable that the representatives of the other countries are not being very "representative" when they vote "yes" to a constitution that polls very low among their constituents, but that does not make those countries any less democratic in any official or legal sense. It's also arguable that countries, like Ireland or Switzerland, that require ratification of constitutional amendments, are more likely to express the will of the people. Switzerland, in fact, has the kind of relationship with the EU that it seems many of the smaller members of the EU would like to have. It's interesting to see a push in that direction from some EU member nations. "but you can't let somebody come into this country, rape a seven year old kid, and let him go free simply because he chose to move somewhere that he couldn't communicate with anybody." He did, however, move to America, where people are still innocent until proven guilty. Just because the write-up made the case sound cut and dried and beyond question don't make it necessarily so. "Maybe he can go to a store and buy things, and maybe order food at McDonald's, but does he have a job to earn some money? Does he own a car? If so, how did he register it? Does he have health insurance? If so, how did he set it up?" A tremendous number of people get by in America (and as immigrants in any number of countries) without understanding a lot of the native language. Communicating in hand signals, while OK for the grocery store, is not an acceptable way of convicting someone of child abuse and/or statutory rape. This is just the kind of one in a million case that raises hackles, but is a natural consequence of a fair system in a country of over 300 million people. Americans can be proud that their courts did not bend the rules or devolve to farce. This is clearly the work of "Les Assassins des Fauteuils Roulants". First of all, there is no requirement that one be perfect, or even good, at some task in order to provide constructive criticism of someone else's performance at the same task. It might make them a hypocrite, but it doesn't necessarily make them wrong. The US does have problems with its democracy and so, apparently, do the Europeans. I will not attempt to rank them, as that's not really salient to the argument. That said, I think the phrase "subvert[ing] democracy" is a bit strong, as the US also purports to have a democracy and it doesn't let its people vote on constitutional changes either. The US elects representatives and they take care of things until the next election cycle. So, let's leave the bar for declaring a country or conglameration of countries as democratic as being that the representatives of the people are elected in a fair and democratic way. The laws of all of the other EU countries allow constitutional changes without a referendum; Ireland does not. It's arguable that the representatives of the other countries are not being very "representative" when they vote "yes" to a constitution that polls very low among their constituents, but that does not make those countries any less democratic in any official or legal sense. It's also arguable that countries, like Ireland or Switzerland, that require ratification of constitutional amendments, are more likely to express the will of the people. Switzerland, in fact, has the kind of relationship with the EU that it seems many of the smaller members of the EU would like to have. It's interesting to see a push in that direction from some EU member nations. "I expect the media will be hostile to Palin from the get go and an early gaffe will destroy her." A media that has happily echoed McCain's justifiable criticisms of Obama's lack of experience would be quite hypocritical not to notice the same of McCain's choice of VP. That said, I don't expect the media to be uniformly critical; as mentioned in a post upstream (and cited on the Daily Show as coming from "Fox & Friends"), she's been touted as having scads of foreign-policy experience for being governor of a state bordering the Siberian wastelands of Russia. I expect more of the same "glass is half-full" interpretation from the mainstream media. I haven't read the book and I'm not sure Taibbi has either, but his post about "Sarah Palin, WWE Star" is pretty insightful. Quoting from the post: "Sarah Palin's battlefield, on the other hand, is whatever is happening five feet in front of her face. She is building a political career around the little interpersonal wars in the immediate airspace surrounding her sawdust-filled head. And in the process she connects with pissed-off, frightened, put-upon America on a plane that's far more elemental than the mega-ditto schtick. [...] Sarah Palin is on an endless crusade against assholes. It's all she thinks about. She doesn't really have any political ideas, in the classic sense of the word." ]]> https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=2400 2010-06-10T22:22:09+02:00 https://earthli.com/users/marco

: "[...] when an Asker meets a Guesser, unpleasantness results. An Asker won't think it's rude to request two weeks in your spare room, but a Guess culture person will hear it as presumptuous and resent the agony involved in saying no. Your boss," ... ]]>

: "[...] when an Asker meets a Guesser, unpleasantness results. An Asker won't think it's rude to request two weeks in your spare room, but a Guess culture person will hear it as presumptuous and resent the agony involved in saying no. Your boss, asking for a project to be finished early, may be an overdemanding boor – or just an Asker, who's assuming you might decline. If you're a Guesser, you'll hear it as an expectation. This is a spectrum, not a dichotomy, and it explains cross-cultural awkwardnesses, too: Brits and Americans get discombobulated doing business in Japan, because it's a Guess culture, yet experience Russians as rude, because they're diehard Askers." Though the terminology is new, the concept is old hat to an ex-pat who moved from an Asking society (the U.S.) to a Guessing society (Switzerland). It neatly explains the seemingly large cultural gap between these superficially very similar Western societies. For Switzerland, even the neighbor to the North (Germany; Askers) boasts commuters who constantly strain the poor Guessers to the South with their brashness. U.S. ex-pats have, unsurprisingly, far fewer problems with their forthrightness and, in fact, welcome it as a refreshing change from the swamp of constant Guessing. ]]> https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=2371 2010-05-06T23:20:25+02:00 https://earthli.com/users/marco

[1] -- supposedly peddles Osama bin Laden support and celebrates 9--11. It's hard to... ]]>

[1] -- supposedly peddles Osama bin Laden support and celebrates 9--11. It's hard to tell because they're down right now and showing no signs of coming back up anytime soon. The proprietors of the site live in New York City and claim to be devout Muslims, though they are more likely devout businesspeople first and foremost. [2] Their veiled threats -- veiled enough for them to avoid prosecution, but direct enough for Comedy Central to pull Trey Parker and Matt Stone's episdodes -- have garnered them and their web site a lot of attention. The rest of the Muslim world -- shall we say, the "actual" Muslim world -- has ignored what South Park was doing. And why should they care anyway? The whole situation is highly ridiculous. The proscription against imagery of the prophet of Islam seems wildly arbitrary, especially when enforced for non-Muslims. For the most out-there fundamentalists, not believing at all already warrants a death penalty, but it's hardly ever -- if ever -- carried out. So why all the fuss over showing Muhammed? How can you show a picture of someone of whom there are no pictures and who has been dead for 1400 years? It's like all the pictures of Jesus throughout the world showing him as white with blue eyes. As an Aramaic, that's hardly likely, but Christians seem to go for it. How will these extreme (-ly idiotic) Muslims know when someone makes a picture of Muhammed? Is it enough to just show someone wearing a turban? Or does that person have to have a beard too? What if you gave him breasts? Would that prove that it then wasn't Muhammed? Or is that like the bear suit on South Park? The act of labeling some non-invisible object as the great Prophet is enough to warrant the wrath of extreme (-ly idiotic) Muslims? Shall we try it? Here are some images from Google, though you could just stop by "Wikipedia" and see several images of Muhammed, one of them even depicts him "holding a sword and a crescent while trampling on a globe, a cross, and the Ten Commandments." Which of the following is the real Muhammed? Which ones are offensive? [image][image][image] [image][image][image] [image][image][image] Now what kind of idiot would find the above array of images and labels offensive? Puerile, useless, meaningless? Yes. Offensive? No. How would anyone be able to point to one of these pictures and say, "that's a picture of Muhammed". No one has ever seen him. He died hundreds and hundreds of years ago, long before the camera or even reliably true-to-life painting techniques were invented. He also happened to have started a religion that expressly forbade images of him, so we have a world that is as blissfully unaware of Muhammed's appearance as it is of Jesus's. [3] No, even those Muslims who would choose to be offended by the grid above would have to choose the most stereotypically "Arab-looking" picture at which to be offended, just like the rest of us. It doesn't make any sense. Which is why the whole "The Muslim world will explode in a paroxysm of violence if you show an image of Muhammed" is probably largely a myth fomented by a Western polity extremely interested in portraying all Muslims as savage, backward and largely homicidal. If whatever passes for the leaders of the Muslim world -- there isn't exactly a Pope or rigid hierarchical structure -- actually does cry "Jihad!" and there are people who heed that cry and, instead of just being happy with all the extra hits on their web sites engendered by being mentioned incessantly on mainstream American media, actually commit acts of violence, does that prove that Islam is basically violent? What does it prove other than that there are fringe elements willing to commit violence in the name of ... well, not very much at all? They are not the majority. When a man flies his Cessna into an IRS building, are all reasonably wealthy tax-evaders immediately ostracized? No. Because Joe Stack was fringe and already caused all the damage he was going to cause. People that react to images of their great prophet with violence should instead be dealt with by the law. There is no use attempting to appease such people because there is no appeasing them. They're like small children or crazy partners: Give in once and you'll give in forever. Give them what they want and they'll want something else. You're bound to screw up with people like this sooner or later, so you might as well man up before you lose your dignity. As good ol' FDR said, "There's nothing to fear..." Some say it's only Muslims that are deferred to in this way, but Judaism is also no piker when it comes to suppressing unapproved lines of thought or policy. Accusations of anti-semitism fill the air every time anyone so much as breathes a bad word about Israel in the States. Legitimate and scholarly critics lose their faculty positions (Norman Solomon); former Presidents well-versed in the politics of the Middle East are ostracized for their views (Jimmy Carter). On page 880 of The Great War of Civilization by Robert Fisk, he tells of an incident in 1993 wherein a TV special that the Discovery Channel spent at least a million dollars making was canceled after one showing because it portrayed Israel in an unflattering light. Such self-censorship is even more troubling than that of Comedy Central, because it contributes materially to an ignorance of the crimes for which Americans will be made responsible. That Comedy Central won't let Trey Parker and Matt Stone show their rendering of Muhammed is less tragic than that the situation in the Middle East between Israel and what is left of Palestine cannot be accurately described for Americans. Two of the images in the grid above are actually from a "Super Happy Friends" show that aired before 9--11--2001 and depicted Muhammed with two flaming swords. [4] This was before anyone even dreamed of accusing Islam of being crazy enough to declare Jihad on non-Muslims who do not abide by their law that forbids depictions of Muhammed. Times have changed. Some Muslims are happy to play into the hands of a West intent on portraying them as insane and only to be dealth with militarily. These Muslim fools think that they are doing Islam a service when they scream "uggabugga" and smile as the West hits the deck. Little do they realize that the West will come back up, morally righteous and with guns a-blazin'. South Park is a politically savvy and cutting cartoon, but it's kind of silly nonetheless. There are far worse forms of self-censorship -- as in the case of the Discovery Channel above, which prevented Americans from seeing actually useful information -- but all censorship is bad, and self-censorship is the worst. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- [1] Or maybe it's "RevolutionIslam.com" , I'm not sure. One of those, anyway. The other one is a fake site that makes it look like the real site got hacked. Whatever. [1] There are even "rumors" by Scott Creighton (The “Radical” Muslim Group That Threatened South Park Creators Was Founded and Run by Joseph Cohen, a Former Israeli Radical Who Used to Live in a Settlement in the West Bank) that the site is "run by a “converted” Israeli settler who studied at an orthodox rabbinical school in Israel before becoming a settler in the occupied territories", but I haven't seen that claim made by more reliable sources. Though it would be highly interesting and a wonderful ploy, actually -- running an idiotic web site to foment incoherent American fear against Muslims because Americans think anyone with a beard looks "kinda sketchy". [1] What are the odds that the image of Jesus above is an accurate depiction? He lived in the Middle Eastern desert and would have been a bit swarthier, no? [1] That episode had been available online for years until it was removed a few weeks ago. To what end? It's not like they removed it from the Internet; anyone with a Bittorrent client can have the Muhammed episodes inside of ten minutes with a good internet connection. (I've seen all of them and they aren't Parker and Stone's best work, actually.) ]]> https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=2367 2010-04-21T22:22:15+02:00 https://earthli.com/users/marco

is in the linquistics Reddit (to which I am subscribed, natch) and is treasure-trove of crowdsourcing goodness vis-à-vis the etymology, "pronunciation" (OGG file [1]) and "unique" ... ]]>

is in the linquistics Reddit (to which I am subscribed, natch) and is treasure-trove of crowdsourcing goodness vis-à-vis the etymology, "pronunciation" (OGG file [1]) and "unique linquistic characteristics of spoken Icelandic" . There is no way I would have guessed the pronunciation from the spelling; the native Icelander seems to elide quite a bit, but what do I know about Icelandic phonetics? Just what I read on Reddit, that's all. The etymological breakdown of Eyjafjallajökull, mapping cognates to Old English is pure Internet gold, though. eyja means “island”. The direct modern English cognate is eyot. It also survives in the first syllable of “island”, although the spelling of the modern word has been changed to match the Latin-derived “isle”. fjalla means “mountain”. The direct modern English cognate is fell (a mountain or high plateau). jökull means “glacier”. The Old English cognate was gicel, which survives in modern English as the -icle ending of “icicle”. If this is all a bit much -- and the umlaut is bound to throw off many a Statesider -- be happy the volcano's not in this town in Wales: "Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch" ("pronunciation" (OGG file)). -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- [1] OGG is an open-source alternative to MP3-encoding. Smug Linux users are probably sorted, as are any OS X users with VLC or Perian installed (which is pretty much every file-sharer out there). Windows users...I have no idea what you need to download in order to play OGG files. ]]> https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=2359 2010-04-02T12:49:35+02:00 https://earthli.com/users/marco

, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals made what appeared to be a landmark decision that, in cases where officers... ]]>

, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals made what appeared to be a landmark decision that, in cases where officers used tasers, "[t]he objective facts must indicate that the suspect poses an immediate threat to the officer or a member of the public." Unfortunately, this sounds much better than it is, because of the phrase "poses an immediate threat". That phrase leaves the applicability -- and, thus, the legality -- of an individual use of a taser up to the interpretation of the court. The hope was that a few strong precedents would establish a humane interpretation of this law. A few months later, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals -- the same court -- established a precedent, as detailed in the article, "Ruling OK's Tasering Pregnant Woman Three Times" by Liliana Segura . The precedent, however, is anything but humane and seems downright un-American. [1] The case in question is summarized below: "Two days before Thanksgiving, in 2004, Malaika Brooks was rushing to drop off her son at school at the African American Academy in Seattle, when she was pulled over speeding in a school zone. Her son got out of the car and headed for school; meanwhile, Brooks, seven months pregnant and stressed out, told the officer she was not speeding and refused to sign her name to the ticket." For refusing to sign a speeding ticket, they threatened to arrest her. Can you get arrested for that now in America? Well, no [2], not really, but the police is only too happy to let people think that they can. It helps keep the sheep in line. Since she then didn't comply, they were allowed to use any means necessary to get her to comply -- essentially torturing her until she fell out of her car. WTF? For a speeding ticket? In the U.S. of freaking A? Sure, she was probably not polite. In fact, she was probably downright hostile. She is a "black woman" and the mouthiness of blacks has been known to infuriate many a police officer. [3] Sure, she should have signed the ticket, but the cops are allowed to tase her until she complies? They're allowed to arrest her for failing to properly fill out paperwork? What the F@#k is going on over there, anyway? She deserved to be repeatedly tased, then hauled out of her car, pushed to the pavement and arrested like a major felon? Ms. Brooks was seven months pregnant at the time of her arrest, which some commentators think is the crux of the case. It is not. Her pregnancy makes the judgment of the police officers all the more suspect, but their actions were egregious not because they attacked a pregnant woman, but because they attacked an American citizen for a traffic violation. According to their own testimony, she was in her car, with both hands on the wheel: They didn't even bother to make up a cock-and-bull story about "reaching under the seat". She was also not a flight risk because they'd already confiscated her keys. What were the poor officers to do? Give her the keys back with their precious paperwork unsigned, letting her " drive off erratically"? This was their expressed concern when they decided that the best course of action was to tase her out of her car and haul her downtown for driving 32 in a 20. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals found that this was a reasonable use of force. Of the three judges, one -- Marsha Berzon -- dissented, and quite strongly: "I fail utterly to comprehend how my colleagues are able to conclude that it was objectively reasonable to use any force against Brooks, let alone three activations of a Taser, in response to such a trivial offense." A lawyer for the officers in this case said, after the ruling, that "[p]olice officers have to have the ability to compel people to obey their lawful orders". The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals seems to agree: No matter how minor the infraction, the limit to the force police officers can apply to compel compliance is quite high. I personally was surprised that they are even allowed to try to force her out of the car by twisting her arm up behind her back -- a "pain compliance hold". For a traffic ticket? If tasing isn't the limit, what is? Could they have used their nightsticks on her? What about shooting some sense into her with a bullet to the arm or leg? Nothing deadly, but just let her know they mean business and that non-compliance with police orders carries serious consequences in the U.S. of A. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- [1] During the trial, "Officer Ornelas admitted that Seattle Police Department rules did not actually authorize him to arrest her for refusing to sign the ticket." Because it apparently became common practice to do so, "In 2006, the Seattle legislature amended the law books to forbid police officers from arresting motorists for failing to sign their tickets." How was Ornelas to know that wasting taxpayer money on arresting speeders was no longer legal? [1] I'm not an idiot. I know that it's pretty much "standard American" to keep the jackboot on the neck of the unwashed masses and almost always has been. I'm instead appealing to the mythic idea of "American-ness" where we are the land of the free and the home of the brave. I'm saying that being beaten and tased for a traffic violation isn't something we should accept as part of the American experience. [1] This is meant as scathing sarcasm, for those without a suitable sarcasm detector. ]]> https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=2332 2010-01-31T22:27:12+01:00 https://earthli.com/users/marco

("Westerwave" is talented compared to this), is about the EU commissar Günther Oettinger, who has deemed English to be the language of the future. He has often said in interviews that everyone will have to know English, from newscasters to... ]]>

("Westerwave" is talented compared to this), is about the EU commissar Günther Oettinger, who has deemed English to be the language of the future. He has often said in interviews that everyone will have to know English, from newscasters to construction workers. His own spoken English is abysmal, which earns him ridicule. Why is it, though, that he must himself be a master of English in order to promote it as the language of the future? Should we not instead laud him for sticking to his principles despite knowing that he himself will be left out of the future he prophesies? The video ridiculing him is embedded below: [media] First off, as a native English speaker [1], I don't find him to be nearly as incomprehensible as fluent, non-native speakers of English. It's an extremely strong accent with a very unique approach to accent and emphasis in longer words. It may, however, not even be the worst I've ever heard. Germans with English as a second language find his English to be an impenetrable wall of sound, which means that those who need to understand him most are left out. I'm sure Oettinger doesn't care that ex-pat Americans can understand him to a large degree. Still, just because he's a poor English speaker doesn't mean he's wrong. What if he was nearly innumerate but exhorted Germans to become good at numbers? Would people still be so cruel? Is it because he is expected to be able to learn a second language and speak it fluently as part of his job? What is so self-evident about that? Do we just assume that he has the extra time because he's a politician? Or do we demand that he possess the capability of learning languages as part of his qualification for the job? What drives the ridicule actually? I personally think it takes quite a lot of balls to give a speech in a foreign language -- especially when he must be at least partially aware [2] that his command of English is considered to be quite shaky. If you listen to his speech, he's using quite a large vocabulary; it would be interesting to know whether he actually understands what he's saying as some of the mispronunciations indicate that he was reading words for the first time. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- [1] Even the poster of video, who is making fun of Oettinger's English, gets the caption of the video wrong, using "talking" instead of the more correct "speaking". [1] Up to a certain point, you can still hear your own accent. After that, you think you have no accent, but others can still detect it. Oettinger is not nearly that far yet. ]]> https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=2325 2010-01-26T20:55:21+01:00 https://earthli.com/users/marco

is now available for purchase. Each year, Mr. Felton, a graphic designer in New York City collects a ludicrous amount of information about himself and publishes it in an attractive, elegant and eminently readable format on some yuppie paper with yuppie... ]]>

is now available for purchase. Each year, Mr. Felton, a graphic designer in New York City collects a ludicrous amount of information about himself and publishes it in an attractive, elegant and eminently readable format on some yuppie paper with yuppie fonts. This year, he enlisted the help of all of the people he encountered: "Each day in 2009, I asked every person with whom I had a meaningful encounter to submit a record of this meeting through an online survey. These reports form the heart of the 2009 Annual Report. From parents to old friends, to people I met for the first time, to my dentist… any time I felt that someone had discerned enough of my personality and activities, they were given a card with a URL and unique number to record their experience." Sure, it's crazy -- and crazily self-indulgent -- but it's a hell of a way of advertising your services as a graphic designer, no? You can, of course, order yourself a copy, if you like. Samples are on the site (and a couple are included below). [image][image] ]]> https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=2309 2010-01-09T00:05:45+01:00 https://earthli.com/users/marco

, which is the entire script of the film rewritten in the style of William Shakespeare. This first sample is the first scene in the... ]]>

, which is the entire script of the film rewritten in the style of William Shakespeare. This first sample is the first scene in the bowling alley where Smokey steps over the foul line and Walter takes offense. "Smokey, this be not the foul jungles of the darkest East Orient. This be ninepins. We are bound by laws. "O unrightful judge! This forfeiture is set in iron law As drawn by great authority of league. One roll might well determine that our side Advance to glory; or be instead retired As moss upon a tree-stump, while the Smoke Drifts out to glorious summer. Canst thou hear The call of robin redbreasts? If robin shall Restore amends, we must serve justice Here. Be I wrong?" The following citation is Walter's angry response to The Dude when called on a Saturday. "On our most holy Sabbath I am sworn To keep tradition, form and ceremony. The seventh and the last day rests the Jew; I labour not, nor ride in chariot, Nor handle gold, nor even play the cook, And sure as Providence I do not roll. Hath not a Jew rights? Hath not a Jew hands, Organs, bowling-balls, Pomeranians? If you schedule us, must you not do right? If we step o’er the line, do we not mark it nought? The Sabbath; I’ll roll not, God-a-mercy." ]]> https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=2287 2009-12-28T23:18:44+01:00 https://earthli.com/users/marco

, crunches the flight statistics for the last decade and comes up with "one terrorist incident per 16,553,385 departures", which is "one terrorist incident per 11,569,297,667 miles flown" or "one terrorist incident per 27,221,877 hours airborne". 27 million hours is about 3100 years. With 674 passengers directly threatened by the six hijackings since (and including) 9-11, that means "the odds of being on given departure which is the subject of a terrorist incident have been 1 in 10,408,947 over the past decade". Those are pretty damned good odds for getting where you're headed unhijacked and unharmed. The odds that you'll be struck by lightning in the same time are 20 times higher. Don't even think about the odds of having a traffic accident. But, instead of trumpeting their success rate, the security agencies have to twist the draconian screws even tighter, with even more passenger-unfriendly measures that are unlikely to have any effect at all -- except maybe to further ruin the American tourist industry. [1] But, they kind of have to make a lot of noise because they really screwed up with this last guy: The sirens were all screaming on red-alert with him and he still got through. He was on watch-lists, his own father had turned him in, his passport was fishy, and so on and so forth. He still got on the flight. You don't have to pat down everyone's legs now just to make sure this particular type of attempt (stupidly executed and doomed-to-fail as it was) isn't made again. Instead, you have to let the rest of us go about our normal daily business and just watch out for the big, red shining alarm signal when it goes off. That's it. Because what the safety record of airlines proves is either (A) the worldwide airline security system is working like clockwork to prevent thousands of attempts per month or (B) nobody's really trying to blow up airplanes anymore. The last two attempts (Richard Reid and this Nigerian guy) were solo attempts who claimed that they were associated with Al Qaeda. But even the guy's Dad said he was unstable and tried to turn him in. That doesn't call for more draconian rules about moving about the cabin, it calls for not being a bunch of bumbling morons when someone waves a suspect in your face. So, I'm going to eliminate choice (A) because it's clear that taking off your shoes at the airport isn't going to prevent you from smuggling in anything in your underwear. Because even the TSA is forced to stop at patting down groins and asking passengers to drop trou' in the airport. Their new measure is to pat down upper legs and calves, but no touchie the booty or the goodies. Not that I'm suggesting they should do a body cavity search, but unless you're going to, the security measure is worse than useless. It annoys legitimate passengers (99.9999% of all passengers, according to the statistics above) and won't catch a determined attacker. That leaves us with choice (B), that no one's really trying to hijack or blow planes out of the sky. And, again, we know this because if the stumblebums in security can't catch the guy from Nigeria, then anyone with more than a quarter of a brain could have gotten through whenever they wanted. Since they have not, it means they're not trying. [2] Which is hugely reassuring, but still leaves us with the problem that the TSA -- and other security agencies around the world -- can't just stop checking because it's their raison d'etre and they'd not only lose all of their funding, but the sheep would lose their reassurance that at least someone's doing something to stop the terrorists. The ones that seem not to exist. Or who, at least, seem not to be very interested in terrorizing. A final point about the Nigerian would-be-terrorist [3]: He was at least partially raised in London, his father just retired from a fat ministry job in Nigeria and they lived in flats in London worth millions of dollars. He's a rich, spoiled-brat kid who's had everything he ever wanted and he went all jihad-y and tried to blow up a plane. What an asshole. It's not enough that the rich are reaming us for all we're worth on the top end, but now their kids are trying to blow us up? We can't even blame the poor for this one, as we so love to do. This was straight up silver-spoon material who went off the deep end. Just remember, though, the takeaway is that hijackings are rare. And that they're rare not because of airtight security but because, statistically, nobody's trying to hijack anything. So untwist your panties and go about your day in the comfort of a first-world society where you have plenty of clean water, food to waste, lots of electricity and no war. And statistically zero chance of dying in a terrorist attack. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- [1] Though the dwindling value of the dollar is doing more than its fair share in propping up the tourist industry. [1] And the argument that they thwart hundreds of attempts that no one ever hears about doesn't hold any water. They trumpet about having foiled stupid, nonexistent plots every once in a while, so why wouldn't they brag when they'd actually stopped something legitimate? [1] The lazy author finally looked up his name: Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, not that you're going to remember that. ]]> https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=2283 2009-12-24T23:38:25+01:00 https://earthli.com/users/marco

. It is cited in its entirety below: "The most amusing encounter was on the Hana Highway. There are numerous little stops along the way, where someone has erected a hut or parked a trailer and is selling coconuts, smoothies, banana bread, and so on. Hand-lettered signs, stunning natural beauty, middle of nowhere, you get the picture I'm sure. At one of the larger such stops there was a young fellow, probably in his late twenties, serving a variety of fried foods. It was mostly traditional American-style Chinese food, but also he had french fries, fish-'n'-chips, and so on. He was clearly not a native speaker of English, but spoke understandably with a strong accent. We were waiting behind a middled-aged woman with a typically Midwestern American accent. Their conversation went something like this: "Her: I'm not very hungry, can I just get the fish without the chips? "Him, not quite following her: Half order? "Her, louder: How much without the fries? "This went back and forth for some time, both sides becoming increasingly frustrated by the communication breakdown, until: "Her, even louder: Can I speak to your manager?" This lady was in the middle of a jungle at a roadside stand on an island thousands of miles from home, talking to someone in the same language, but with a vastly different accent and she still hadn't left her groove. If this lady encountered a detour on her commute home, she would probably plow right through dozens of DPW workers before finally grinding to a halt in fresh tar or driving right off the end of an unfinished overpass. ]]> https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=2272 2009-12-19T22:42:30+01:00 https://earthli.com/users/marco

. At one hour, it's also quite a bit longer than our atrophied attention spans are accustomed to handling, but it's well worth the time for this fascinating look at the influence, effects and ramifications of video blogging and sharing via YouTube. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- [1] It also has a few sub-plots of its own that may not be palatable to all audiences. You-have-been-warned(tm) and Your-mileage-may-vary(tm), yadda-yadda-yaddo(tm). ]]> https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=2265 2009-12-13T22:40:10+01:00 https://earthli.com/users/marco

https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=2255 2009-12-04T21:55:54+01:00 https://earthli.com/users/marco

includes a quiz written by David Foster Wallace that she obtained during a writing course many years ago. Each of the sentences has one major fault -- not necessarily a grammatical one -- though there may be other, smaller ones as well. The full text of the quiz is... ]]>

includes a quiz written by David Foster Wallace that she obtained during a writing course many years ago. Each of the sentences has one major fault -- not necessarily a grammatical one -- though there may be other, smaller ones as well. The full text of the quiz is included below; the footnote for each line links to its answer. 25 February 2004 IF NO ONE HAS YET TAUGHT YOU HOW TO AVOID OR REPAIR CLAUSES LIKE THE FOLLOWING, YOU SHOULD, IN MY OPINION, THINK SERIOUSLY ABOUT SUING SOMEBODY, PERHAPS AS CO-PLAINTIFF WITH WHOEVER’S PAID YOUR TUITION 1. He and I hardly see one another. [1] 2. I’d cringe at the naked vulnerability of his sentences left wandering around without periods and the ambiguity of his uncrossed “t”s. [2] 3. My brother called to find out if I was over the flu yet. [3] 4. I only spent six weeks in Napa. [4] 5. In my own mind, I can understand why its implications may be somewhat threatening. [5] 6. From whence had his new faith come? [6] 7. Please spare me your arguments of why all religions are unfounded and contrived. [7] 8. She didn’t seem to ever stop talking. [8] 9. As the relationship progressed, I found her facial tic more and more aggravating. [9] 10. The Book of Mormon gives an account of Christ’s ministry to the Nephites, which allegedly took place soon after Christ’s resurrection. [10] A second post has the "answers and explanations" . A summary of these answers are included below (with a bit of space to let people avoid peeking, should they wish to avoid doing so). ---------------------------------- | space intentionally left blank | ---------------------------------- ---------------------------------- -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- [1] He and I hardly see each otherone another. (The phrase "one another" is for more than two people.) [1] I’d cringe at the naked vulnerability of his sentences left wandering around without periods and at the ambiguity of his uncrossed “t”s. (The speaker is cringing at two things, the first of which -- the "sentences" -- are followed by a long descriptive clause, which confuses things. It's easier to spot the problem in a shorter version: "I'd cringe at his sentences and at his 't's.") [1] My brother called to find out whetherif I was over the flu yet. (If "whether" fits, use it instead of "if", which implies conditionality and can confuse intent.) [1] I spent only six weeks in Napa. (The word "only" should modify "six", not "spent". The speaker wanted to use "only" to indicate a short length of time, not to indicate that time was only spent, rather than "worked" or "wasted" or whatever else one can do with time.) [1] In my own mind, I can understand why its implications may be somewhat threatening. (The introductory phrase "In my own mind" is redundant as that is the only place in which understanding can possibly take place for anyone. Dropping the phrase simultaneously prevents the "its" from referring back to the "mind" in the original, which suggested that the mind's implications were somewhat threatening, which made no sense whatsoever.) [1] From Whence had his new faith come? ("Whence" means "From where", so "From whence" is redundant.) [1] Please spare me your arguments as toof why all religions are unfounded and contrived. (DFW claimed "idiom error", which basically means it's wrong because it's wrong. The preposition "of" doesn't perform the segue as well as "as to".) [1] She didn’t seem ever to everstop talking. (The word "ever" splits the infinitive "to stop". Though split infinitives are not always verboten, they should definitely be avoided wherever it is possible to do so without "sacrificing meaning or elegance of expression." [1] As the relationship progressed, I found her facial tic more and more irritatingaggravating. (The word "aggravating" means "to make worse"; what is meant here is "to irritate" or "to annoy". The word "aggravate" has, of late, been used colloquially as a synonym of these words, but it's actually not. The point is to avoid synonyms with "a fraught usage history" as they unnecessarily distract the reader. [1] The Book of Mormon gives an account of Christ’s ministry to the Nephites, which allegedly took place soon after HisChrist’s resurrection. ("Christ" is needlessly repeated, which makes the sentence more cumbersome.) ]]> https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=2238 2009-11-06T23:20:28+01:00 https://earthli.com/users/marco

following a young American from his initial recruiting to deployment in Iraq and return to America. [image] The picture of the four recruits during basic training makes them look remarkably young, far less than the 18 years each... ]]>

following a young American from his initial recruiting to deployment in Iraq and return to America. [image] The picture of the four recruits during basic training makes them look remarkably young, far less than the 18 years each of them must be. The two to the right -- with Ian, the star of the essay, on the far right -- really look like they dressed up in Daddy's war togs. To be honest, Ian's story is neither particularly inspirational nor particularly interesting as he bounces from girl to girl to girl, taking drugs, chain-smoking and soaking up counseling and demerits all the way. Though he ends up in a quickie marriage at the end, with a medal of some sort -- and, honestly, who doesn't get a medal of some sort these days? -- you're not left particularly hopeful that he's going to amount to much. ]]> https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=2233 2009-11-01T22:24:43+01:00 https://earthli.com/users/marco

https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=2203 2009-10-25T17:30:27+01:00 https://earthli.com/users/marco

https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=2224 2009-10-25T12:43:04+01:00 https://earthli.com/users/marco

, includes images of artwork created during the Russian occupation of Afghanistan. These are purportedly the work of a soldier and were done primarily with a ballpoint pen (and colored pencils, apparently). There's some really cool stuff in there for fans of... ]]>

, includes images of artwork created during the Russian occupation of Afghanistan. These are purportedly the work of a soldier and were done primarily with a ballpoint pen (and colored pencils, apparently). There's some really cool stuff in there for fans of line-drawing and doodling. I particularly liked the drawing of a "soldier gazing out over mountain ranges" (reproduced below; click to enlarge). [image] ]]> https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=2109 2009-03-02T22:20:36+01:00 https://earthli.com/users/marco

, "[a]lthough toilet tissue can be made at similar cost from recycled material, it is the fiber taken from standing trees that help give it that plush feel." Regrettably, America manages to... ]]>

, "[a]lthough toilet tissue can be made at similar cost from recycled material, it is the fiber taken from standing trees that help give it that plush feel." Regrettably, America manages to stand pretty much alone in demanding super-soft toilet paper for home use, although even in European countries, recycled paper makes up only 20% of paper intended for home use. That's still ten times as much as the U.S. market, though. There's a lot of room for improvement on both sides of the pond and it's a relatively easy step to take, so maybe Americans can prove the world wrong and see if they can't beat Europe in at least this one measly statistic. Maybe the economic crisis will force people to turn to cheaper, recycled paper. [1] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- [1] Attention: to avoid ruining the above article with cynicism, do not read any further. If we care to use history as a guide, it's far more likely that companies making soft paper are heavily subsidized so that they can stay "competitive". Once these all-American businesses start floundering, they'll appeal to the government for even more price protection, spread some money around Washington for good booze and better hookers and pretty soon the recycled-paper companies will be out of business. ]]> https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=2106 2009-02-18T16:52:02+01:00 https://earthli.com/users/marco

(I Twitter for you! Too old/busy/jaded to 'social network,' but still want to seem hip? Call now!), is about a great new service called "Geekamania" . This site takes mechanical turking to a whole new level by providing a service unique to the new millenium: integrating you into the online world in a "cool" way. [1] Here's the sales pitch: "We design, set up and" ... ]]>

(I Twitter for you! Too old/busy/jaded to 'social network,' but still want to seem hip? Call now!), is about a great new service called "Geekamania" . This site takes mechanical turking to a whole new level by providing a service unique to the new millenium: integrating you into the online world in a "cool" way. [1] Here's the sales pitch: "We design, set up and maintain as many hip social networking pages as you want, spinning off the information you provided but also totally rearranging it and making it up at will, all to make you sound exactly as cute/clever/sexy/boring/lonely/unstable (you choose) as you've always dreamed. You don't have to do a thing!" The information you provide include a mountain of personal details as well as as many pictures as you can provide. To be honest, though, most of the people you know online haven't seen you in decades, so you don't really have to stick to actual reality ... and neither does Geekamania. In fact, you'll be able to watch as they start to build an online personality for you that that will make even you jealous. How, you may ask, can they do this? Are they employing an army of call-center workers in Bombay? How will they possibly strike just the right, cool tone you need in order to claw your way to social-networking ascendancy? The service is one of the first to grow out of the slumping global economy and can be deemed a forerunner of the kind of "thinking outside of the box" jobs programs that will form the basis for a recovery. "By employing a small army of 5,024 recently laid-off journalists from all major newspapers around the nation, we guarantee basic grammatical accuracy, reasonably clever innuendo, occasional smart-alecky tones and sporadic fact-checking, all wrapped in a professional ability to cull appealing factoids from your otherwise dreary life, just so random people you barely know or haven't seen/cared about in 10 years might envy your every waking moment. How cool is that?" So, if you're feeling overwhelmed by all of your so-called friends who seem to have a bottomless supply of time and energy to invest into their social networking sites, why not opt out and one-up them at the same time? As their slogan says: "Geekamania: Because you don’t have time for this shit." -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- [1] And here's the footnote to head off the gullible: this is one of those "One Page Websites" that was set up by Mark Morford, the author of the linked article. It's a joke; stop looking around for a link to their pricing policy. ]]> https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=2094 2009-02-08T13:02:28+01:00 https://earthli.com/users/marco

catalogs exactly that. The listings are nearly unbelievable, especially the number one entry. It is the Baskin Robbins Large Chocolate Oreo Shake, which boasts the following characteristics: * 2,600 calories * 135 g fat (59 g saturated fat, 2.5 g trans fats) * 263 g ... ]]>

catalogs exactly that. The listings are nearly unbelievable, especially the number one entry. It is the Baskin Robbins Large Chocolate Oreo Shake, which boasts the following characteristics: * 2,600 calories * 135 g fat (59 g saturated fat, 2.5 g trans fats) * 263 g sugars * 1,700 mg sodium * 73 ingredients (or more) That's a whole day's worth of calories and three days' worth of fat in a container that can be slurped empty in less than ten minutes. Not that 263g is equal to over half a pound. That's more than half a pound of sugar in your shake. There are other standouts, but nothing that approaches the shake for sheer awfulness. The pizza, Uno Chicago Grill Chicago Classic Deep Dish Pizza also has a day's worth of calories: * 2,310 calories * 162 g fat * 123 g carbohydrates * 4,470 mg sodium Check out the sodium; Almost two days worth in one pizza! The worst burger, Chili’s Smokehouse Bacon Triple-The-Cheese Big Mouth Burger with Jalapeno Ranch Dressing, has almost the exact same characteristics: * 2,040 calories * 150 g fat (53 g saturated) * 110 g protein * 4,900 mg sodium A rule-of-thumb one can glean from the "foods" above is to avoid any entrée that has more than two or three words in its name. ]]> https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=2084 2009-01-18T21:56:32+01:00 https://earthli.com/users/marco

is available from the UC Berkeley archives. In it, he talks for twenty-three minutes -- at times employing exacting historical detail -- about the Vietnam War and its effects on the... ]]>

is available from the UC Berkeley archives. In it, he talks for twenty-three minutes -- at times employing exacting historical detail -- about the Vietnam War and its effects on the Vietnamese, Americans and the U.S. role from the very beginning. This was back in '67, when many Americans were barely aware of the conflict in the first place. Listen to the speech below and hear a brilliantly gifted orator whose philosophy matched the power of his speech. [media] Sadly, even forty years later, much of what Dr. King had to say can still be said today, at most changing a name here or there. His anti-militarism and anti-imperialism is without compare among almost all of our elected officials (with a few exceptions). Even the most progressive of the movers and shakers of modern-day Washington must cower in the shade of his righteousness and outright bravery. There is really no comparing King with Obama; all the political cartoons and articles depicting King's approval of Obama to the contrary, it is likely that King would have been deeply disappointed with and strongly opposed to many of Obama's basic policy positions -- especially his support of continued American militarism and empire. King's words are so eloquent, it is difficult to cite only a few; but here are several interesting citations from the speech linked above that still have enormous significance today. "This reveals that millions have chosen to move beyond the prophesying of smooth patriotism, to the high grounds of firm dissent, based upon the mandates of conscience and the reading of history. Now, of course, one of the difficulties in speaking out today grows the fact that there are those who are seeking to equate dissent with disloyalty. It's a dark day in our nation when high-level authorities will seek to use every method to silence dissent. But something is happening, and people are not going to be silenced. The truth must be told, and I say that those who are seeking to make it appear that anyone who opposes the war in Vietnam is a fool or a traitor or an enemy of our soldiers is a person that has taken a stand against the best in our tradition." The fate of those supporting peace has not changed in the slightest, with the ignorant and afraid still shouting "traitor!" whenever they hear a word against prevailing American foreign policy. King's speech would likely not have been carried by any of the mainstream media, except for snippets with which they would have assassinated his character and questioned his loyalty to America. "...I watched the [Poverty] program broken as if it was some idle political plaything of a society gone mad on war. And I knew that America would never invest the necessary funds or energies in rehabilitation of its poor so long as adventures like Vietnam continued to draw men and skills and money, like some demonic, destructive suction tube. And you may not know it, my friends, but it is estimated that we spend $500,000 to kill each enemy soldier, while we spend only fifty-three dollars for each person classified as poor, and much of that fifty-three dollars goes for salaries to people that are not poor. So I was increasingly compelled to see the war as an enemy of the poor, and attack it as such." In the 21st century, the ratio of money invested per slain foreigner versus spent on "person classified as poor" probably hasn't changed for the better. Recent events have shown that, while the U.S. government is willing to throw hundreds of billions every year at making war and, recently, at bailing out the richest .1% when they destroyed the American economy, it is supremely tight-fisted with even a few paltry millions for the poor. Even King's at-times lugubrious vision could scarcely have predicted such a situation. "Perhaps the more tragic recognition of reality took place when it became clear to me that the war was doing far more than devastating the hope of the poor at home. It was sending their sons, and their brothers, and their husbands to fight and die in extraordinarily high proportion relative to the rest of the population. We were taking the black young men who had been crippled by society and sending them eight thousand miles away to guarantee liberties in Southeast Asia which they had not found in Southwest Georgia and East Harlem. [...] Now, I could not be silent in the face of such cruel manipulation of the poor." King's disappointment in America today would likely know no bounds, as he watched the exact same poor who were marched to war over forty years ago, once again marched to war -- this time without even a draft to force them. No, this time, the poor would be effectively forced into service by horrifying economic conditions that offer the only hope of survival for them and their families. "The only change came from America as we increased our troop commitments in support of governments which were singularly corrupt, inept, and without popular support and all the while the people read our leaflets and received regular promises of peace and democracy and land reform. Now they languish under our bombs and consider us, not their fellow Vietnamese, the real enemy." Change "Vietnamese" to "Afghanistani" or "Iraqi" and the sentence applies just as well today. "It is a sad fact that because of comfort, complacency, a morbid fear of communism, our proneness to adjust to injustice, the Western nations that initiated so much of the revolutionary spirit of the modern world have now become the arch anti-revolutionaries. [...] Our only hope today lies in our ability to recapture the revolutionary spirit and go out into a sometimes hostile world declaring eternal hostility to poverty, racism, and militarism." And, perhaps if we wait forty more years, King's vision of an America that declares "eternal hostility to poverty, racism, and militarism" will come true. But, and this is important, that is highly unlikely in the next four years, as the incoming president, while perhaps understanding of King's empathy, does not at all agree that America is on the wrong track with its pursuit of empire and repeated attempts to control the fate of the world by military means. Where King wanted to abolish the military and imperial adventures, Obama wants to increase and expand a military that already costs five times more than that of King's day. "Let me say finally that I oppose the war in Vietnam because I love America. I speak out against this war, not in anger, but with anxiety and sorrow in my heart, and, above all, with a passionate desire to see our beloved country stand as the moral example of the world. I speak out against this war because I am disappointed with America. And there can be no great disappointment where there is not great love. I am disappointed with our failure to deal positively and forthrightly with the triple evils of racism, economic exploitation, and militarism. We are presently moving down a dead-end road that can lead to national disaster. America has strayed to the far country of racism and militarism." It is an interesting thought experiment to imagine what the mainstream media would have done to King today. Doubtless he would have undergone one character assassination after another for his "lack of patriotism" [1] or, more likely, he would have been ignored entirely. There are many voices like his today and they are not to be heard in the mainstream newspapers or television news programs; instead they exercise their freedom of speech into a vacuum. The words which are allowed to fall on the ears of middle America are carefully controlled to paint the desired picture of America -- the shining city on the hill that Dr. King had long ago already discovered was a fiction. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- [1] During his own time, the was not as universally adored as he is today. The purveyors of opinion of the day like Time Magazine or the Washington Post dismissed him as a demagogue and as "working for Hanoi" after his more strident speeches on Vietnam. As long as he stuck to civil rights, he was untouchable; when he sought to address America's militarism, he was torn down. Emphasis added by the author in all citations. ]]> https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=2024 2009-01-15T22:26:30+01:00 https://earthli.com/users/marco

https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=2072 2009-01-10T12:36:51+01:00 https://earthli.com/users/marco

quiz (for English, of course). I went in with an obnoxious braggadocio and walked out with a sobering 22 out of 25. Here are the words that I have newly learned how to spell: * consensus (I chose "con[c]ensus") * perseverance (I chose "perse[r]verance") * supersede ... ]]>

quiz (for English, of course). I went in with an obnoxious braggadocio and walked out with a sobering 22 out of 25. Here are the words that I have newly learned how to spell: * consensus (I chose "con[c]ensus") * perseverance (I chose "perse[r]verance") * supersede (I chose "super[c]ede") The title of the quiz is a bit misleading, as it's not clear to what the word "commonly" refers. While the words are not extremely rare, they also don't come up that often. So, are these the words that, when used, are the most commonly misspelled? Or are they the words with the most total misspellings? I believe an example would be useful here: suppose that the word "the" is used 100 million times and is misspelled 100,000 times. So, the word "the" would be misspelled 0.1% of the time. However, if "consensus" is used only 2000 times, but misspelled 1000 times, it has fewer overall misspellings, but was still misspelled 50% of the time, which is much more than the meager 0.1% for the word "the". Looking at the example, a misspelling of the word "the" is most likely not a misspelling at all, but a typo. Does the ranking reflect mistyped (where the person made an entry error, but knows how the word is spelled) or misspelled words (where the person really thinks the word is spelled that way)? At any rate, I learned something and retook the quiz until I got 25 out of 25. I'll take the quiz again in a few months and see if it stuck. ]]> https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=2063 2009-01-03T10:01:21+01:00 https://earthli.com/users/marco

is "dedicated to supporting students ages 6--18 with their writing skills, and to helping teachers get their students excited about the literary arts." They're in San Francisco and take advantage of the strange work hours and free time of the average freelance writer to provide afternoon... ]]>

is "dedicated to supporting students ages 6--18 with their writing skills, and to helping teachers get their students excited about the literary arts." They're in San Francisco and take advantage of the strange work hours and free time of the average freelance writer to provide afternoon tutoring to students who need more one-on-one time. The "store" that they run doesn't look like a tutoring center; instead, it's a pirate supply store. There are similar venues in Brooklyn (super-hero supplies) and LA (time traveller supplies). It seems to be working amazingly well, with high participation and fantastic results. It all sounds very cool and is best described by the founder, Dave Eggers, who is both charsimatic and quite funny and well worth watching. [media] ]]> https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=2038 2008-12-27T22:22:40+01:00 https://earthli.com/users/marco

(Incredible as it may seem, a measure that will greatly discourage travel to the U.S., without protecting us in the slightest, is about to go into effect), provides the gory details: "...starting January 12, 2009, people traveling to America -- even from countries whose citizens need not possess visas to visit us -- must apply for permission to come here three days in advance of arrival!" These applications are ostensibly to be emailed to to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which will doubtless store them on their servers and ... probably be able to do nothing with them in a timely fashion. Regardless of how many people decide to give up on a visit to America, there will still be an enormous number of people willing to come and have a look around. Estimates range from "tens of thousands of applications each week [and] [i]n peak periods, perhaps hundreds of thousands". Guess whose budget is going up next year? Now that's what you call "jobs creation"! Look for all of the people grumbling about hiring people for social purposes to fall over themselves loving this new idea from the DHS. After all, how are we to convince people of the basic inferiority to all that is America without measures like these? This measure is similar to trying to force European countries (Switzerland included [3]) into including biometric information in their new passports. Countries that fail to do so by a certain deadline will have their citizens applying for visas for travel to the States. Soviet-era openness, here we come! This idea is a non-starter and will soon subside into the ether from whence it came, having managed only to alienate the world even further. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- [1] Oh yes indeed! With tongue placed firmly in cheek. [1] The blog article mentions that "[w]hile all other advanced countries have reported a steady and continuing increase in their incoming tourism over the past seven years, the United States has suffered a decline. Fewer foreign tourists are coming here today than arrived in the year 2000..." [1] Switzerland is voting on whether or not to include biometric information in their passports in May of 2009. In Switzerland, issues of personal privacy and private data are decided in national referenda. Nice, huh? ]]> https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=2012 2008-12-13T23:45:28+01:00 https://earthli.com/users/marco

, clears up the confusion surrounding the claim that the Royal Mail in England will be "requiring delivery staff to walk at four miles an hour". It's amusing that the claim is taken at all seriously. People are notoriously bad... ]]>

, clears up the confusion surrounding the claim that the Royal Mail in England will be "requiring delivery staff to walk at four miles an hour". It's amusing that the claim is taken at all seriously. People are notoriously bad at judging numbers. They hear the claim and think nothing of it, thinking that the number -- which a "new software system, Pegasus" calculated is anything but a complete fairy tale. It may also show that people either don't walk very much or don't know how quickly they're walking when they do. Four miles per hour -- 6.44 kilometers per hour for the civilized world -- is very quick. If you're of average height, you will neither hit nor maintain this pace without constant concentration and effort. To say nothing of maintaining the pace for two hours or more -- you certainly won't have mental energy left over for delivering the mail accurately. To discuss that pace as anything but laughable when talking about postmen (and women) is incompetent. The BBC even sent out a reporter to walk the rounds with a postman to see what a real pace was like. Lo and behold, he discovered that even 3.1 miles per hour felt "rather brisk"; it turns out that they averaged 2.1 miles per hour for the nearly four hours they needed to complete the route. At that pace, they took twenty minutes longer than the recommended; walking four miles per hour would have likely nearly killed the both of them, but they would have been done in just over two hours. More than enough time for a pint or two before checking in. Now that would be an incentive to walk a bit more quickly. ]]> https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=2011 2008-12-13T13:18:41+01:00 https://earthli.com/users/marco

. ]]> https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=1922 2008-08-31T22:58:01+02:00 https://earthli.com/users/marco

, seems to understand the crux of the matter very well: [image] "By turns authoritative and wheedling, often speaking casually, with long pauses, as if talking to himself, always acting, aware of circumstance and timing, and very rarely manic [...] he creates a character who is attractive and horrifying in exactly the right proportions: attractive because horrifying, perhaps. Even his rages seem parodies of rages. He projects an enduring sense of calm beneath his craziness, so that you have to admire his poise even as you wish he had never been invented. [...] the Joker makes even evil seem a puzzle too easily solved because there is nothing he can’t make a joke of, and because, unlike Batman, he is not the prisoner of a traumatic past but the inventor of one: he can have any past he likes. Any future too. It’s striking that several people in the movie call him a terrorist, an appropriate term only in a very loose sense. He certainly terrorises people, in the movie and in the cinema. But terrorism, strictly, is a political weapon, and the Joker doesn’t have any politics, any more than he has any morals. [...] He is not only someone we don’t understand, he is the image of everything we don’t understand, a travesty of highly intelligent, meaningless design." Try as one might, there is no way to ascribe terrorist acts to the Joker without bending the definition beyond all recognition. He has no credo, no goal; the scene in the road -- where Batman screamed up the road on his motorcycle at the Joker -- showed that the Joker truly didn't whether he lived or died. To him, the worth of every moment was determined by its entertainment value, not by any contribution it made to a higher purpose. Most terrorists can be thwarted by defusing the situation that drove them to acts of desperation. We do ourselves a disservice by lumping in the majority of the redeemable with the extreme minority of the truly insane. When the Joker got a heap of money, he burned it -- perhaps because he was truly around the bend and doesn't share any morés with Western society, or perhaps because he saw it as a lever by which he could be controlled were he to become attached to the idea of being wealthy. The Joker says during his interrogation that he has nothing that the Batman can take from him, but the Joker is a work of fiction. Most people -- even terrorists -- are not like that; most people have levers by which they can be controlled [1]. Casting the Joker as a terrorist in an attempt to substantiate a worldview that incorporates only black and white credos is to do a great disservice to both Frank Miller -- who created this darker, subtler vision of Gotham inhabited by an amoral Joker and a tortured Batman -- and to Heath Ledger, who transformed himself utterly to portray a personality found exceedingly rarely [2], if ever, in real life. The world is composed of shades of gray. We Americans have already ruined our political process with our refusal to assimilate this fact; let's not ruin our cinema as well. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- [1] Unless all of their levers have been previously removed by aerial bombing. [1] Charles Manson springs to mind. ]]> https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=1892 2008-08-14T22:34:55+02:00 https://earthli.com/users/marco

to explain everything. An acre is apparently not just an inscrutably long and decimal-place--laden number of square yards. It is, in fact, exactly 10 square... ]]>

to explain everything. An acre is apparently not just an inscrutably long and decimal-place--laden number of square yards. It is, in fact, exactly 10 square chains. A chain is one tenth of a furlong and equal to 66 feet. That makes more sense than 4840 square yards or a box 208.71 feet on a side. In addition to the chain, there's also the rood, which is a quarter of an acre, the perch, which is 1/160 of an acre (and equal to a square rod, which is 5.5 yards long) and the indian cent, which is 1/100 of an acre (but whose measurement in square feet or square yards is doubtless also fraught with decimal places). So an acre is 10 square chains -- a strip of land one furlong long and one chain wide, instead of a square of land -- and a square chain is 1000 square links. It's comforting to know that even the British system of measurement has roots in base-10. ]]> https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=1875 2008-06-17T08:14:19+02:00 https://earthli.com/users/marco

https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=1862 2008-06-07T08:25:48+02:00 https://earthli.com/users/marco

features a whole bunch of British people I've never heard of, half of them asking pithy questions, allowing the other half to offer equally pithy -- and often, far lengthier -- answers. "Julia Neuberger, rabbi and Lib Dem peer", appearing about 3/4 of the way down the... ]]>

features a whole bunch of British people I've never heard of, half of them asking pithy questions, allowing the other half to offer equally pithy -- and often, far lengthier -- answers. "Julia Neuberger, rabbi and Lib Dem peer", appearing about 3/4 of the way down the list, though it a good idea to ask Christopher Hitchens an insipid question that he'd been asked dozens of times before. Whatever you may think of Hitchens either personally or professionally, this is the kind of moment for which he was made. Here's the question in its less-than-nuanced entirety: "Why are you so angry about religion? Don't you think your very fervour - and certainty - make you just like the religious extremists you profess to despise. And where's the room for doubt in your analysis?" I am oh-so-curious as to whether she thought -- even for a moment -- that he might have answered, respectively, "abused as a child", "yes" and "nowhere" and left it at that. Though the idea may have fleetingly occurred, being Hitchens, he opted for the far-more-amusing response partially cited below. He leads with a lovely citation: "Any view of the world which does not premise the existence of something supernatural is a philosophy, or a theory or, at worst, an ideology. If it is either of the first two, at its best it proportions what it accepts to the evidence for accepting it, knows what would refute it, and stands ready to revise itself in the light of new evidence. This is the essence of science." He goes on to illustrate with an example: "The whole analytical method of humanist materialism is based on scepticism. We take nothing on faith. Imagine what a fortune could be made by a palaeontologist who unearthed human bones and dinosaur bones in the same layer of sediment. I will bet my house that this discovery will not be made, but my bet is not entirely, or at all, an article of belief. It is, rather, a conviction based on the study of evidence." The emphasized passage above is the core of the answer: the difference between fundamentalists and (good) scientists lies in the scientists' willingness to assimilate new information and to base convictions on evidence rather than faith. A fundamentalist will continue to believe that which he or she believes regardless of conflicting evidence. This is not to say that logical conclusions drawn from a preponderance of evidence are always right and faith-based conclusions always wrong, but that the methodologies differ and the first methodology has a much stronger track record in reality. The citation is spot-on, the reasoning is strong and succinct, but it just wouldn't be Hitchens if there wasn't a personally insulting zinger in there somewhere, which brings us to the last paragraph: "As to the manner in which I express myself, it rather depends on the antagonist. I'm normally renowned for my patience and good humour, but I admit to being easily bored and, when I come up against, say, a self-righteous rabbi, can be tempted to succumb to sarcasm. I think that may be where your confusion arises. Oh, and I do not "profess" to despise religious extremists. I really do despise them. (emphasis added)" Arrogant to some, snide to nearly all, but his stern redaction of her question to remove the politically-correct softening qualifier "profess" is completely and entirely justified and gives this author, at least, a warm and fuzzy feeling. ]]> https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=1815 2008-04-20T20:26:52+02:00 https://earthli.com/users/marco

is a well-written look into the world of elevators and the companies that create them. It mixes research with the story of a man who was trapped in an elevator for 41 hours. Some interesting tidbits from the article: * The last time an elevator plummeted down a shaft was in 1945 in ... ]]>

is a well-written look into the world of elevators and the companies that create them. It mixes research with the story of a man who was trapped in an elevator for 41 hours. Some interesting tidbits from the article: * The last time an elevator plummeted down a shaft was in 1945 in the US. It was called "the Empire State Building incident of 1945, in which a B-25 bomber pilot made a wrong turn in the fog and crashed into the seventy-ninth floor, snapping the hoist and safety cables of two elevators." Only one woman was in the elevator and she actually survived the crash (though with extensive injuries). * Elevators are almost ridiculously safe, with most hoist elevators having six to eight cables, each of which "is capable on its own of supporting the full load of the elevator plus twenty-five per cent more weight." * Elevators are safer than automobiles and much safer than their counterpart, escalators. * Contrary to Hollywood legend, the escape hatch in an elevator can only opened from the outside; it is bolted shut because, in an emergency, the safest place to be is inside the elevator. * "A single elevator can climb no higher than seventeen hundred feet. A hoist rope any longer is too heavy to be practical; at thirty-two hundred feet, it will snap, like a stream of spit in a stairwell." That's with current technology, of course. * Modern elevators no longer respond to the "door close" button; an even more modern system called "destination dispatch" does away with the floor buttons as well. "Destination dispatch assigns passengers to an elevator according to which floors they’re going to, in an attempt to send each car to as few floors as possible. You enter your floor number at a central control panel in the lobby and are told which elevator to take." ]]> https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=1795 2008-04-10T20:11:15+02:00 https://earthli.com/users/marco

is another in a long line of really slick, interactive, infographic presentations. Because of the extreme noise on the trading floor, traders use hand signals to indicate buy/sell interest, prices, amounts and status information. "An oil trader demonstrates the" ... ]]>

is another in a long line of really slick, interactive, infographic presentations. Because of the extreme noise on the trading floor, traders use hand signals to indicate buy/sell interest, prices, amounts and status information. "An oil trader demonstrates the hand signals used on the floor of the New York Mercantile Exchange. Text and graphics by Ben Schott, a contributing columnist." [image] ]]> https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=1782 2008-04-02T22:43:28+02:00 https://earthli.com/users/marco

, has already done a decent job of summarizing Arabs, Islam and the Middle East [1], there's still probably too much text [2], so here's a summary of the summary [3]. 1. Arabs are an ethnic group. [4] 2. Iraqis are mostly Arab. 3. Iranians are ... ]]>

, has already done a decent job of summarizing Arabs, Islam and the Middle East [1], there's still probably too much text [2], so here's a summary of the summary [3]. 1. Arabs are an ethnic group. [4] 2. Iraqis are mostly Arab. 3. Iranians are mostly Persian (another ethnic group). 4. Afghans are Pashtun, Hazira, Uzbek or Tajik (also ethnic groups). [5] 5. Afghani is the unit of currency in Afghanistan. 6. They speak Arabic [6] in Iraq. 7. They speak Farsi [7] in Iran. [8] 8. They speak Pashto and Farsi in Afghanistan. 9. Semitic [9] refers to a set of languages. 10. Arabic and Hebrew are both Semitic languages. 11. Arabs can be any religion. 12. Islam is a religion. 13. Muslims are people of Islamic faith. 14. Islam has two major sects, Shia and Sunni. [10] 15. Sunnis make up 90% of all Muslims. [11] 16. Muhammad is a prophet of Islam. [12] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- [1] Assuming, of course, that it can be done at all in so little text. [1] I'm being entirely facetious and unfair to my American compatriots. Except where I'm not. You know who you are. In hindsight, it would have been fun to do this one as an April Fool's gag, since most of you would have had no idea one way or the other. On the other hand, Fox News pretty much has the market on Arab misinformation cornered and has taken all the chuckles out of that. [1] With footnotes for the adventurous, of course. [1] "Ethnic groups" are religion-independent cultural classifications. See "Arabs" for more information. [1] From "Afghanistan" : "About two-fifths of the people belong to the Pashtun ethnic group". [1] Arabic is spoken in large parts of Africa as well as the Middle East. [1] Also called Persian. [1] From "Iran" : "The principal language of the country is Persian (Farsi), which is written with the Arabic alphabet and spoken by about 60% of the people. Other groups speak Turkic dialects (25%), Kurdish, (10%), and Turkish, Armenian, and Arabic. Among the educated classes, English and French are spoken." [1] From "Semitic languages" : "The term "Semitic" for these languages, after Shem, the son of Noah in the Bible, is etymologically a misnomer in some ways (see Semitic), but is nonetheless standard." Palestinians are a Semitic people and are ill-equipped to be anti-Semitic, as they are so often accused of being. [1] The Shia/Sunni schism is as old as Islam itself. Sunnis believe the line of power runs through the caliphate whereas Shias believe it runs through the family of Muhammad. Normally, Shia and Sunnis are perfectly capable of living in peace (often intermarrying) without further trouble; in Iraq, the US expended quite a lot of effort to foment a civil war. Compare Protestants and Catholics in the US to those in Ireland in the final quarter of the 20th century; same religions, but differing levels of violence, largely due to politics instead of religion. [1] Iran is almost exclusively Shia; Iraq is 60% Shia and 20% Sunni; Palestine, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Jordan and the Gulf States are almost exclusively Sunni. [1] The Saudi Arabian flag features Arabic text, which reads: "There is no god but God; Muhammad is the Messenger of God", a central tenet of Islam. ]]> https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=1757 2008-03-10T07:50:49+01:00 https://earthli.com/users/marco

. Some examples are cited below. "Rich people hire everyone else to work for them, making our economy robust. "Scientists’ opinions are neither better nor worse than anyone else’s. "The" ... ]]>

. Some examples are cited below. "Rich people hire everyone else to work for them, making our economy robust. "Scientists’ opinions are neither better nor worse than anyone else’s. "The fall of communism is the best evidence that providing everyone in this country with free health care is doomed." ]]> https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=1707 2008-01-19T20:39:13+01:00 https://earthli.com/users/marco

https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=1708 2008-01-19T20:27:36+01:00 https://earthli.com/users/marco

has a typo; they wrote that: "Clark Hoyt, has called the controversial hiring of William Kristol as an op-ed columnist a "mistake." ... He also wrote, in his column today, that of nearly 700 messages he has received about the" ... ]]>

has a typo; they wrote that: "Clark Hoyt, has called the controversial hiring of William Kristol as an op-ed columnist a "mistake." ... He also wrote, in his column today, that of nearly 700 messages he has received about the selection, only one praised the pick (empasis added)" It's a sad day when even Editor and Publisher can't proofread well enough to detect that they mis-spelled "prick". ]]> https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=1681 2007-12-09T21:02:30+01:00 https://earthli.com/users/marco

for the link. ]]> https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=1675 2007-12-03T21:43:40+01:00 https://earthli.com/users/marco

There are a lot of, shall we say, unique, entries. Many of them are interesting only in that they actually work, not that they would be more useful than the standard pocket calendar, which uses text... ]]>

There are a lot of, shall we say, unique, entries. Many of them are interesting only in that they actually work, not that they would be more useful than the standard pocket calendar, which uses text too small to read. The winning entry is the "Thumb Calendar" by Adam Sporka , which is clean and clear: [image] Here's how it works: First half of the year is on one side of the card, the rest of the year is on the other. ... The header of each month is appropriately aligned to show the actual days of the week. 1. Find the month you want to read. 2. Use your thumbs to cover the numbers that are not directly below the month header. 3. Note the color of the month header. The last day of the month is rendered in the same color. Cool. There's a PDF to download if you actually want to carry it around with you. ]]> https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=1673 2007-12-03T20:36:01+01:00 https://earthli.com/users/marco

selected the following picture as the winner in the Animals category of their annual competition. This is wrong on so many levels, not least of which is that a lot of people (yours truly included) tend to have much stronger reactions to the suffering of animals... ]]>

selected the following picture as the winner in the Animals category of their annual competition. This is wrong on so many levels, not least of which is that a lot of people (yours truly included) tend to have much stronger reactions to the suffering of animals that fellow human beings. Why is that? Is it their helplessness? Their relative innocence? Are people not accorded a similar guilelessness, by default? Or do we just assume that they, while not necessarily deserving their fate, have, in some way, failed to prevent it? [image] "Caged monkeys await their fate at a medical laboratory in Hubei Province, China. The judges liked that this image subverts the usual romanticized approach to wildlife photography and more accurately reflects the fate of many of the world’s animals. The sneaker at the top provides scale and injects a human being into the scene; the anonymity of the wearer suggests concealment and complicity. The structure of the cages, the horror of the captivity, the crowded composition, and the claustrophobic tension all add up to a sad and compelling photo." ]]> https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=1674 2007-12-03T19:36:42+01:00 https://earthli.com/users/marco

took the time to painstakingly combine the published nutrition (if you can call it that) information for the largest fast food chains in America. A few tidbits: * In the french fries department, Dairy Queen at 1530mg delivers almost five times the ... ]]>

took the time to painstakingly combine the published nutrition (if you can call it that) information for the largest fast food chains in America. A few tidbits: * In the french fries department, Dairy Queen at 1530mg delivers almost five times the sodium of McDonald's fries and 730 kCal for their large size. * Carl's Jr weighs in with a regular hamburger that has 470 kCal and 1060mg of sodium. * The unlimited weight class for sandwiches/burgers has dozens with over 1500mg sodium and several contenders with over 1000 kCal, but Carl's Jr prevails again with a "Double Six Dollar Burger" that has 2760 mg of sodium, 1520 kCal and 111 grams of fat. * In the chicken department, Dairy Queen is back with a single piece of chicken that has 1270 kCal, 2910 mg of sodium and 67 grams of fat. * There was no clear winner, with the best statistics usually going to the restaurant that offered the smallest serving size (White Castle won with their tiny burgers and McDonald's was a clear favorite with their smaller breakfast biscuit). * In the pizza category, Pizza Hut delivers with a single slice of 14" large cheese pizza 390 kCal, 19 grams of fat and 800 mg of sodium, whereas Little Caesar's does much better with 200 kCal, 7 grams of fat and only 340 grams of sodium. As the site says, their statistics were collected in November 2007. The statistic that jumps out the most, though, is the amount of sodium in these meals: the standard recommended daily allowance of sodium for a normal adult is about 2500mg. Eating fries and chicken at Dairy Queen -- for one meal -- gets you 3440mg of sodium. [image] ]]> https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=1657 2007-11-08T20:16:08+01:00 https://earthli.com/users/marco

, which noted that much of what is breathlessly reported by the media is vastly distorted or flat-out incorrect -- pretty much par for the course for the new channels, in other words. "But money is being made. They simply don't wish to share it any more than they wished to share revenues from VHS tapes or DVDs. They told us then there was no business model, too. ... What we're down to is a package that will cost the studios and networks around $150-160 million, spread over the three years of the contract. That's about twice what Viacom paid Tom Freston to buy him out as its CEO. A little less than what Merrill Lynch is paying Stan O'Neal to retire as its chairman and chief executive. Less than what Citigroup was paying incoming chairman Robert Rubin. As a consultant." Despite these vast disparities in power and earnings, the nationally acknowledged anti-union bent that colors almost everything in modern American discourse will still have most people nodding vigorously as they agree that those damned Hollywood types are so greedy and that they TOOK AWAY MY GRAY'S. In reality, it seems that the studio heads -- much like their brethren at the recording studios -- have no idea what it's like to actually create something. "At one point during negotiations, it was seriously propositioned to us that writers who base their scripts on history or contemporary real life events should be paid less than those who create an original story because they don't have to use their imaginations as much. I am not making this up." People who have no idea how much effort goes into writing or how much talent, concentration, intuition and perseverence it takes to come with something even halfway decent (even cliché scripts has to be written) are putting dollar values on these jobs. It's the same with any job, where the manager just sees you clicking away at a keyboard or mopping a floor or directing traffic and thinks "how hard can that be?". Any monkey could do that and they should be happy to have a job instead of screaming for more money. Managers with no actual talent other than for managing see the world differently. "I was reminded of the old joke about the logic of civil engineers: if it takes a woman nine months to have a baby, they're convinced that gathering nine women together will produce a baby in a month." ]]> https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=1652 2007-10-02T22:18:54+02:00 https://earthli.com/users/marco

cites a driving commuter who calculated how much money he would save and how much extra time he would spend if he took the train instead of drove: "I can usually drive there in 45-60 minutes during off-peak hours, although it can sometimes take much longer if there’s an accident. I can park in the garage next to my office for the day for $12. Conversely, I can drive 15-20 minutes to a Metro station, pay $4 to park, wait as long as 15 minutes for a train, pay another $2.65 to get two blocks from the office 35-50 minutes later, followed by a 5-10 minute walk to the office." The train would save him about $3.00 per day, but cost him anywhere from 30 to 75 minutes. It would also cost him what he terms the "privacy and autonomy I enjoy in my own vehicle". He does not note the extra risk he has driving so much every day, nor the effects on his health from the extra stress incurred. The decision to drive to work is aided primarily by two things: 1. The human capacity for getting used to anything; even a torturous commute every day is subsumed into the everyday humdrum and taken as a given after a while. Those hours spent behind the wheel are not considered wasted -- they are to be preferred to spending even more time in a train, though one can read or do something useful there. 2. The subsidization of the driving lifestyle in the States; road maintenance is paid for with gas taxes, but no one ever talks about a the highway system "turning a profit". Gas prices are so low that the gentleman above even leaves the cost out of the equation because he only uses "a nominal amount of gasoline". [1] Clearly the only people using public transportation are those who actually have something better to do than stare at the bumper in front of them for two hours per day. There is no other incentive forcing people to reconsider their decision to work far from their homes or to spend so much of their lives driving. Ms. McArdle suggests to "institute comprehensive road tolls combined with a congestion pricing scheme" and "a carbon tax to compensate for the negative externalities drivers are imposing". Tolls are not the answer as they congest traffic further; there should be a blanket highway usage fee paid each year (as in some European countries). A carbon tax is a good idea if it's applied to the price of gasoline. With all the talk of taxing cigarettes as a "sin", there should be more about taxing gasoline more. The problem with all of these solutions is that one can only reasonably do them in larger urban areas which actually have decent public transportation, which can handle the extra capacity engendered by droves of people giving up automotive commuting. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- [1] One commenter asks "What are our gas taxes paying for, if not the roads?" It's a decent question, and it's difficult to say what the subsidies are without hard numbers. Many years ago, the NYC subway fares paid for about 70% of the system whereas the LIRR and Metro-North barely cracked 40% and 50% respectively. It's hard to imagine that gas taxes pay for the roads in NYC as it costs a tremendous amount of money to build in NYC and everyone buys their gas in Jersey anway. Another commenter wrote: "What I would like to see is data on the relative size of subsidies for roads vs. mass transit per user mile expressed in current dollars. I think if you totaled up the amount spent on roads, parking garages, cars, driveways, eminent domain, accidental death and injury, insurance, and added in the cost of the negative externalities, people would be totally freaking shocked." Which goes more in the direction of using true-cost economics to come up with a cost for driving: "negative externalities" like congestion, pollution, noise and degraded quality of life because there are cars and roads everywhere. Another poster commented that "[b]efore talking about taxing consumers for gasoline, I think the government should take away all the oil industry's subsidies, tax credits and deductions", which touches on another matter: corporate welfare, for which we also pay. "Net Federal Subsidies per Thousand Passenger-Miles by Mode: FY 1990-2002" shows the amount of subsidy per transport mode per thousand passenger miles. This is supposed to show that cars have negative net subsidization, but drawing that conclusion ignores the fact that planes, buses, trains and other public infrastructure have to pay for everything, including the vehicles, whereas drivers shoulder the cost of upkeep and maintenance of their own vehicles. It's not a subsidy, but it's a major cost that doesn't appear in the calculation. The upshot is that the US stands alone in this discussion about urban areas and personal transportation; much of the rest of the civilized world has decided on cultural urban centers and strict controls on automobiles -- and they're much the better for it. ]]> https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=1609 2007-06-14T21:00:46+02:00 https://earthli.com/users/marco

. ]]> https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=1602 2007-06-05T23:19:39+02:00 https://earthli.com/users/marco

, poses an interesting question. Almost everyone will have a knee-jerk reaction to it -- evincing either a gut feeling that an exonerated prisoner is an innocent man and therefore has been treated unfairly by society or a kneejerk reaction that anyone... ]]>

, poses an interesting question. Almost everyone will have a knee-jerk reaction to it -- evincing either a gut feeling that an exonerated prisoner is an innocent man and therefore has been treated unfairly by society or a kneejerk reaction that anyone who the courts saw fit to send to jail must be guilty in one way or another. There are those who view every exoneration as the result of a sly criminal's -- and a liberal lawyer's -- machinations of our leaky legal system, taking "let he without sin cast the first stone" to heart and assuming everyone's got at least one skeleton in their closet for which they should hang. Especially them folk what don't look like our folk. [1] You know you are. This topic is especially interesting in light of the fact that increased use of DNA evidence is blowing formerly airtight cases right out of the water and overturning rape and murder verdicts up to a quarter century old. These are people who protested their innocence, fought against the devils determined to pin the deed on them, sat through a good third of their lives behind bars and are released into the world beneath the big blue sky once again. What does society owe them? An apology? More? Compensation for lost time and lost earnings? What of the rest that was lost? It seems only fair that they get something more substantial than a kick in the pants or a mumbled apology. Granted, the system may not be fair, but nor does the system have to be unduly harsh -- especially when it can easily do something about it. People who have been behind bars for such long stretches are no longer capable of neatly integrating into society, at least not without a lot of help. The last thing they actually need is to be financially strapped as well. These are people whose slate has, in effect, been wiped clean, so why not simply calculate the amount of money they could have been expected to earn had they continued life on the outside and offer that to them as a form of reparation for a life ruined. It doesn't approach recompensing the former prisoner for mental anguish or opportunity lost, but at least it's something. "The Innocence Project" works to help these former prisoners integrate because they fall into a legal limbo as far as most governmental integration assistance programs are concerned -- those generally only apply to ex-convicts. "What do states owe the exonerated?" by Amanda Paulson cites the head of the project: "We are exonerating people who did not commit crimes, spent two decades in prison or time on death row, and when they get out, there are fewer reentry services for these people than for individuals who actually committed crimes ... It's a measure of decency." To their credit, almost half the states in the US now have some form of compensation program in place, though some limit their reparations to relatively low fixed figures -- like $25,000 -- instead of tying the amount to years served somehow. Make no mistake, these are not country club stays being discussed here. A recently exonerated inmate, Byron Halsey, lived a life we can hardly imagine, as reported in "DNA clears former inmate" by Glenn Townes : "He was sentenced to two life terms plus 20 years in prison, with no possibility of parole for 70 years. He spent nearly 22 years—the bulk of it in solitary confinement—at a New Jersey state prison. (emphasis added)" This isn't even just jail time in the classic sense, this is jail time that is tantamount to psychological torture by any standard of human decency. Long stretches of isolation has grave effects on even the strongest individuals -- these innocent men are spending years and years and years of their lives in conditions not even sanctioned by the Geneva conventions for something they didn't do. If you want to hear what a quarter century of stolen life sounds like, check out the last entry in the "Headlines for April 25th, 2007" : "My name is Jerry Miller. The State of Illinois has imprisoned me for twenty-five years, one year on parole as a registered sex offender. Yesterday I became number 200 -- person to be exonerated by DNA testing in the United States. The State gave me the number, I know it by heart -- N235281 -- tonight I’m free!" It comes across much better live, so "Listen to the MP3 clip" (culled from the "MP3 of the show" , taking from the 13th to the 14th minute). You'll hear the cracking voice of a man, who, despite every effort of a cruel system, has not been broken and can still express a joy in the life left to him. We owe it to people like him to give him every chance he can to make the best of it -- instead of dropping him into a corner of society with little or no help, shunning him to avoid being faced with our own shame. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- [1] A depressingly high number of the pictures associated with these articles show only black people as far as the eye can see. Given the current horrible attitude of the justice system toward minorities and knowing that it's actually gotten better over the years means it should come as no surprise that most of the bad convictions from the last 25 years involve wrongly imprisoned blacks. ]]> https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=1594 2007-05-14T22:49:04+02:00 https://earthli.com/users/marco

https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=1581 2007-04-15T21:33:09+02:00 https://earthli.com/users/marco

is the most recent case-in-point. It communicates the raw feeling of a human being who has been almost completely undone by his experience, of a worldview that has been put through a blender, but who has clawed his way back to a place where he can live with himself. It's remarkably raw and written in a riveting style. "It’s not that loud noises terrify me. It’s just that I don’t respond appropriately to them. My heart goes off like a Led Zeppelin drum solo, my diaphragm sprints, pulling-in far more oxygen than I need, and I want to fight back. But there is no one to fight, there is nowhere to go, nothing to do. I’m supposed to just go on normally, but my body doesn’t know that and though I tell it, sometimes it takes a while for it to listen. There was a time, when a noise that didn’t belong was heard, people looked at me for some leadership, they wanted me to tell them where to go, and what to do; now they just look and think: who is the weirdo hyperventilating at the bar because a waitress dropped a tray." Problems are approached pragmatically; he declaims drinking to excess as a sleep aid in logical terms rather than puritanical ones: "I don’t sleep that much at all. Unless of course I’m drunk. It gets tedious though, to start drinking nightcaps at seven so that sleep will come at two." Drinking is but one way of keeping an agile mind from examining a history best forgotten. Drowning memories of actions done out of duty is job number one. Alcohol is but one (bad) way, but copious presciption medication for "pain that I don’t really feel anyway" is another. The job in Iraq is described in concise, crisp detail that shows the futility and uselessness of the entire adventure: "You see, for seven months I ran around everyday wearing eighty pounds of armor plates, ammunition, grenades, water, maps, little cards telling me how to say, 'Where are the weapons hidden?', bandages and tourniquets and this powder that burns the skin to stop the bleeding, radios, and little cards that say, 'Sorry we destroyed your house -- go here and we’ll give you money.'" The soldiers themselves know what we do not: that they have no purpose there, that they are not wanted, and that they are running around performing duties that have net negative effects. Repeated tours of duty strip these soldiers of their previous lives, letting them be reborn as adults in the cauldron of war in Iraq. Multiple tours stretch to years away from home -- just yesterday, a single tour went from 12 to 15 months -- and loved ones left behind can't cope, moving on in their own ways, sometimes looking guiltily backwards over a shoulder, sometimes not. "Somewhere around then my girlfriend left me, or I pushed her away -- I don’t blame her, love happens sometimes, that’s all. ... Everyone said that they were disgusted because it was the worst time for someone to have to deal with a break-up. They were so wrong. It was the most thoughtful thing she ever did for me. When else can you say, “Well, my girlfriend is banging some other dude? Who cares? At least I’m not on fire. When does the next patrol leave?” If she had waited until I got home, when I would have had time to think and dwell on things; well that would have been bad timing." Whether or not he is uses these words to cover deep wounds, the thought is philosphical: why worry about something so small as a failed relationship when death stares you in the face every day? There are other priorities and the vagaries and minutaie of life "back home" are left behind as the survival instinct kicks in again and again. It is a gallows humor, dark and biting to a society that doesn't want to admit or know about the ferocity of war. Spitting in death's eye may be all fake bravado, but who cares? It's also damned funny and warms the heart. "The next day, when we were leaving the wire, I told everyone in my vehicle, 'Don’t worry, boys. Nothing can happen to us. I’m invincible right now.' "'What the fuck are you talking about?' "'Well, think about it. There is no way God would let my ex-girlfriend and her lousy new boyfriend get my life insurance money.' "'It’s still in her name, you moron? Why don’t you change it?' "'Because,' I said, shocked at their ignorance, 'Then I wouldn’t be invincible.'" "Shocked at their ignorance" ... priceless. Who wouldn't want to get a beer with that guy? ]]> https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=1578 2007-04-12T22:22:41+02:00 https://earthli.com/users/marco

commemorates Vonnegut by citing a speech he gave in 2003, in which he cited a piece by Mark Twain, written in 1903. The piece by Twain addresses the purported "great victories" of the United States military against the people of the Philippines. Vonnegut clearly quotes it in order to draw horrifyingly obvious parallels to the "great victories" in our war against the people of Iraq. The citation reveals the words of a general writing to his commanding officer, informing him of news from the front: "The enemy numbered six hundred -- including women and children -- and we abolished them utterly, leaving not even a baby alive to cry for its dead mother. This is incomparably the greatest victory that was ever achieved by the Christian soldiers of the United States. […]" His commanding officer was Teddy Roosevelt, the president of the United States at the time. This is a president whose face is commemorated in a mountain of stone at Mount Rushmore, whose achievements are feted by wonks of all stripes, who is accepted by all right-thinking Americans as one of the great presidents -- especially in a time when we struggle to remember the America that was as we suffer under the rule of one of the worst. His carefully considered response was as follows: "I congratulate you and the officers and men of your command upon the brilliant feat of arms wherein you and they so well upheld the honor of the American flag." Vonnegut was clever enough to let others speak for him and to let the point speak for itself. He knew that nothing much had changed and that the bastards -- called the "guessers" in his latest book -- were still firmly in charge. He knew that our memories of Roosevelt, as stored in the national mind, were purest confabulation -- as is most looking back on "good old times". He knew that things were depressingly still the same, but saw no reason to give up; rather, he cheerfully (or sometimes, angrily) picked up where Twain -- and countless other real heroes -- had left off. He deliberately included the last piece of the citation, using Twain's words as his own, in a phrasing that is still 100% accurate today: "I have seen that we do not intend to free, but to subjugate the people of the Philippines [1]. We have gone there to conquer, not to redeem. It should, it seems to me, be our pleasure and duty to make these people free and let them deal with their own domestic questions in their own way; and so I am an anti-imperialist. I am opposed to having the eagle put its talons on any other land." [A Funny Guy] [image]As noted above, though he was deadly serious about his love of America and his conviction that it could be a place that was good for the many instead of only the few, he made whatever he did palatable with a dry irony -- the exact kind the Brits are always claiming Americans don't have. For a rambling, good interview with Vonnegut and Joseph Heller, see "The Joe & Kurt Show" . Here are some highlights: Marriage "VONNEGUT: Nietzsche had a little one-liner on how to choose a wife. He said, ''Are you willing to have a conversation with this woman for the next forty years?'' That's how to pick a wife." Iraq [2] "HELLER: Bush still hadn't figured out why he had invaded Panama, and he didn't know why he was making war in Iraq" Censorship "...Are you at all concerned about the government's intrusion into our privacy? "HELLER: Do I think, for example, this guy Pee-wee Herman should be arrested for playing with himself in an adult theater? "VONNEGUT: Did he play to climax? I really haven't kept up with the news as I should." The Farce of War "VONNEGUT: There was a story in World War Two about a Dutch cruiser that escaped from the Nazis just as they were occupying Holland. The ship pulled into a fiord somewhere and put on war paint, purple and green stripes, and sailed into the Firth of Clyde, where the British navy was anchored in Scotland, and the skipper of the cruiser called to the flagship and asked, ''How do you like our new camouflage?'' And the answer that came back was ''Where are you?''" -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- [1] Substitute the subjugated people (or peoples) du jour here. [1] The first time, with the first Bush. Creepy, huh? ]]> https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=1569 2007-04-05T23:19:23+02:00 https://earthli.com/users/marco

, there are reports of repeatable experiments, which have the potential to obviate vast swaths of philosophical hypothesis and religious theory: science has its hands wrapped around free will's throat and is starting to squeeze. [I Made You Read This] ... ]]>

, there are reports of repeatable experiments, which have the potential to obviate vast swaths of philosophical hypothesis and religious theory: science has its hands wrapped around free will's throat and is starting to squeeze. [I Made You Read This] First, there's the experiment by "American neuroscientist Benjamin Libet", in which he tested brain activity of participants as they were performing various activities. Participants swore up and down that they were choosing when to perform the assigned activity. However, Libet discovered a timing problem gainsaying this claim, in that the brain was very busy before the participant claimed to have initiated the action. This suggests that: "...your conscious experience of making a decision - the experience associated with free will - is just a kind of add-on, an after-thought that only happens once the brain has already set about its business. In other words, your brain is doing the real work, making your hands turn the pages of this magazine or reach over for your cup of tea, and all the time your conscious mind is tagging along behind. In other words, your brain is doing the real work, making your hands turn the pages of this magazine or reach over for your cup of tea, and all the time your conscious mind is tagging along behind." Another experiment builds on this discovery and attempts to influence the participants' decision while preserving their feeling of free will. "Two neuroscientists working in Australia have taken Libet’s discovery one step further. They found that, when asking people to choose to move either their left or right hands, it was possible to influence their choice by electronically stimulating certain parts of their brains. So, for example, the scientists could force the subjects always to choose to move their left hands. But despite their choice being electronically directed, these patients continued to report that they were freely choosing which hand to move." Continued research in this direction may cement, once and for all, that our completely convincing feeling of free will is a mirage. That even the supposedly completely creative act of typing out this article is not done of free will, that the mistyping and subsequent correction of errors in the previous sentence was preordained -- a fixed part of the fixed flow of space-time. That, in effect, our feeling that we are observers of this universe is a cruel joke played on us by an evolutionary aberration. The feeling of despondency one gets as this realization sinks in? Preordained. The decision to reach for a bottle of scotch to drown the recursive echoes of predestination, which threaten to squelch every desire to do anything at all? Unavoidable. The subsequent huddling in the corner and going quietly insane? Your only possible destination from the very first breath you took. Thanks very much, inexorable laws of physics. [Implications for Society] Some feel that there might be a breakdown of the fabric of society as more and more people slowly wake to the realization that their waking to a realization was just as inexorable as the rising and setting of the sun, that their decision to go with the red slacks and the pink sprinkles on the donut was all unavoidable and slotted into an unfathomably large and complex web of events that are, have been and will ever be. Perhaps. Perhaps not. People, in general, have shown themselves capable of far greater feats of cognitive dissonance than ignoring a subtle psychological issue like whether or not they really have free will. After all, everything about us (as decided by nature and space-time) leads us to believe that we do have free will. It's the way we seem to be built, so fighting it or trying to force ourselves to be conscious of the fact that our consciousness is a joke is a bit much for most people and, quite frankly, doesn't put a lot of food on the table. If science proves that we have no free will, things could get a bit tricky for societies and their governments, though. "...the implications for our systems of morality, of crime and punishment, are shattering. We only punish those we think voluntarily did wrong - not those who literally had no choice but to act as they did. But if there is no free will" I mean, perhaps we'll just sink into anarchy with a shrug, noting as we slaughter and adulter our merry way into the abyss, that "the universe made me do it". This line of reasoning is hyperbolic and leads nowhere (except to the aforementioned catatonic state of rocking in a corner, hugging one's legs to one's chest). Where this kind of research could be interesting is in finally pushing our society towards a form of civilization that stops ostracizing the less evolutionarily fortunate -- or at least stops torturing them like ants under a magnifying glass. Not too long ago, anyone deviating from the absolute norm in society was deemed insane and locked up. Different opinion and no wealthy family to shield you? Locked up; insane. Demented, unintelligent, handicapped? Insane, insane, insane. Things have gotten better to some degree and we've managed to shrink the group of people we treat this way, having moved on to deeming many aberrent -- but essentially harmless -- individuals as criminals, instead. If they aren't a danger to society, we put them through the wringer of our society until, in no time at all, they're aberrent and dangerous, like a dog, which has been kicked one too many times. With a "tsk, tsk", we shut them away, averting our eyes as they rot. In fact, we use them as fodder to keep other amoral layers of society (e.g. prison guards) happy and productive. "A report released last month suggested over a quarter of the UK’s almost 80,000 prison population have an IQ of lower than 80 and suspected learning disabilities, such as forms of autism and dyslexia. Another study carried out at the Young Offenders’ Institute in Aylesbury showed that if prisoners were given minerals and fatty acids essential for proper brain functioning, they committed 37 per cent fewer violent offences." These statistics are more than just numbers; they show quite clearly that poverty and lack of education (which go hand-in-hand) have more to do with criminality than voluntary evil. What we call the dregs of our society could be any one of us, but isn't -- not because of free will or self-control, but because of the inexorable skein of destiny. Because some are raised with enough food on the table and some are not. In that light, society might finally crawl one step closer to true civilization, where morality is enforced through education and rehabilitation rather than retribution and vengeance. This does not lead to anarchy, nor does it make the world more dangerous -- just more charitable. "Suppose that a serial killer continues to pose a grave danger to a community. Even if he is not morally responsible for his crimes, it would be as legitimate to detain him as it is to quarantine a carrier of a deadly communicable disease." The difference in this brave new world is that the killer, instead of being psychologically tortured for the remainder of his days, would be looked on with pity as a victim of fate. It's a difficult concept to swallow in one go. John Searle, a preëminent American philopher asks how we are to cope with such a world: "how do we humans, with our conception of ourselves as free, rational, moral agents, fit in to a universe ”of mindless, meaningless, brute physical particles”?" Others -- like "How Quantum Mechanics is Compatible with Free Will" by Aaron Schwartz [1] -- argue that perhaps we won't have to. The idea that free will is a chimera constantly regenerated by our brains in response to some spurious evolutionary signal triggered like the first domino at the beginning of time is difficult to reconcile with the reality being played out for us by our treacherous senses. In other cases where we are told that our senses are betraying us -- as in games with colors or perspective that fool our highly optimized visual sense -- we can use brute concentration to do an end-run around the automatic filtering imposed by our brains. This filtering (adjusting color or guessing actual size based on perceived distance) is extremely useful in 99.9% of all situations, keeping us alive. However, we can override it if necessary and with sufficient effort; we can force ourselves to see that the square is really gray in both cases and not white in one and black in the other, or we can focus hard and ignore our automatic filter to see that both squares are the same size, regardless of the trompe l'oeil imposed by the deceiver. "This simply isn't possible with free will. If someone tells you that you do not actually have free will but have actually been acting under an illusion, you cannot sit back and let determinism take over. When the waiter asks you whether you like soup or salad, you cannot say "Oh, well I've just learned that free will is an illusion and all my actions are completely determined by the previous state of the world, so I'll just let them play themselves out." I mean, you can say that, but the waiter will look at you like you're crazy and you will get neither soup nor salad." As you can see, free-will experiments can leave you quite hungry. It seems that we do what we do, but when we stop doing that, it's also what we do. As in the song, Free Will by Rush: "If you choose not to decide, still you've made a choice". The act of not acting was also predetermined -- mind-twisting though that may be -- and you're back at square one. The universe is like that annoying fourth-grader who's discovered that he can annoy you by claiming that he "made you do/say that", regardless of which action you undertake or phrase you utter. It's this seeming spuriousness, this complete lack of justification for predeterminism that makes it so hard to believe. It's kind of easy to see how the universe, ruled as it is by the cold, hard laws of physics might function like this, but to what end do we think that we have free will? Why hasn't evolution erased this aberration? Perhaps it's in the process of doing so -- thinking for oneself is clearly on the decline. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- [1] For those interested in more reading on the subject of free will, the comments attached to this article is filled with more hypotheses, several of which mention the Libet experiments cited above and also the great mathematician, Roger Penrose, who is deried as madman by some and lauded as genius by others. YMMV. ]]> https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=1560 2007-03-02T21:15:41+01:00 https://earthli.com/users/marco

and "The Decline of Western Civilization Part II: The Metal Years" , which documented the world of punk rock and heavy metal, respectively. With metal and punk safely behind us, there are now much more... ]]>

and "The Decline of Western Civilization Part II: The Metal Years" , which documented the world of punk rock and heavy metal, respectively. With metal and punk safely behind us, there are now much more insidious cancers eating away at the fabric of our society. One of the more prevalent, Local TV News, is discussed in "Things That Still Exist But Shouldn't" by Amelie Gillete . The article covers a few things, but leads with a 2--minute clip that is just appalling for every horrifying second. It is, of course, linked below for your viewing pleasure. [media] It's hard to know where to begin -- almost as hard as it is deciding whether to laugh or cry. 1. First, there are the awesome graphics adorning this broadcast. Not content with using the false promise of local promiscuity at the end of the broadcast (after sports and weather) to keep viewers glued to the tube throughout an onslaught of commercials, local TV has let the otherwise ubiquitous news-crawl creep up the left side of the screen and take over almost 1/3 of the width. And all this in order to deliver weather information in as many forms as possible at once. You know what? There should just be a channel for that ... oh. 2. Next up, there's the "human interest" story of the 123lb hamburger. Not only is it a fabulous waste of food, but it's going to set you back $379. As with everything else in the broadcast, it is offered without context or indication as to why this is newsworthy (other than to serve as a freebie commercial for the restaurant and to give the troglodytes out there another reason to chant "USA!". 3. Then we've got the HI-larious color commentary guy/news-anchor/good 'ol boy. He's got not one, but three kick-ass one-liners about the hamburger and -- oh, he's not done yet, he's just getting started -- he segues seamlessly and, one might even be moved to say, suavely, to nailing a fat boy from England to the wall for being a big, fat, huge fattie who eats a lot and who's fat. 4. Meanwhile, the crawl below tells us just how close the Taliban came to ridding the world of Dick Cheney, a far more interesting story, but not one for which the network felt they could show the side-splitting clip of a black bear who went to sleep in a tree, woke up in the f@#king suburbs, fell out of said tree onto a trampoline, launched into the air and fell on its head, clearly breaking its neck upon landing on the front lawn. The disturbing stillness of the poor bear -- which hopefully died immediately, but may also have lain there paralyzed until internal bleeding put it out of its misery -- moved at least four or five people in the production crew to laugh right out loud. 5. Encourage by this reception, the anchor narrated a slo-motion replay of the clip [1] -- which was mercifully cut off before the landing -- then held forth on the politically correct way of making fun of an extremely overweight 8--year-old. Somehow, he managed to work in a reference to the bombs we dropped on the Nips that wiped out about a hundred thousand of those slanty-eyed little bastards before lurching into a discussion about a government's invasion of privacy (not ours, thank God and country) with his co-anchor, who he cuts off in mid-sentence to enrich us with some gut-busting drollery about the Swiss and their love of chocolate. The local news contains clips from YouTube, then shows up on YouTube itself. Local news and YouTube fuse symbiotically into a single entity, which, like Oroboros, provides its own sustenance. It's video blogging at its meanest and most petty, going for pure reaction and devoid of meaning. And the FCC goes after Howard Stern. At least his show is up-front about what it is, instead of masquerading itself as a source of useful information in order to worm its way into American homes. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- [1] To the co-anchor's credit, she sounded quite uncomfortable about replaying the clip of a bear's senseless death ... though it's not clear whether she was offended by the brutality of it or by the way it highlighted the senselessness of her own life and career path. ]]> https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=1557 2007-03-01T21:24:27+01:00 https://earthli.com/users/marco

https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=1555 2007-02-25T20:11:17+01:00 https://earthli.com/users/marco

, reads like a fortune teller's dream come true. Granted, anyone who actually looked at Bush's platform, his team and their history could have similarly predicted the next 4 years, but, given the Onion's penchant for incredible levels of exaggeration, Bush and Co. worked overtime to meet these expectations. On war: "During the 40-minute speech, Bush also promised to bring an end to the severe war drought that plagued the nation under Clinton, assuring citizens that the U.S. will engage in at least one Gulf War-level armed conflict in the next four years. ... 'You better believe we're going to mix it up with somebody at some point during my administration,' said Bush, who plans a 250 percent boost in military spending. 'Unlike my predecessor, I am fully committed to putting soldiers in battle situations. Otherwise, what is the point of even having a military?'" On the economy: "On the economic side, Bush vowed to bring back economic stagnation by implementing substantial tax cuts, which would lead to a recession, which would necessitate a tax hike, which would lead to a drop in consumer spending, which would lead to layoffs, which would deepen the recession even further." On abortion and the church: "Bush praised [John Ashcroft] as 'a tireless champion in the battle to protect a woman's right to give birth.' ... 'Soon, ... a woman will be free to think long and hard before trying to fight her way past throngs of protesters blocking her entrance to an abortion clinic,' ... Continued Bush: "John Ashcroft will be invaluable in healing the terrible wedge President Clinton drove between church and state." On tax cuts: "Much work lies ahead of us: The gap between the rich and the poor may be wide, be there's much more widening left to do. We must squander our nation's hard-won budget surplus on tax breaks for the wealthiest 15 percent." Even the Onion wasn't cynical enough to predict, however, that America, after having been subjected to the beating outlined above, would reëlect Bush so he could finish the job. Maybe they though about it, but decided that it really wasn't that funny. ]]> https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=1540 2007-02-18T22:11:19+01:00 https://earthli.com/users/marco

https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=1433 2007-01-15T18:28:24+01:00 https://earthli.com/users/marco

is a review of the book with the same name, by Robert Irwin. The review starts with a movie-trailer--worthy introduction of "Thirty years after Edward Said's groundbreaking "Orientalism," a British scholar responds." This gives the reader the... ]]>

is a review of the book with the same name, by Robert Irwin. The review starts with a movie-trailer--worthy introduction of "Thirty years after Edward Said's groundbreaking "Orientalism," a British scholar responds." This gives the reader the impression that Said's book from the seventies had, to date, enjoyed an unchallenged status in the world of cultural history -- a status the brave author of the book being reviewed finally had the temerity to question. This straw man form of argument is a quite popular form today, especially when paired with the ad hominem one, which usually shortly follows. [Of Straw Men] Orientalism is summed up thusly by the review: "The book proved wildly successful and made the young Said a star of the academy and of what has come to be called cultural studies. Indeed, Orientalism supported the central theoretical premise of many intellectuals at the time -- that the prejudices of dead white European males had utterly distorted and warped their scholarship, art, politics and human sympathies." Calling Said, who was 43 when he published Orientalism in 1978, "young", allows the reader to form an image of a radical, wanna-be hippie eager to tear down the work of his forebears. In fact, the book has been continuously assailed since it was published -- as can be expected from its premise. Though the prose is often dense (some sections take re-reading to fully understand) and the citations untranslated (a working knowledge of French, German and Italian are useful), the research is meticulous and the conclusions amply supported. From the review, we learn that Irwin's book is actually a history of his own of the Middle East, of no small scholarly value. His attack on Orientalism occurs only in the introduction and in the conclusions, ostensibly offering all that is in between as evidence supporting the hypothesis that Said was a man whose "thinking and evidence are shoddy, unreliable and mean-spirited." The book sounds like an elongated form of hero-worship of the Orientalists of the past -- a view which the reviewer apparently shares -- and envy of Said's scholarly achievements. [Learned <> Unbiased] The known fact that many past Orientalists bothered to learn the languages of the lands that Said claims they denigrated is offered as evidence that they, in fact, revered the Middle East. "Thomas Hyde knew Turkish, Malaysian, Armenian and Chinese; worked on the Persian, Arabic and Syriac texts of a polyglot Bible ... William Jones, famous for his discovery of the Indo-Aryan roots of Latin, Greek and Sanskrit, "mastered thirteen languages and dabbled in twenty-eight." Silvestre de Sacy learned Arabic, Syriac, Chaldaean, Ethiopian, Persian, Turkish, Hebrew, Aramaic and Mandaean "and the usual number of European languages that any self-respecting nineteenth-century academic would expect to be at home in."" How does any of that disprove Said's basic premise? James Bond knows a lot of languages too, but a critique that Bond's understanding of world politics is shallow and heavily skewed toward preservation of empire is neither unfounded nor unprovable. It doesn't matter how damned cool he is -- he lives in a world of racist, outmoded ideals. People are perfectly capable of memorizing -- and even cherishing -- every step of an eastern tea ritual, while at the same time harboring notions that they are in every way superior to all of the other participants [1]. Said made the case that these scholars painted a skewed picture of the Oriental world despite their love of it. Kipling loved India, but considered himself above it in every way. Many of the great, dropped names in Irwin's book are the same. Their bias doesn't affect their command of dozens of languages, nor the meticulousness of their research, nor their attention to detail -- but it infused every word they wrote. Irwin justifies a continued reverence of the scholars of the past simply because they were amazing scholars at the time. Without questioning their scholarship, it is completely legitimate to question their motives; Irwin doesn't think so, believing that their earnestness and hard work earns them a free pass. [Implicit Racism] Irwin uses the following quote to show how open to discussion these scholars of the past were -- and, in agreeing with them, shows how blinded to his own racism he is. He can't even see how infused his own views are with his own assumed superiority to "Orientals". They are not a people with which we must deal as equals, according to him. Instead, it is the height of civilization that we even consider offering them a niche in our enlightened society -- albeit as clear underlings, and only in exchange for all of their material wealth and resources -- rather than just wiping them off of the map, which we may, unfortunately, still have to do as the brutes may not be bright enough to appreciate the magnanimity in our grand gesture. "Moreover, the 19th century was legitimately exploring the whole issue of race, with some people arguing, like Renan, that mixing ethnicities avoided softness and decadence, while others, like Gobineau, maintained that such mongrelization led to degeneracy (colonization, was, therefore, an "appetizing dish, but one which poisons those who consume it")." In what way is referring to "interbreeding" with Arabs as "mongrelization" an enlightened view? Said's point was never that the scholars of the past were monsters, nor was it a point of moral relativism or imposing our mores on the past. It was simply that much of the European work was (and, apparently, still is) couched in terms of superior/inferior races. A look at news reporting on the Middle East (or Near East, depending on which continent you call home) provides ample evidence that this attitude is still alive and well in the 21st century. The western world's attitude toward Iraq -- in particular, that of the media through which information is disseminated -- is one of dealing with recalcitrant children who refuse to grow up and swallow their medicine. Palestinians and Iranis fare no better. [Burying Said] It's somewhat clear that Irwin's book continues in the same vein as classical Orientalism and thus, sees the need to remove the wart of Said's work from the accepted canon. To this end, Irwin accuses Said of not having even read some of the authors he so unjustly maligned. When he sums up his argument thusly, "Said libelled generations of scholars who were for the most part good and honourable men and he was not prepared to acknowledge that some of them at least might have written in good faith", he leaves doubt that he has even read Orientalism himself. For the most part, Orientalism does not address the intentions of the authors of the past, instead concentrating on what they actually wrote. For that, we should be grateful, as the world is full of buffoons like Irwin, who are oh-so-ready to read between the lines when they need reality to line up with their established beliefs. After quoting Irwin slamming Said for a few pages, the reviewer sums up by admitting that Irwin may be going "too far" with his accusations. As with many such inflammatory reviews, it makes one's Google finger itch to find the corporate association between the publisher of the book and the magazine in which the review appears. The full-on support for Irwin throughout the review, only to cop out at the end, smacks of nigh-illicit promotionalism. Nonetheless, he wraps up with the following capitulation: "Said too was admired, even revered, by many good and honorable men and women, many of them first-rate thinkers and theorists. Haven't we, after all, persistently tended to view the Middle East through prejudices and distorting lenses of one sort or another?" After zigging with the above endorsement of Orientalism's main tenet, he tries for the feel-good, everybody-wins ending, by zagging back and saying that he "strongly believe[s] that most scholars work hard to discover and tell us the truth". [2] Of course they do. Very few people spend their whole lives learning languages and cultures and writing thousands of pages, in order to distort everything they've really learned in order to fit into the propaganda framework they'd like to promulgate. That's the point of Orientalism -- the distortion happens automatically and by accident. It's the brainwashing of culture that causes the work of even the most erudite scholars to crumble under the critical eye of a society a century or two more enlightened. It's only the very rare scholar that can escape this cultural lensing; all the better that books like Orientalism makes more of them aware of it -- and hopefully better armed against it. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- [1] The ability to wholeheartedly believe two completely contradictory concepts is called cognitive dissonance and it, quite frankly, has a better claim on being "what makes the world go around" than does money. [1] Meaning not just Said, but all the other Orientalist scholars of the past. How chummy and convivial. ]]> https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=1454 2007-01-07T21:13:05+01:00 https://earthli.com/users/marco

, is a typical example of hating the cause because of its proponents. The author doesn't counter any arguments of vegetarianism -- she simply claims its ok to eat meat because some vegetarians are so damned "smug and superior". A lovely bit of deductive... ]]>

, is a typical example of hating the cause because of its proponents. The author doesn't counter any arguments of vegetarianism -- she simply claims its ok to eat meat because some vegetarians are so damned "smug and superior". A lovely bit of deductive reasoning akin to taking up smoking because there are non-smokers who are annoying. "People should be allowed to make their own choices and not be bullied or frightened into giving up meat. In the US recently, children in a secondary school were taken by their teachers to a slaughterhouse to show them how animals are killed for food. This tactic is a form of mind control, as unethical as discouraging young girls from having sex by making them watch a difficult childbirth. [1]" Teaching kids where their food comes from is mind control? And letting them believe that there are no hidden costs associated with eating meat isn't? The fact remains that meat -- at least in America -- doesn't cost anywhere near as much as it should. The introduction to the article states that "[p]eople should not be bullied into giving up meat by humourless, judgmental souls using spurious arguments". This is absolutely correct, but presupposes that there are no solid arguments for vegetarianism. Nowhere in the article is a single solid argument for vegetarianism refuted -- or even mentioned. Instead, there's a laundry list of allegations that anorexia is linked to vegetarianism and that a pair of vegan parents malnourished their kids. No one is going to seriously believe that vegetarianism is just as much a cause of the epidemic of eating disorders as a culture that exalts an increasingly skeletal standard of beauty. Nor is anyone going to believe that vegans are just as dangerous to their kids as parents that let them swell up to incredible sizes on diets of soft drinks, snack foods, fast foods and "Lunchables" [2]. Further on, the razor-like incisiveness of this woman's reasoning conflates all vegetarians with the most radical animal liberationists and gives representation only to the most obnoxious vegetarian opinions. More cool-headed vegetarian representatives would have pointed out the much smaller energy and waste footprint engendered by a vegetarian lifestyle. Vegetarians are far more likely to be able to eat locally, disengaging from the vast capitalist machine that rolls food around the globe on a conveyor belt made of limitless energy. Rain forests in Brazil are burned to the ground not to grow soy, but to provide cheap farmland to graze cattle from which burgers are made. All sold to you at artificially low prices that have no hope of including the true cost of this meat grinding machine to the environment and our future. Creating meat takes a lot more energy and space than creating vegetables. The way meat is created in this most civilized of societies is abhorrent in the extreme. Teaching people where their food comes from is not brainwashing -- it's an obligation. The author of the piece is the founder of Justice for Women and gets around to rapping PETA's knuckles for exploiting young women in its ads. It's a spurious way of arguing around to this point and it seems more like the author is angry that vegetarians even exist. Their very existence is necessarily an offense because it reminds her of her own hypocrisy vis-a-vis meat. [3] She does clarify that it's not all vegetarians that irritate her -- though she says she's talking about "most vegetarians", she quickly "those who eschew meat for religious and cultural reasons". Um, that is most of them. A whole subcontinent full of them. If you manage to live the vegetarian life, you are empirically one step ahead of meat-eaters as far as saving this planet goes. Hatred of vegetarians and their ostensible smugness is a natural reaction to this. It's the same scorn reserved for those who exercise more than you do or eat healthier or don't smoke or drink or watch that much TV -- or do anything else better than you do. It's the reminder that someone has managed to overcome their inertia to achieve those things we would dearly like to better in ourselves that irks so. The only way out of this cul-de-sac is to change or deride the lifestyle you covet. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- [1] Forcing anyone to watch anything is unethical. Offering young people the opportunity to see what is actually involved in a childbirth is in no way unethical -- it is called education, and is all around a good idea. [1] Warning, the site is built with Flash and its content will likely make you lose your own Lunch-able. [1] The author is an omnivore and, while not daily brought to his knees with the shame of his hypocrisy, it at least aware of it and willing to face it head on. More inspiration and stories found in the "comments at Reddit" . ]]> https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=1457 2007-01-01T23:29:56+01:00 https://earthli.com/users/marco

and increasingly bitter Dilbert collections, like "When Did Ignorance Become A Point Of View?" has a blog as well and updates with ferocious regularity, almost always with a... ]]>

and increasingly bitter Dilbert collections, like "When Did Ignorance Become A Point Of View?" has a blog as well and updates with ferocious regularity, almost always with a unique idea that usually freewheels into a thought experiment. Some work, some don't. A recent theme was free will. "The Little Robot That Could" by Scott Adams In this one he posits a robot, whose job it is to watch a baby, rocking it gently when it cries. This robot "gathers input from its environment and increments or decrements counters in its memory that are the equivalent of human urges." The incrementing and decrementing are random enough to be unpredictable and, "just for fun, the robot's voice will say out loud 'I chose to do that' after every action." He describes the programming in a little more detail, but uses the example of a robot -- which we know has no free will -- to extrapolate that people also have no free will, as you can't show how people differ from an arbitrarily sophisticated robot as, in the end, it's all matter following the inexorable laws of physics. "The One Problem with the World" by Scott Adams This entry asks "[w]hat one simple problem could you eliminate ... that would fix virtually every other problem in the world?" If you've read his blog more than once or twice, you've noticed that he doesn't pull any punches, usually saying whatever the hell he pleases about his audience. This follow-up post to the "Little Robot" describes a lesson he learned from that article, namely, that the problem he would fix is this: "imbue us all with the knowledge of who is smarter than ourselves on any given topic". That way, the confusion in the comments from his last post -- in which posters assumed he was the moron, and he, likewise, assumed that they were, because he couldn't see their point or they didn't have one; he couldn't tell in all cases. To paraphrase Arthur C. Clarke: "any sufficiently advanced form of argument is indistinguishable from actual knowledge". The point is that neither party can be absolutely sure that the other isn't a super-genius making a killer argument that is just beyond them. "My magical solution is to give humans the power to tell the difference between a super genius and a moron. I think this would solve every problem in the world because chances are that the smartest super genius in each field has a good idea how to fix that field. But the only solutions being considered are the ones coming from tall guys with good hair." "What's expected of us" by Ted Chiang This is another short story/thought experiment about free well that posits a device called a Predictor: "...it's a small device, like a remote for opening your car door. Its only features are a button and a big green LED. The light flashes if you press the button. Specifically, the light flashes one second before you press the button." Therein lies the rub: even for those that thought they knew there was no free will, there's nothing like proof positive. Some can handle it; other cannot. "Some people, realizing that their choices don't matter, refuse to make any choices at all." Interesting story; and short. ]]> https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=1451 2006-12-15T22:16:31+01:00 https://earthli.com/users/marco

tells you all can probably stand to know about "Scolopendra gigantea, a venomous, red-maroon centipede with forty-six yellow-tinted legs", which reach "lengths of over thirty-five centimeters" (almost 14 inches). They're carnivores, but beasts of this size (lovingly... ]]>

tells you all can probably stand to know about "Scolopendra gigantea, a venomous, red-maroon centipede with forty-six yellow-tinted legs", which reach "lengths of over thirty-five centimeters" (almost 14 inches). They're carnivores, but beasts of this size (lovingly described as a bitter repast themselves in "Papillon" by Henri Charriere ) must necessarily seek larger prey than mere beetles and spiders. "In an environment completely devoid of light, the centipede scurries across the damp floor, stepping over writhing mounds of beetles to scale the wall and clamber across the ceiling into a position near the center. The giant centipede then grips the stone with it rear legs, allowing its forward segments to dangle into the cave below. Its front section sways as its legs wriggle through the air in search of the intended target: a passing bat." There's a "video" (embedded below) of this most amazing hunting tactic -- and it's one of those that makes you wonder how they set up the cameras to capture it. [media] ]]> https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=1455 2006-12-07T23:03:42+01:00 https://earthli.com/users/marco

, which brings us the sad tale of Lisa Jensen, who was lying her face off when "said she wasn't thinking of the war when she hung the wreath" (pictured left). Her arch... ]]>

, which brings us the sad tale of Lisa Jensen, who was lying her face off when "said she wasn't thinking of the war when she hung the wreath" (pictured left). Her arch fiend -- and the enemy of a peaceful Christmas -- Bob Kearns, said in a phone interview that he couldn't allow it because it would pave the way for other forms of expression, like saying we should "drop bombs on Iraq". As if the thought of us dropping bombs on Iraq wasn't ludicrous enough, imagine trying to work that into a Christmas motif! It's not just about Christmas, though, according to the homeowner's association -- to which Lisa's hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of real estate debt are inextricably bound -- they "will not allow signs, flags etc. that can be considered divisive." Sounds like the American way, all right. Something called the "architectural control committee" has the final say on all forms of self-expression in the neighborhood. When a five-person committee determined that it was just a fucking wreath and what's the big fucking deal? and that it's fucking Christmas, fer Christ's sake, Kearns had them all shot fired. Welcome to a brave new world in the "The Age of Access" (The Age of Access: The New Culture of Hypercapitalism, Where all of Life is a Paid-For Experience by Jeremy Rifkin). ]]> https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=1474 2006-12-05T23:00:23+01:00 https://earthli.com/users/marco

(video drawn by Bill Plimpton and also available for free online at his "MySpace page" ) to the brutal parody of James Blunt called "You're Pitiful" . "White and Nerdy", a rap parody, is the first single off of his latest album ("video" ), "Straight Outta Lynwood" and it's been in the top 5 downloads at iTunes for weeks. The album itself debuted on the Billboard charts at number 10, way higher than he's ever been before. "Internet propels Weird Al's album into Billboard Top 10" has more details, noting that spreading videos on YouTube and being featured prominently in iTunes helped him a lot, as well as a MySpace page, which, at last count, has over 325,000 friends. Even the extremely popular cartoon/Flash toon site, "JibJab" got in on the act and premiered his video for "Do I Creep You Out" , an awesome rip, with Taylor Hicks as a stalker. Al deserves it. He's been doing his thing for years: he sings well, performing respectably all over the genre spectrum [1], he plays the accordian with the best of them (and includes a screaming medley polka on every album), he writes really good parodies (and stays clean doing so) and he throws everything he's got at his projects. That shines right through and is what sells it: he plays his roles so well. Take a look at the White and Nerdy video; it nails the both subcultures perfectly, with the strange candle lighting, hoodie sweatshirt, the grill and the pseudo-violent delivery and arm movements. The nerd jokes aren't even just cliché; some are pretty good in-jokes. In the videos where he doesn't appear in person, like in "Do I Creep You Out", the production values are spot-on and the lyrics shine. It's funny and is probably on tens of thousands of video iPods right now. To be fair to Al, it's not like he's improved at what he does so much as he's gotten better at marketing himself. [2] He's had lots of good stuff in between, like the offbeat "BOB (A palindromic tribute to Bob Dylan)" from his 2003 album, Poodle Hat [3]. Again, this just nails Bob's sounds and his style and, then, to top it all off, parodies Bob's at-times confusing lyrics by speak-singing only in complex palindromes the whole time. He even looks like Dylan; it's just damned funny [4]. The video is included below: [media] With his 20th album, and at 47 years old, it seems the world is finally ready for him. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- [1] He even holds his own when mimicking Blunt's plaintive bleat on "You're Pitiful", which is a ballad performed with very few instruments to mask the voice. [1] In case it was difficult to distinguish from the text, the author got on board with Weird Al on his second album, in 3D, with Eat It, his previous best hit, and the overlooked Nature Trail to Hell. [1] Interesting as well is to take a look at the musicians who perform with him: on Poodle Hat, Ben Folds plays piano and Dweezil Zappa plays guitar on one song. [1] And, according to Wikipedia, this is the hastily-shot consolation video after Eminem threw a hissy fit and wouldn't let him use the parody "Couch Potato". ]]> https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=1448 2006-11-26T23:11:36+01:00 https://earthli.com/users/marco

, wherein laws enacted out of fear are used to prosecute the innocent. In that case, a young man (28) seeking to confront a young lady (14), who'd just jaywalked in front of his car, has been labeled a sexual predator by the state of Illinois. Tell him what he's won, Johnny! "As a convicted sex offender, Barnaby is required to be listed on the state's sex offender registry and must keep authorities informed of his place of residency. He also isn't allowed to live near schools or parks. The Illinois Sex Offender Information website, operated by the Illinois State Police, lists those in the registry, along with their photographs and home addresses." [Ephebophilia vs. Pedophilia] Not only is it much rarer than it's made out to be, the term itself -- "pedophilia" -- is misused by a media more concerned with sensationalism than accuracy. The linked definition notes that the term applies to children "typically 13 years or younger"; it's a sexual preference for "prepubertal children". [1] The article, "Ephebophilia: it's today's word, and it matters" , addresses this failure to distinguish between children and postpubescents. To whit, calling "those who have sex with underage teenagers ... paedophiles ... risk[s] overestimating the scale of the problem of paedophilia." A pedophile defies a law of nature, whereas an ephebophile defies a law of man. The age of consent is far from an internationally agreed-upon consensus, ranging from 17 in Iceland to as low as 12 in the Netherlands. So a young lady or man in one country is "ready" in one country, but, a short train ride later, is now off-limits. It's clear that the exact age of consent is mostly arbitrary and likely fixed more by local history than scientific study. What is important is that the world not exaggerate the problem of pedophilia by conflating it with perfectly healthy (though not societally condoned) ephebophilia. Ephebophilia is, in fact, pushed in most western societies by all forms of advertising and entertainment -- there are untold numbers of offenders out there. They, however, are not, nor will ever be, pedophiliacs. "As long as the law is the law, he deserves a smacked paw if he gives in to his excitement. But he does not deserve the same opprobrium as the bogeyman [pedophiliac]". [The Friendly Skies] "Come off it, folks: how many paedophiles can there be?" tells the story of a man nearly separated from his own children by an overzealous flight crew enacting a strict anti-pedophile policy. His is a slightly more enlightened attitude, responding to those that see a pedophile behind every doorway, that: "...they are right that I would worry about some strange adult sitting next to my children, chiefly because I wouldn't want the poor fellow to come to any harm." Humor aside, he continues by accusing those who think that there is a pedophile plague of having a "very imperfect understanding of probability" and not understanding the full effects of this mania on a large part of the male population. In a very interesting point, he considers whether the fact that "society apparently regards all adult male contact with young people as being potentially a bit dodgy" may have something to do with the drastic decline in number of male schoolteachers. Society has already done enough to teach us that working in education is not only not macho, it's probably downright queer. Now you're not only queer, but a pedophile, to boot. As if there's any difference, don't you know. A commenter to the above article found a silver lining by suggesting that this rule could be manipulated by the savvy traveler in order to avoid having to sit anywhere near a child on a longer flight. Simply make sure the flight attendent is watching, then lean inappropriately, fumble around a bit, stretch extravagently or give a well-practiced leer in the directly of the precious, screaming darlings; then relax and wait to be reseated far away from them. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- [1] Interestingly, it also mentions that the victims are of the opposite sex "about twice as often", which is yet another fact that doesn't come across well when reported by the media, who do their best to characterize it as "yet another reason why gay people are perverts". ]]> https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=1419 2006-11-06T21:14:00+01:00 https://earthli.com/users/marco

(How the Web Prevents Rape: All that Internet porn reduces sex crimes. Really.) sums up the latest research: "The bottom line on these experiments is, "More Net access, less rape." A 10 percent increase in Net access yields about a 7.3 percent decrease in reported rapes. States that adopted the Internet quickly saw the biggest declines. And, according to Clemson professor Todd Kendall, the effects remain even after you control for all of the obvious confounding variables, such as alcohol consumption, police presence, poverty and unemployment rates, population density, and so forth." The orginal 56--page long paper (including tables), "Pornography, Rape, and the Internet" by Todd Kendall has a good deal more analysis and statistical backing and is a pretty good read -- if only because any paper that cites Deep Throat is less boring than most. It seems -- to the non-statistically inclined layman, at any rate -- to be a well-considered study that makes every effort to justify the proposed correlation -- namely, that internet porn is a substitute for rape. It does not make any judgement of pornography, the porn industry or how its run, who profits, who suffers and so on: it simply notes that easily available, privately viewable, simulated sex prevents some rapes in real life. To support the hypothesis, Kendall carefully addresses and eliminates -- or accounts for -- other explanations. An analysis of similar data for homicides shows no correlation with internet usage, suggesting that the observed correlation is "not simply due to omitted variables that may affect crime generally, such as income or law enforcement resources." In fact, because the internet "facilitates more dating and other face-to-face interactions", it actually increases the likelihood of the more common form of rape -- date rape -- so the "true substitutability of pornography and rape" is probably even greater than measured (the 10/7 ratio mentioned above). Further bolstering the argument is that the effect "is statistically significant only for men in the 15-19 age group". This is the group that (A) is most likely to commit rape and (B) "for whom privacy concerns made pornography relatively unavailable before the internet (e.g., men living at home with their parents)". Other studies analyzing pornography and its effect on the male psyche have been limited to laboratory settings. These have shown "that male subjects, immediately after watching pornography, are more likely to express misogynistic attitudes." Being aroused in a laboratory environment -- without access to the release that accompanies a more private viewing -- is naturally going to lead to a frustration that will evince itself as increased hostility. Expressed that way, it sounds scientific, but any fool knows that the state of sexual arousal is both an emotionally and hormonally charged one; if the natural release -- orgasm, for those not good at innuendo -- is not possible, it takes practice for even the most refined gentleman (or lady) to return to a "normal" state without causing any social gaffes or getting pissed off. [Other Opinions] The comments on the article were equally interesting, ranging from "Kendall makes an elementary error" , which questions the statistics employed by the author of the study to ""Rape is about power"?" , which makes incredibly fine distinctions about which kinds of porn would satisfy which kinds of rapists. Some of the arguments are clearly hand-waving ones, seeking to prove that rape is so complex that we can't understand it, so it only makes sense to find cause in things that seem like they would engender rape. Others point out that rape has been trending downward anyway recently, which is illegitimately clouding the waters as Kendall accounted for those trends -- specifically against the availability of VHS porn delivered in discreet brown-paper packages directly to the doorstep. One of the more interesting (if not politer) contributors to the discussion was hussymansmanhattan, who wrote "the elephant in the room" , claiming that this study will "put a final nail in the old undergraduate-level trope that 'rape is only about power.'" Another reader posited that since "informed consent" differentiated between normal sex and rape, that it was about power. To this, another reader responded with this brilliant riposte: "Informed consent is also the difference between a loan and theft. So, are you saying if somebody breaks into my house and steals my TV, that's mainly about demonstrating power, and not about him wanting my TV?" [Fundamentalism] Further analysis of the comments shows that there is much more room for fundamentalism in this supposedly liberal discussion than for a search for solutions. Sure, a lot of pornography is sexist, but it's also not mainstream or regulated enough -- if it weren't so shunned and condemned to dark corners, it might be forced to clean up its act somewhat as it was dragged into the light. It's the recoiling from pornography entirely that allows it to cater to the lowest common denominator. But really, it's the word "only" (sex is only about power) that sticks in the craw here, because it attempts to force rape into a neat, little box completely separate from the act of making love, so as not to sully the holy act of impregnation. Men rape one another in prison, though neither one is gay, so that is presented as proof that rape is about power. Really? How does fucking someone in the ass prove your power over them more than just beating the crap out of them? The humiliation is worse? You could just make the guy do something horrible that doesn't involve you also getting your rocks off (see Abu Ghraib photos for ideas). But no, the sex drive is strong enough to overcome a strong anti-homosexual bent simply because there are no women around and prisoners live in pretty intimate conditions. It just seems so trite to claim that the overpowering urge brought on by flowing hormones has nothing to do with forcefully slaking that lust. Regardless of how much some people want to prevent rape, others are more interested in enforcing their personal mores first. A lot of pornography -- especially the newer wave called "gonzo" porn -- is extremely demeaning to women. This study in no way approves (or disapproves) this point; this study merely shows a reduction in actual, real-life rapes with adoption of the internet and traces it to increased porn availability. This point can't be stressed enough: this is mathematics, not morals. Fewer rapes is a good thing. It is a completely separate step to address the problems with pornography -- but the math shows that eliminating it wholesale will also eliminate a beneficial side-effect. [Further Reading] For an insightful analysis of the state of pornography today, see the following: "Sexuality, masculinity and men's choices" by Robert Jensen An excellent description of one researcher's trip through the world of pornography and the culprit he finds: masculinity. "Death of Empathy" by Robert Jensen A recent essay stringing the lack of empathy for performers in hardcore sex videos with the lack of empathy shown to those less fortunate by the privileged. ]]> https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=1425 2006-11-02T21:55:16+01:00 https://earthli.com/users/marco

has appeared on the Doonesbury web site, which, in its... ]]>

has appeared on the Doonesbury web site, which, in its own words: "...[is focused] not on policy and partisanship ... but on the unclassified details of deployment -- the everyday, the extraordinary, the wonderful, the messed-up, the absurd. The Sandbox is a clean, lightly-edited debriefing environment where all correspondence is read, and as much as possible is posted. And contributors may rest assured that all content, no matter how robust, is currently secured by the First Amendment." As with any shared blog, results are mixed, but on the whole? Much better than expected ... with some really good writing, observation and insight. If the Republicans actually read Doonesbury, they would be pointing a quivering finger at these journals and screeching "See?!!? Our troops are smart." Even if Karl Rove does read this site, he sure as hell isn't going to quote from it to his minions because the general theme isn't very supportive of the shallow picture described by simpletons like Bush. After reading most of the entries from the first couple of weeks, here are some excerpts that were especially interesting and/or well-written: "A Closer Look" by SGT Roy Batty "What's really surprising are the bedrooms. The rest of the house is barren and dirt poor, but the bedrooms are almost opulent. Beautiful Afghan rugs cover on the floor, and Bedouin-style tent fabric hangs from the ceilings. The beds are covered with silk comforters, and one of the rooms actually has a crystal chandelier hanging from bare log rafters. Each room has a small TV, even though the house has no electricity. I feel like a thief as I peer under the beds and open the dresser drawers, revealing brightly woven women's dresses." Not surprisingly, it's the soldiers who make the effort to learn some Arabic that start to see Iraqis as human beings. These are the ones who have sympathy for a family wanting to hide its stash of weapons to keep it safe from confiscation -- these families don't see Americans as the most dangerous thing around anymore. "Doha" by CAPT Matt Smenos "A fluttering wave of colorful, translucent robes settles around me like butterflies, and the smiling faces of a dozen children, boys in ceremonial caps and girls with their first veils, who have discovered a white-skinned giant with yellow hair and mirror-eyes. They pet my skin and knead my shoulders. They poke hesitantly at my lenses and chatter at me with earnest questions I do not understand. They giggle and push each other at me, as if I might swallow one of them." This captain recounts his furlough in Doha (the capital of Qatar) on the last day of Ramadan. "My Fork" by CH (CPT) Brad P. Lewis "...[j]ust before taking off again for parts unknown, [my wife] bought me a fork! It's not a very fancy one. Neither is it a girly fork. It's perfect. It has a nice big handle that's a manly black and silver; it's easy to hold on to, with perfectly straight and smooth tines. I love my fork. So now when I go to eat breakfast or lunch or dinner or just an afternoon snack, I reach into my pocket and pull out my little friend...and we enjoy a meal together. There's no place like home, even when it's the size of a fork." It's possible that it is stories like this that convince people that war is somehow good. This young man has shucked (at least for a while) the teachings of a consumerist culture and focused on the essentials -- he is now an American whose day is made by a fork. This is the kind of anti-materialism and asceticism America needs more of, but it should be achievable without war. "The Enemy" by Adam Tiffen (AirborneJD) The man looks at me, his jaw working in anger. For a brief second, I get the impression that he is going to attack, and then suddenly, as if the energy has gone out of him, his shoulders slump slightly and he looks down at his brother's body. "Can you help me move him to my vehicle?" I can tell that it was painful for him to ask me for assistance. Looking steadily at the man standing before me, his face half cloaked in the shadows, I consider his request. Part of me goes out to the man in sympathy. For the loss of a brother. And then I remember all of the bodies of innocent civilians that my men have found rotting in the sun, their hands bound behind their backs, and their eyes blindfolded, before they were shot in the head by insurgents that had suspected them of helping us. This man is an insurgent. His brother had tried to kill Americans. These men are so clearly torn, so clearly overwhelmed by a situation that no one can understand and everyone wants to escape. The only way to deal with it -- and absolve yourself so you can sleep at night -- is to simplify and pigeonhole, to block out some facts and blend others together to create brand new ones. An initial empathy is carefully considered, then swept aside -- albeit with chagrin -- because innocents have died. It matters not that the man before him may or may not have had anything to do with the situation floating before his mind's eye -- it is better to suppress the empathy in exchange for the healing feeling of a world that makes sense, if only for a brief moment. "Hamid" by CAPT Doug Traversa, USAF "Pakistan was so green, so beautiful. When it rained in the spring, it was warm and lovely. I remember once it was raining and I put on my raincoat, and my friends and I walked three miles in the rain to a cafe. It was dark, and there were lights everywhere, and they shone off the water, the rain, the streets. We sat and drank tea and watched the beautiful girls go by. But here in Afghanistan there is nothing. We must be inside by 8 PM. There is no electricity. There is nothing to do. I wish I could leave." The quote above is from the captain's translater, Hamid, who is Pakistani. On this day, Hamid opens up and tells him all about his life at home. Stationed in Afghanistan and yearning to get back home, the caption, though having lovingly recorded the details of Hamid's life, can't empathize with Hamid's dream -- because it is so much less than the standard American one. He sums up: "When Pakistan is your Garden of Eden, you know you are at the very bottom of what life has to offer." This is rather harsh, but reflects more the distance between cultures -- to some, the rainy café seems like a nice way to pass the time; to others, it's missing a plasma TV and an X-Box. ]]> https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=1420 2006-11-01T21:14:47+01:00 https://earthli.com/users/marco

is -- as the title makes relatively clear -- a fake documentary by Sacha Cohen. The preview shows Cohen as Borat Sagdiyev, wandering from one excruciatingly socially awkward situation to the next, all the while with... ]]>

is -- as the title makes relatively clear -- a fake documentary by Sacha Cohen. The preview shows Cohen as Borat Sagdiyev, wandering from one excruciatingly socially awkward situation to the next, all the while with an ingratiating grin on his face that begs forgiveness for not understanding our great culture while, at the same time, apologizing for the backwardness of his own. In a word, he's disarming -- enough so that he fooled people into making some pretty damning statements of their own. "Borat Make Funny Joke On Idiot Americans! High-Five!" is a well-written article about the cult of Borat. One of the more interesting things is that, though his humor is extremely raw, critics are more likely to assume that he has a higher purpose. Unlike the gentlemen of Jackass, who dress up in thongs and jump into inhumanly cold water, when Borat dresses in a one-piece thong, it's some sort of comment on society. Where the gentlemen of Jackass readily admit that they're in it just for laughs, Cohen refuses to even interview as himself anymore, so it's impossible to hear from him what he thinks of what he's doing. This is probably a good thing, as his performance is far from over; once the experiment has run its course, he may see fit to tell us what it was all about. Or not. Andy Kaufman, who similarly transformed himself for months at a time, rarely saw fit to let the world in on his jokes. "The giant mustache, the mesh underwear, the car dragged by mules, the wine made of fermented horse urine--sure, it seems as if comedian Sacha Baron Cohen is mocking Kazakhstan. He is not. He's mocking you. After all, you're the idiot who doesn't know where Kazakhstan is or if it's the kind of place where, as Borat claims, there's a "Running of the Jews." And more important, you're the idiot who believes so much in cultural relativism that you'll nod politely when a guy tells you that in his country they keep developmentally disabled people in cages. Or, worse yet, you're the person who tells him it's not a bad idea." As the former host of the "Ali G Show", which spent years mocking Britons, he's earned the benefit of the doubt that his humor is only pretending to be meatheaded. In one scene, he asks a gun shop owner from the American South, "What kind of a gun would you recommend to kill a Jew?". The shop owner responded as if nothing were out of the ordinary about the question. It is scenes like these that have led some to denote his humor as "brilliant satire", in which Borat's disarming ways trick people into letting their hair down and being themselves. On the other hand, as explained in "Borat The Meaningless" , it's not clear that the "gun seller knew what he was being asked, any more than he'd know what it meant if Borat had asked him, 'Ahomosayswhat?'" This is a good point: Americans, especially those in rural areas, aren't exposed to other languages or even light accents. A heavy, faked, Kazakhstani accent is likely to engender nods and smiles as you try to help the smiling man with the camera on his way and out of your life. Even if some of the scenes -- and the dark underbelly they reveal -- are enhanced by convenient cutaways, there are surely others that needed no such help. One article mentions a "rodeo dude who goes along eagerly with Borat's anti-gay remarks ... and the RV full of drunken frat guys who run down minorities and women with undisguised malice", while another describes a scene where Borat "driv[es a] crowd into a frenzy with anti-Iraqi, pro-war cheers". There are some nasty, introverted, hateful specimens out there -- especially if you know where to look. Bush didn't elect himself (the second time anyway). Examining comedy for why it makes you laugh is a good exercise -- especially when the humor is as biting as this. And it's clear that he's put a lot of work into his backstory, as evidenced in this interview he did with MTV, "Borat Speaks" . "In Kazakh elections, for example, the winner is not the man with the most votes, but the candidate who can carry a woman against her will for the furthest distance. Our present leader can manage 4.3 miles; how long can Premier Bush?" It's ludicrous, off-the-wall ... and funny as hell. This kind of stuff harks back to the days of Monty Python and their silly, though also occasionally politically on-the-mark, humor and is a welcome respite from the spate of rom-coms surely already on their way for this long, dark winter. ]]> https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=1397 2006-10-18T22:44:59+02:00 https://earthli.com/users/marco

has the gory details. "Legal analysts said Lake's ruling closely" ... ]]>

has the gory details. "Legal analysts said Lake's ruling closely hewed to a long-held doctrine called abatement, which allows a conviction to be vacated if defendants die before they are able to exercise their right to appeal. Courts typically rule that defendants' constitutional rights to challenge their convictions outweigh other considerations, and the law hesitates to punish the dead, the analysts said." I feel a rousing chorus of The Star Spangled Banner coming on. Is that a tear? I believe that it is. The estate of Kenny Lay is not legally obligated in any way to give the criminally obtained booty back to the pensioners of the former Enron Corporation. Jeffrey Skilling is unfortunate enough to be alive, so all eyes are on him now, as "federal prosecutors are seeking to hold Skilling responsible for Lay's share, over Skilling's objections." No kidding? He's objecting? He probably has nothing to be afraid of, as there's a good chance Kenny Boy's wife and kids will simply return the 44 million their husband and father absconded with. I wonder why that rather obvious solution wasn't mentioned? Don't they believe that Frau Lay will come to the same conclusion? ]]> https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=1396 2006-10-18T22:22:24+02:00 https://earthli.com/users/marco

(1.1MB) and documents the occupation of the Middle East, Asia and northern Africa over the last 5000 years. [media] The following empires ruled over smaller and larger swatches of land throughout recorded history. The dates given are approximate and estimated... ]]>

(1.1MB) and documents the occupation of the Middle East, Asia and northern Africa over the last 5000 years. [media] The following empires ruled over smaller and larger swatches of land throughout recorded history. The dates given are approximate and estimated from the movie. The names and ordering are correct. And, yes, there is overlap: that's kind of the way it with empires. * Kingdom of Egypt (3000 BC - 1380 BC) * Hittite Empire (1400 BC -1050 BC) * Kingdom of Israel (1100 BC - 721 BC) * Assyrian Empire (800 BC - 600 BC) * Babylonian Empire (650 BC - 550 BC) * Persian Empire (580 BC - 336 BC) * Macedonian & Greek Empire (350 BC - 117 AD) * Roman Empire (75 - 565) * Byzantine Empire (525 - 610) * Sassanid Empire (600 - 750) * The Caliphate (740 - 1100) * Seljuk Empire (1090 - 1140) * The Crusader Kingdoms (1140 - 1187) * Saladin's Empire (1180 - 1279) * Mongol Empire (1300 - 1700) * Ottoman Empire (1700 - 1912) * European Colonialism (1850 - 1920) * Nation-States & Borders Established (1920 - 1955) ]]> https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=1373 2006-09-06T22:13:32+02:00 https://earthli.com/users/marco

. I double-click the GTA: San Andreas icon and watch, relieved, as the Windows desktop fades to black. *Churn* The intro graphic's looking a little pink. Drat. The font's messed up. *Restart game* Again with the pink logo, but the font's... ]]>

. I double-click the GTA: San Andreas icon and watch, relieved, as the Windows desktop fades to black. *Churn* The intro graphic's looking a little pink. Drat. The font's messed up. *Restart game* Again with the pink logo, but the font's ok. Let's load up a saved game and do some driving. Funky music accompanies the fade from the loading screen to Carl's back. A quick look around confirms that Carl was taking some serious psychadelics in his downtime because everything around him is awash in garish, flickering polygons. *Restart game* All right! The intro's not pink -- that's a good sign. Hey, where's the menu? Patience is a virtue and, after a while, the menu appears, but the mouse barely moves. *Three finger salute* Yup, there's a nasty little svchost.exe gulping down 100% of the CPU for itself. I wonder if I need a new graphics driver? That's probably it -- there's never been a gaming problem that couldn't be made worse with a good old graphics driver upgrade. *Installing...* White intro, normal mouse, funky music -- things are looking good so far. Load up the most recent save game ... fade in to Carl's back and ... no psychadelics! Hooray! Carl's kicked the habit. Wait a minute. Why are all the cars suddenly pink? *breathes deeply* So it seems that GTA and Nvidia's latest driver don't play well together. Can it be? Or ... it can't be the machine, can it? Not the good, old Alienware? Ok, maybe it is the machine. It has become somewhat of a Frankenstein's monster over the years. It started out as a top-of-the-line gamer's dream-come-true about six years ago and has seen a lot of action. In those days, it could slap around any game you threw at it, laughing at Quake III's desperate attempts to push it below 50 FPS. It shrugged off masterpieces like NOLF and NOLF II as if they were nothing. Then the hard drive got a bit cramped for the newer, hotter games. The resolution had to be 640x480 more often than not. It couldn't read DVDs. It was starting to show its age. This wasn't the first time this had happened. Six years ago it, the "new hotness", had replaced an even older machine -- its brother-in-arms and the first machine I purchased from Alienware. That one is 8 years old and has also been heavily upgraded; it's currently doing sterling service as my web/mail/Perforce server. Waste not, want not. So the "new hotness" was starting to fall behind too. Upgrades worked for its brother -- and they worked again. Just replace what you need; there was no PC recycling in those days, so it would have been wasteful to toss the machine and get a new one. It soon had a DVD player, new memory and a bigger hard drive. Over the next few years, it plowed through Max Payne I and II, Riven, Uru, some C&C and a Serious Sam or two. Thanks to a recent super-cheap video card upgrade, it even took on Doom III, Half-Life II and now, GTA: San Andreas. Even in the relatively shaky/flaky state described above (after reverting to an older version of the NVidia driver), it's stalwart service has helped me to an 88% completion level. But, back to upgrading. After an upgrade, there's always a pile of parts left over -- what to do with them? I built a computer for my mom, who didn't have one. I built one for my future father-in-law. I built one for my future brother-in-law. I managed to save some parts, cases and other things that my company was going to throw away. I was recycling left and right. That way, the perfectly respectable parts got recycled instead of thrown into a landfill. All three PCs are still in service today -- my father-in-law even uses his for gaming as he's continued the upgrading and recycling tradition. The two Alienwares are venerable machines, which even made a journey across the Atlantic -- complete with two Viewsonic monitors, which are also still in service -- so loathe was I to throw anything away. One lives out its golden years as a Debian server and is perhaps finally over the trauma of having had to run Windows these many years; the other has become a gaming-only box, as a Mac Mini purchased over a year ago has eclipsed it in every other way. But its best gaming days are behind it. It's tough to justify buying a new rig when it's just a gaming machine -- even the graphics card it recently got was only a desperate bid to keep it in service. For almost a decade, I've managed to both maintain a gaming machine and avoid throwing anything away through judicious recycling. I know somebody who could use a good all-around machine, a duty for which it is still more than fit. I just need a little help making it recyclable. ]]> https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=1363 2006-08-20T22:41:34+02:00 https://earthli.com/users/marco

is a web-site dedicated to the book of the same name by Rob Bryanton. With a resounding recommendation by none other than Greg Bear, this book explores a universe of ten dimensions, as put forth in string theory. The preamble contains the following disclaimer text: "The" ... ]]>

is a web-site dedicated to the book of the same name by Rob Bryanton. With a resounding recommendation by none other than Greg Bear, this book explores a universe of ten dimensions, as put forth in string theory. The preamble contains the following disclaimer text: "The "theory of reality" that I advance on this website and in the book "Imagining the Tenth Dimension" is not the one that is commonly accepted by today's physicists. Anyone wanting to know more about the currently established thinking behind string theory and the tenth or eleventh dimension should refer to such excellent books as "Parallel Worlds" by Michio Kaku, "The Fabric of the Cosmos" by Brian Greene, or "Warped Passages" by Lisa Randall." Though not a primer on string theory, the flash animation is excellent and helps visualize just how much is encompassed at each ensuing dimensional level. The "text-only version" has a complete transcript of the "Flash animation" . I highly recommend the animated version, as it gives you a chance of understanding what he means when he tries to explain how to use an extra dimension to allow instantaneous travel from a point in the future of one timeline to the past of another: "There are only two ways you could get to that world -- one would be to travel back in time, somehow trigger the key events that caused you to come up with your invention, then travel forward in the fifth dimension to see one of the possible new worlds that might have resulted. But that would be taking the long way. The shortcut we could take would involve us folding the fifth dimension through the sixth dimension, which allows us to instantly jump from our current position to a different fifth dimensional line." Aw, hell, even the Flash animation doesn't help so much. He sure would like you to buy the book, though. ]]> https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=1360 2006-08-20T22:20:06+02:00 https://earthli.com/users/marco

is a website dedicated the performance art work of Tehching Hsieh, who, during the late 70s and early 80s, did some simple, elegant pieces that tested the limits of human endurance. Each piece has a simple rule, by which he lived for one year. [1] 1978-1979 I shall seal myself ... ]]>

is a website dedicated the performance art work of Tehching Hsieh, who, during the late 70s and early 80s, did some simple, elegant pieces that tested the limits of human endurance. Each piece has a simple rule, by which he lived for one year. [1] 1978-1979 I shall seal myself in my studio, in solitary confinement inside a cell-room measuring 11'6" X 9' X 8'. I shall not converse, read, write, listen to the radio or watch television, until I unseal myself on September 29, 1979. 1980-1981 I shall punch a Time Clock in my studio every hour on the hour for one year. I shall immediately leave my Time Clock room, each time after I punch the Time Clock. 1981-1982 I shall stay OUTDOORS for one year, never go inside. I shall not go in to a building, subway, train, car, airplane, ship, cave, tent. I shall have a sleeping bag. 1983-1984 (with Linda Montano) We will stay together for one year and never be alone. We will be in the same room at the same time, when we are inside. We will be tied together at waist with an 8 foot rope. We will never touch each other during the year. Each statement is simple in and of itself, but bespeaks incredible rigor. All of these installations -- for lack of a better word -- took place in New York City. The time clock experiment limited him to snatches of sleep no longer than one hour for an entire year. He kept meticulous notes on when and why he missed punching the clock when he did. He missed only 1.54% of the time and only 93 out of 8760 times by oversleeping. Incredible. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- [1] The text for the statements is copied verbatim from his web site. All grammar errors are his, intentional or not. ]]> https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=1361 2006-08-20T18:09:07+02:00 https://earthli.com/users/marco

, uses dessert to focus your attention on the ridiculous numbers in the US federal budget. The first illustration (below) shows the size of the military budget as compared to the sizes of other portions of the federal budget. On the one hand, he's conveniently left off Social... ]]>

, uses dessert to focus your attention on the ridiculous numbers in the US federal budget. The first illustration (below) shows the size of the military budget as compared to the sizes of other portions of the federal budget. On the one hand, he's conveniently left off Social Security and Medicare (the two biggest non-military programs in the federal budget), but on the other, he's only included the official Pentagon budget, which does not include Homeland Security's budget, the CIA/NSA/etc. budgets, and, of course, money for wars, which are paid for with "special appropriations". So, though including social programs would have used up quite a few cookies, including all military expenditures would balloon that budget by at least 100% (80 cookies). [image] The video continues by showing how taking just 5 cookies from the Pentagon ($50 Billion) could end world hunger, pay for children's healthcare and fix the US educational system, leaving a measly $350 Billion to pay for conquering the world. The next segment assuages the worry warts who think that the Islamic hordes would wash away our way of life in a tide of fanatic blood if we were to neglect our military in this way. [image] The graphic above shows Ben illustrating how absolutely ridiculously out-of-proportion our military budget is compared to any other country's. Several years ago, we officially started spending more annually than all other countries in the world combined. Officially. Ben's hand is covering the label for the last column, but that's the one representing all the countries in the Axis of Evil -- including Iran and North Korea. It's a good, short, hard look at the way our national wealth is wasted year after year -- building a larger and larger military that makes our nation more and more insecure, all the while worsening the situation in almost every way on the domestic front. Since it's clearly such an important issue and easily fixed, look for this devastating discrepancy to be a "hot button" issue in the upcoming midterm elections. Yeah, right. ]]> https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=1345 2006-07-05T22:13:57+02:00 https://earthli.com/users/marco

is a video of an old Penn and Teller show [1] in which they spend some time gleefully debunking some of the more obvious contradictions in the bible. They actually provide a lot of decent historical background from the annals of biblical scholarship, which basically accepts that... ]]>

is a video of an old Penn and Teller show [1] in which they spend some time gleefully debunking some of the more obvious contradictions in the bible. They actually provide a lot of decent historical background from the annals of biblical scholarship, which basically accepts that the bible is a work of man and has made some inroads into discovering exactly which men wrote which parts and when. The biblical scholar they interview is completely incapable of formulating an argument that holds any water when the audience is even slightly skeptical. He often ends his argumentative ripostes by leaning back, tilting his chin into his hand and smirking, but he hasn't made a point a 10-year-old shouldn't be able to poke ten holes in. The most interesting point they make is comparing Elvis to Jesus; they show that, even only 30 years later, the history of Elvis has at least two main versions and many adherents for both. "Elvis Presley died in 1977. He was born and lived at a time when most of the people in his land were literate. We have many first-hand reports about Elvis' life. We have many reliable records: medical, musical and otherwise. Even so, there are people -- lots of people -- who insist that Elvis is not really dead. Sound familiar? Even the dozens of books written by the people who actually knew Elvis contain conflicting stories of his life. Sound familiar? There are people who insist that Elvis didn't take drugs. ... We have photographs of Elvis, in the morgue, dead as a fucking doornail and in just 25 years, there are stories that he's not dead." Now, imagine trying to discover anything useful after 2000 years from a time when almost no one was literate and stories were transferred by word of mouth rather than written down. Penn and Teller's effort is both funny and laudable, but it's not the only one out there. It doesn't show as much effort as this book, Der große Boss. Das Alte Testament. Unverschämt fromm neu erzählt (The big boss. The old testament, an outrageous retelling), which literally rewrites the bible in more plebian language, skipping a lot of the window-dressing and keeping all the violent plot points. It's clearly a labor of love/hate, which, when compared to verse by verse, holds up as a faithful retelling of the actual happenings in the bible. However, when the story is told using less flowery and pious language, it comes across as the self-contradicting, war and empire story that it is. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- [1] A two man magic team, which includes Penn, larger and easily more loquacious, paired with Teller, mute (by choice) and incredibly deft. ]]> https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=1344 2006-07-05T07:11:39+02:00 https://earthli.com/users/marco

,... ]]>

, the liftoff was not error-free, but the problems were well within expectations: "'This isn't too abnormal,' said Bill Gerstenmaier, the associate administrator for spaceflight. 'We fully expected to lose some foam.' ... Engineers maintained that the flyaway debris was expected to be small ... The flight was delayed twice because of bad weather and ... last-minute jitters over a chunk of insulation foam that fell from the fuel tank in the build-up to take-off, leaving a 4 in scar at the top of the tank." It just goes to show that there's nothing you can't accomplish if you don't lower your expectations. ]]> https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=1339 2006-07-02T22:53:38+02:00 https://earthli.com/users/marco

offers a colorful look at geographic distribution of world religions and religious sites in both the ancient and modern worlds. Leaving out religion is the "Contemporary World Map" , which shows all of those countries from the World Cup that no one could... ]]>

offers a colorful look at geographic distribution of world religions and religious sites in both the ancient and modern worlds. Leaving out religion is the "Contemporary World Map" , which shows all of those countries from the World Cup that no one could find. Note that the inside of Africa's elbow seems to be especially conducive to football, as the Ivory Coast, Ghana and Togo are all neighbors there. Most interesting is the map shown in thumbnail to the left, the "Modern Distribution of World Religions" . Whereas Christianity absolutely rules the Americas with an iron fist, it's very much limited to the upper northern hemisphere in Asia (eastern Orthodox) and Protestants and Catholics are harder to find outside of Australia and southern Africa (where South Africa is the only country that is "mostly Protestant" and the rest of the region is a mix of Christian, Muslim and tribal). Islam has cut a relatively large swathe out of the middle of Asia, including half of Africa and all of the Middle (or Near) East. Hinduism is probably the most limited of major religions, being prevalent only in India, with Buddism also relatively limited to eastern Asia. ]]> https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=1334 2006-06-25T20:24:33+02:00 https://earthli.com/users/marco

is one such article, which aims to lend gravitas to the skeptics' claims. [image]There is quite a bit of evidence and quite a few relatively sane people to support the arguments that there is more than meets the eye. The site has videos of thermite experiments and quotes from professors and scientists. As with all conspiracy theories, some of the evidence is just a little blurry and the major news media is completely ignoring it. These days, the fact that the corporate media sees no need to cover something is a long way from saying that it's not important or not true. It simply means that most corporations wouldn't approve, so it's ignored or dropped like a hot potato in favor of breaking issues, like Katie Couric's move, Geraldo's mustache or the most recent missing blond girl in America. Or shark attacks. [1] Instead, the theories are proposed by "crazies" railing against the government, suspecting it of wrongdoing at every turn with a paranoia that would make a tweaker proud. They weave elaborate theories involving secret agencies that plan detailed and perfectly executed propoganda attacks on the American people, but, at the same time, they crow that the government is a bunch of useless stumblebums who can't find their asses with both hands. With the last part having been proved time and again, how are we to believe that they could plan their own "Reichstag Fire" so perfectly that, after five years, no one can prove it? The most damning evidence against any conspiracy theory is that it usually presupposes a cover-up so complete that not a single one of the thousands of people likely involved come forward to confirm the theory. On the other hand, the number of people involved in "proving" these theories -- with their resolve, fervor and expertise -- leaves the door open for a whole lot of doubt that there must be something more going on than the official story allows. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- [1] Iit is summer after all ... shark attack news season. ]]> https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=1314 2006-06-08T22:58:04+02:00 https://earthli.com/users/marco

, which is chock full of books to take the beach with friends and family. It's a pretty balanced list, including old classics like Lady Chatterly's Lover to newer classics like Lolita. There are a bunch from the late 20th century and even a couple from this one. The list is almost exclusively American erotica, from American authors (Norman Mailer, Henry Miller, Philip Roth and others), but at least includes some female authors (Erica Jong, Judy Blume, Anne Rice and others). The famous Story of O is the French exception to the American rule. Some are really short -- Rapture is only 116 pages long -- but most are normal-length novels. A lot of them date from the thirties, like Tropic of Cancer, but some come from the end of the 20th century, like The End of Alice. Don't kid yourself -- an "old" sex book stands just as much a chance of being good as a "new" one. The ability to titillate lies more with the author's imagination and writing prowess than with the society or era in which they wrote [1]. There's also something for everyone in the lists, ranging from first-time stories (Forever) to bisexual (Brass) to bondage (O and Carrie's Story) to just comical (Candy) and very weird (Crash [2]). Click a book to get a description and a "sample" to see if it's the one you'll be taking on vacation with you this summer. You might as well, it's not like you waiting around is making Dan Brown write any faster. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- [1] A walk through any of the "sex museums" in Amsterdam quickly dispels all notions that pornography has in any way gotten more hardcore over the years. Though it's perhaps more ubiquitous and slickly marketed, it's not "better" or "worse" -- just about the same. [1] The book on which the equally weird David Cronenburg film was based. ]]> https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=1279 2006-04-25T22:36:35+02:00 https://earthli.com/users/marco

is a very short essay in which George Clooney officially outs himself, even though most would consider "Three Kings" , "Good Night and Good Luck" and "Syriana" to be eloquent enough statements of that. Still and all, there are some nice enough turns of phrase in it: "...one" ... ]]>

is a very short essay in which George Clooney officially outs himself, even though most would consider "Three Kings" , "Good Night and Good Luck" and "Syriana" to be eloquent enough statements of that. Still and all, there are some nice enough turns of phrase in it: "...one of the things we absolutely need to agree on is the idea that we're all allowed to question authority. We have to agree that it's not unpatriotic to hold our leaders accountable and to speak out." He expresses a frustration with the Democratic party as he watches them mysteriously avoid confronting the Republicans, "[i]t makes me want to shout, 'Fuck you, you weren't misled. You were afraid of being called unpatriotic.'" In this, he is still naively clinging to the notion that, with the Republicans firmly in possession of the "Dark Side", it stands to reason that the only other choice must be the "Light Side". The Democrats, as we've mentioned here before, are simply scheming for a way to switch places with the Republicans. At best, the Democrats would proceed more slowly along the same lines that the Republicans have chosen. America's direction is executed through a political party, but not dictated by it. Since business interests are behind both, we can expect the same agenda from both. The only path for the principled is an independent one, as always. Once you've disassociated the idea of being a liberal from being a Democrat, it's easy to see that a liberal isn't a raging leftist. And a Democrat is not a liberal. Neither a Republican nor a Democrat is a fiscal conservative. The stories the parties would like you to believe are not true. A man of common sense, a true republican (believing in the direct power of the people), a true democrat (believing in the elective power of the people) and, yes, a liberal, believes in the following: "...it's not merely our right to question our government, it's our duty. Whatever the consequences. ... You gotta be a grown-up and take your hits." A good philosophy to go by. It's too bad that only a small part of our elected government lives by it. ]]> https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=1278 2006-04-19T23:24:04+02:00 https://earthli.com/users/marco

This guy has a "daily 372 mile trek" that is, at best, a "seven-hour roundtrip". He just won a contest for longest commute in America and won $10,000 worth of gas. [image]Ok. Some people get a new job and haven't moved yet. That's understandable. Or they moved and didn't get a new job yet. Also understandable. The fact that leaps off the page and elevates this guy to the status of carnival freak is that he's been doing this commute since 1989!. He leaves his "horse ranch at the edge of the astonishing Yosemite National Park" at 4:30 in the morning and comes home by 20:00 or 20:30. He's got a few hours for family time and some sleep and then he's off again. If the article were published on April 1st, it would be easy to dismiss. It was published on the 13th, so we're left to ponder whether someone foolish enough to "pound... more than 30 cups of coffee by the end of the day" actually exists or whether someone invented him to make us all feel a bit better about our own lives. Here at earthli, we can't help but mention the environmental angle and shudder to think about what kind of car he drives. A car with decent gas mileage would use almost a tank of gas per day. An SUV would need two. That's a lot of pollution, a lot of time and a lot of cash. He must be making a tidy sum at Cisco (his employer), but still, talk about completely twisted priorities. He's promoting a lifestyle that will ensure that the scenery he loves so much won't be around for his grandkids. There are other "reader reactions" to the story. Synopsis: most people think he's an idiot. Highlight: one person met someone who commutes from outside of London to Geneva, Switzerland (though the urban legend alarm went off on that one). ]]> https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=1272 2006-04-17T22:37:02+02:00 https://earthli.com/users/marco

(The Trouble With EM 'n EN (and Other Shady Characters)) discusses how to create proper punctuation characters in online documents -- specifically HTML. Of most interest are the rules of use for "em" and "en" dashes: em dash "...used to indicate a sudden break in thought, a parenthetical statement that deserves more attention" ... ]]>

(The Trouble With EM 'n EN (and Other Shady Characters)) discusses how to create proper punctuation characters in online documents -- specifically HTML. Of most interest are the rules of use for "em" and "en" dashes: em dash "...used to indicate a sudden break in thought, a parenthetical statement that deserves more attention than parentheses indicate, or instead of a colon or semicolon to link clauses." en dash "used to indicate a range of just about anything with numbers ... also used instead of the word "to" or a hyphen to indicate a connection between things ... (such as the New York--Boston commuter train) ... [or] used to hyphenate compounds of compounds, where at least one pair is already hyphenated (as in 'Netscape 6.1 is an Open-Source--based browser.')" The article also includes rules for all the different hyphens, quotes and spaces available (15 space characters in all!). Though these characters are all found in Unicode, most are not defined in HTML and there isn't much else to say or do about them when typesetting in HTML. More interesting is the section on quotes, which gives the decimal codes for curly quote characters as well as rules for using them properly. The tag, though defined since early versions of HTML, still doesn't work reliably in any modern browser. Browsers that support CSS-added content may set up rules to generate the correct quote characters when needed (not supported in IE 6 or 7). Even the oft-misused ellipses character gets the full treatment: in most cases, it should accompany a full stop (period) character and placement depends on the intent being conveyed. [The earthli Munger] Text formatting at earthli [1] supports automatic conversion for both en- and em-dashes, as well as the ellipses character, since version 2.7.1 released earlier this year. Automatic replacement of single and double-quote characters is not yet supported, but may follow in a subsequent release as a reliable algorithm has recently been published at "Smart Quotes" . The algorithm there is 20 years old and was first implemented on the Macintosh and implemented in old stand-bys like WriteNow. It's a bit smarter than that found in more modern word processors in that it avoids converting to curly quotes when inch or feet marks were intended. [1] See "HTML_MUNGER" in the "documentation" for more details ]]> https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=1255 2006-03-11T15:55:20+01:00 https://earthli.com/users/marco

https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=1230 2006-02-19T15:55:36+01:00 https://earthli.com/users/marco

documents the rising fortunes of bottled water. Again and again, studies have pointed out that the water in these bottles is either no different from or actually inferior to the water coming from your faucet ("roughly 40 percent of bottled"... ]]>

documents the rising fortunes of bottled water. Again and again, studies have pointed out that the water in these bottles is either no different from or actually inferior to the water coming from your faucet ("roughly 40 percent of bottled water begins as tap water"). Even several years ago, a large city like New York had healthier tap water in most places than the average bottle of water. In many countries, drinking tap water in restaurants is actively frowned upon -- it's bottled or nothing. Bottled water has the natural advantage that it is portable and can be bought in a packaged quantity when needed. However, at "up to $2.50 per liter ($10 per gallon), bottled water costs more than gasoline in the United States." About 5 times as much, as gasoline costs around $2 per gallon. The report maintains that people spend over $100 Billion every year on bottled water. As it stands, member nations of the UN spend "$15 billion ... every year on water supply and sanitation." In order "to halve the proportion of people who lack reliable and lasting access to safe drinking water by the year 2015", the UN predicts it would need to double that investment (to $30 Billion). This issue alone starkly illustrates just how divided the planet is. On the one side are members of a sizable elite who purchase water at exhorbitant prices, often shipped from far away -- sometimes as much as 9,000 kilometers -- and despite extraordinarily cheap water available in nearly infinite quantities. On the other is a portion of the world -- an estimated "1.1 billion people" -- with almost no access to water at all. Bottled water also doesn't get in there for free. Not only do people pay a lot for it -- though they could drink freely available tap water and put that cash towards a good cause (see above) -- it costs a lot more to produce it. Tap water comes to consumers through an extremely efficient distribution mechanism; bottled water "must be transported long distances -- and nearly one-fourth of it across national borders -- by boat, train, airplane, and truck." This wastes precious fossil fuels and pollutes the environment, all for no concrete improvement in quality of life. The plastic bottles also don't come from nowhere, requiring crude oil both for materials and production processes. "Worldwide, some 2.7 million tons of plastic are used to bottle water each year." All of that plastic must be recycled or dumped. It bio-degrades only slowly (taking about 1000 years) and "86 percent of plastic water bottles used in the United States become garbage or litter." Even if the bottles are submitted for recycling, they are often transported further distances (sometimes as far as from the US to China) for processing, using even more fuel. Drinking bottled water is clearly one of the more wasteful things a person can do. And it's not just the US here. It seems any countries with pretensions to ascension into the circle of elites (or those already there) is quaffing in ever-greater quantities. "Americans drank 26 billion liters of bottled water in 2004 ... [with] Mexico ... at 18 billion liters ... Italians drank the most bottled water per person, at nearly 184 liters ... Mexico and the United Arab Emirates consumed 169 and 164 liters per person. Belgium and France [drank] ... almost 145 liters annually ... India swigged three times as much bottled water in 2004 as it did in 1999 and China, more than twice as much." The practice of wasting to show wealth is still very much with us, all encouraged by companies eager to profit from this foolishness. In our capitalist world, it is considered commendable to make a profit this way. Wouldn't it be great if we spent this money on helping those who don't have any water at all? In one fell swoop, we could reduce usage of fossil fuels, reduce the amount of non-biodegradable garbage produced and not affect our lifestyles or health at all. Merchants, who are only too happy to sell something they get for nearly free, would lose an income stream, but the money saved could be used to help the rest of the world that has no water at all. ]]> https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=1231 2006-02-18T20:16:42+01:00 https://earthli.com/users/marco

[1], an unusually "astute comment" was logged by 808140 [2]. It put into clear terms the difference between copying software, media or other digital bits and the actual legal definition of stealing. Stealing means to deprive someone (the "owner") of... ]]>

[1], an unusually "astute comment" was logged by 808140 [2]. It put into clear terms the difference between copying software, media or other digital bits and the actual legal definition of stealing. Stealing means to deprive someone (the "owner") of something to which they have purchased title. Making a digital copy of that "something" does not in any way deprive the owner of their property, so it can hardly be called stealing, can it? "What [the owner] [is] deprived of is a monopoly on the right to benefit from the fruits of [their] labour. ... it is important to recognize that there is nothing that naturally guarantees ... this monopoly. (emphasis added)" In the physical world there is a natural guarantee in that a physical object can only be in one person's possession at any time; if one person has the object, the other does not. The world of ideas -- be they in the form of music, writing or software -- is different. Ideas and digital products can be in many places at one; once an idea has escaped, it cannot be said to "belong" only to the person that had it. The person who "copied" it possesses it just as much as the original owner. They do not own it legally -- or even have a license to it -- but it is clearly in their possession. And this all without depriving the original owner of the idea or product in any way. Of what has the owner been deprived? "If you amass knowledge ... with an intent to capitalize on it, and someone copies that knowledge in its digital or written form with an intent to capitalize on it in the same way ... then you could definitely say that the person doing the copying has done something immoral -- but he has not actually deprived you of the fruits of your labour." Downloading music is not stealing, it's breaking copyright. It's the acquisition of goods without compensation. In the physical world, this can be directly equated with the act of stealing -- in the digital world, it can not. So what is the legal interpretation of making a digital copy without compensation? Realistically, the copier has deprived the owner of "the profits that they would have had had [the copier] been forced to buy" the product. This is a philosophically difficult argument to make, as the profits of which the copier has deprived the owner are purely hypothetical -- just because the copier was willing to take a copy for free in no way guarantees that they would have paid the full price had the free copy not been available. It's an argument that the "Business Software Alliance" , Microsoft's anti-piracy arm, makes every time that they release statistics. Every year, the alliance reports the amount that the software industry lost due to piracy the previous year. How do they arrive at a figure? They make estimates on the number of copies pirated or downloaded, then multiply those numbers by their respective retail prices. This report also assumes that everyone who downloads a copy would have paid retail price for it had it not been available in pirated form. It also makes -- at best -- educated guesses on the number of copies pirated. Though many of the arguments brought by software and other media companies vis-a-vis stealing are fallacious, one fact remains crystal clear: copyright infringement is a crime in most countries in the world. If someone has not legally acquired a license to use the copyrighted material, they are commiting a crime. "It's not stealing, because theft deprives the owner of property, but it is still illegal." The idea of copyright -- that a creator's right to profit from their creation is protected -- makes sense. That there should be copyright laws, requiring others to obtain a license [3] to use/copy/access the creation, is not doubted by reasonable participants. The more interesting questions in this discussion are how far should the government go in defending copyright (and has it gone too far?) and how far and wide should a copyright extend (do heirs also get exclusive rights?). Even more interesting is that corporate entities are considered citizens of the US and, through their wealth, can defend their rights far more aggressively than any one citizen. It is their constant pressure that has shaped copyright law today (and not just in the US) and that presents the thorniest problems for the future. [1] The HCC is the "Homebrew Computer Club", a computing club from over 30 years ago which was using Gates' Altair Basic program. [1] This is apparently a user id taken as the user name for anonymity. [1] Which can also be a license guaranteeing free use for all, without cost. The point is that the owner decides what the license is and all others must agree to it in order to use the creation. ]]> https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=1108 2005-06-13T09:01:43+02:00 https://earthli.com/users/marco

covers a recent letter by a pillar of the scientific community (no, really, he apparently is ... or was) in which he claims that most glaciers in Europe are, in fact, growing. Global warming naysayers have naturally taken this as "proof" that global warming is a sham dreamt up... ]]>

covers a recent letter by a pillar of the scientific community (no, really, he apparently is ... or was) in which he claims that most glaciers in Europe are, in fact, growing. Global warming naysayers have naturally taken this as "proof" that global warming is a sham dreamt up by fruity eco-socialists who want to ruin it for everybody. Monbiot's look into the validity of the claim takes him on a twisty path a myriad of citations, each building on the last without adding an ounce of proof. The question quickly becomes: how are sources of information validated? In the scientific community, there is a process called peer review which acts as a reasonable filter for bias (though not a perfect one, by any means). In the court of public opinion, it is repetition that elevates a fact or study to citability. The basic issue of global warming boils down to the following: "If man-made climate change is happening, as the great majority of the world's climatologists claim, it could destroy the conditions which allow human beings to remain on the planet. The effort to cut greenhouse gases must come before everything else. This won't happen unless we can be confident that the science is right." If a heavy hitter like Bellamy comes out with figures like "555 of all the 625 glaciers under observation by the World Glacier Monitoring Service in Zurich, Switzerland, have been growing since 1980", he's bound to have done his homework and carefully considered putting forth an opinion. Strangely, when Monbiot contacted the World Glacier Monitoring Service itself, they said that Bellamy had "cited data which was simply false" and that the "latest studies show unequivocally that most of the world's glaciers are retreating". The question remains as to where Bellamy then got his data. It turns out he read it on "Not by Fire, but by Ice" . A quick visit confirms that the site positively oozes scientific reliability and in no way looks like the web site of a deranged mind. The maintainer of the page and publisher of the "studies" therein is a "former architect" with no scientific training. The figures about growing glaciers are, in fact, available in many places and do not originate with IceAgeNow. It is this study that is repeated over and over again and it is almost the sole source which contradicts the sea of evidence supporting global warming. Where did it come from? According to Fred Singer, who initially posted the figures on the internet, they come from "a paper published in Science in 1989". At this point, Monbiot had neared the end of his journey, as this claim is immediately verifiable by searching a few issues of the Science magazine. No articles on glaciers or global warming were published that year. The evidence cited by global cooling supporters dissolves in a puff of smoke on closer examination. They depend instead on repetition and the basic laziness and gullibility of people to make it true. To refute global warming, you must first ignore almost the entire scientific community and "...embrace instead the claims of an eccentric former architect, which are based on what appears to be a non-existent data set." ]]> https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=1116 2005-06-10T08:23:40+02:00 https://earthli.com/users/marco

is a work of fiction about a baptist family from the American South who embark on a mission to the Congo in 1959. It tells the tale from the viewpoint of the minister's four daughters with intermezzos told by the mother. The clash of cultures on social, political and military... ]]>

is a work of fiction about a baptist family from the American South who embark on a mission to the Congo in 1959. It tells the tale from the viewpoint of the minister's four daughters with intermezzos told by the mother. The clash of cultures on social, political and military levels is exquisitely woven from these individual strands of experience. The political context is remarkably similar to that in which an amnesiac America has placed itself today, lending ever more weight to George Santayana's famous quote: "Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it." Below are passages from the book that I found worth noting. The Judges/Leah/Pg. 318 Anatole critiques the West's idea of perfect democracy, disputing its applicability to not only Congolese, but all Africans and, indeed, all humanity. "To the Congolese, ... it seems odd that if one man gets fifty votes and the other gets forty-nine, the first one wins altogether and the second one plumb loses. That means almost half the people will be unhappy, and according to Anatole, in a village that's left halfway unhappy you haven't heard the end of it. There is sure to be trouble somewhere down the line." The America of June 2005 finds itself only a few months past exactly such an election, which was won by a man who seems determined to keep the half that did not vote for him 100% unhappy. There will indeed be trouble. The Judges/Adah/Pg. 357-358 This next passage is Adah's coming of age, in which a secret CIA radio broadcast inadvertently reveals to her that her country is not all goodness and light. "...as good as dead. Patrice Lumumba. The King of America wants a tall, thin man in the Congo to be dead. Too many pebbles cast for the bottle. The bottle must be broken. The smiling grandfather face has another face. It can speak through snakes and order that a president far away, after all those pebbles were carried upriver in precious canoes that did not tip over, this President Lumumba shall be killed." The King of America is Ike Eisenhower, who ordered and/or approved the assassination of Patrice Lumumba, the democratically (according to the Western system imposed by the Belgians above) elected president of the Congo. The pebbles are votes cast by Congolese, who placed them in bowls next to items representing the various candidates. Lumumba's symbol was a bottle. The cast pebbles were carried in precarious canoes to be counted in a central location. The passage recounts Adah's realization that, despite the Congolese doing everything they can to play by a foreign power's rules - even though they don't fit their own culture - the foreign power still reserves the right to obviate their decision if it finds it unsatisfactory. Lumumba was too chatty about socialism and was forced, through other crass foreign policy moves by the US, to beg the Soviet Union for military aid in order to fend off insurgents who were well-supplied by the CIA. "By morning, it had lost the power to shock. Really, in daylight, where is the surprise of this? How is it different from Grandfather God sending the African children to hell for being born too far from a Baptist Church? I should like to stand up in Sunday school now and ask: May Africa talk back? Might those pagan babies send us to hell for living too far from a jungle? Because we have not tasted the sacrament of palm nuts? Or. Might the tall, thin man [Lumumba] rise up and declare: We don't like Ike. So sorry, but Ike should perhaps be killed now with a poisoned arrow. Oh, the magazines would have something to say about that all right. What sort of man would wish to murder the president of another land? None but a barbarian." Americans today are almost entirely impervious to the tactic employed in the previous passage; it is known as "turning the tables" or "seeing an issue from the other point of view". I find it a very effective way of pointing out the fallacy of a point of view, employing the "do unto others" wisdom against the bible thumpers themselves. In general, though, it is frustratingly inneffective. The US actually had to pass a law to prevent presidents from officially being able to order the assassination of foreign leaders. Very civilized. Now they just do it unofficially. Put into more modern terms, the mullah who declares a price on Bush's head is a primitive zealot who must be stopped with a bunker buster, but Bush's call for Saddam's head is a necessary evil in the cause of freedom. Bel and the Serpent/Orleanna Price/Pg 381-382 Orleanna (the mother) ponders the power of self-delusion in our government. "...in 1975, a group of senators called the Church Committee ... found notes from secret meeting of the National Security Council and President Eisenhower. In their locked room, thse men had put their heads together and proclaimed Patrice Lumumba a danger to the safety of the world. The same Patrice Lumumba, mind you, who washed his face each morning fram a dented tin bowl, relieved himself in a carefully chosen bush, and went out to seek the faces of his nation. Imagine if he could have heard those words -- dangerous to the safety of the world! -- from a roomful of white men who held in their manicured hands the disposition of armies and atomic bombs, the power to extinguish every life on earth." All because Lumumba wanted to follow socialist precepts that would render the bounty of his country unto his people instead of unto occupying foreign corporations. From the point of view of the power brokers and hence the U.S., this cannot stand as it serves as a example of independence from US hegemony. Understandable as the actions of ruthless domineers of the world; the oft-taken moral high ground it is not. The arguments against Lumumba should cause a feeling of discomfort to those that think that Bush invented evil and was the first to promulgate a foreign policy detrimental to most of the rest of the world. The story is far older, deeper and uglier than anything the twisted little minds of Bush and his cronies can conjure. That does not mean they can end the world as we know it. Just that they're not the first evil bastards with the power to do it. Exodus/Leah/Pg. 502 21st century America cannot even claim to have invented media zombies and press unanimity. It is an ill that continues, but not one that is new. Those who crave power are beholden to those that have it - they do not contradict it. "Thirty whites killed in Stanley, two Americans among them -- we heard that over the shortwave radio and knew what it meant. By nightfall the United Nations would launch their answer, an air and land attack. The Combined Forces, they're calling this invading army: the U.S., Belgium, and hired soldiers left over from the Bay of Pigs. Over the next weekswe heard a hundred more times about the whites killed by Simbas in Stanleyville. In three languages: Radio France, the BBC, and Mobutu's Lingala newscasts from Léopoldville, the news was all one. Those thirty white people, rest their souls, have purchased and all-out invasion against the pro-Independents. How many Congolese were killed by the Belgians and labor and starvation, we will never know." Once again, we see the disconnect - the inability to see an issue from the other side. The same actions performed by Americans straining for freedom at the end of the 18th century are still heralded as noble in history books today. If the US puts other countries into similar situations, it is naturally for that country's own good. Read the "People's History of the United States" or "The March of Folly: From Troy to Vietnam" to read about how the British people bought the same story about us from their government. For a more modern example, consider the striking similarities to Falluja in Iraq. Exodus/Leah/Pg. 520 The media has always been able to ignore the deaths of inconsequentials while trumpeting the deaths of important first worlders. All the better to sell the picture of savages who need to be controlled. "When thirty foreigners were killed in Stanleyville, each one was tied somehow to a solid exchange, a gold standard like the hard Belgian franc. But a Congolese life is like the useless Congolese bill, which you can pile by the fistful or the bucketful into a merchant's hand, and still not purchase a single banana. It's dawning on me that I live among men and women who've simply always understood their whole existence is worth less than a banana to most white people." The over 100,000 Iraqis (lowball estimate by a very scientific clustering survey published in the British medical journal, the Lancet -- see "More Tales of a Liberal Media" ) who have been killed not only don't matter, they are not counted. A study counting them is dismissed out of hand without evidence and easily disbelieved by the populace because they just don't care. They don't have to. Exodus/Leah/Pg. 515 Further events in the Congo teach more lessons of America's idea of democracy. Democracy is what we say it is. "...foreign hands moved behind the curtain and one white King was replaced with another. Only the face that shows is black. Mobutu's U.S. advisors even tried to hold elections here, but then got furious when the wrong person won -- Antoine Gizenga, Lumumba's lieutenant. So they marched the army into parliament and reorganized it once again in Mobutu's favor. "'If the Americans mean to teach us about democracy, the lesson is quite remarkable.'" These problems plague the Americans less in their last two conquests, Afghanistan and Iraq. This is partially because of massive improvements in marketing and public relations for its candidates (Karzai in Afghanistan springs to mind) and partially because of a tighter control over the elections themselves, which are often deemed insufficient by UN overseers (if they are even allowed to observe). However, look how long the interim government still rules in occupied Iraq, simply because of the plurality of Shias who were elected. More "elections" and more interim or provisory or temporary governments will follow until one satisfactory to the US is found. Hell, we already wrote their constitution for them -- it's probably even legal. Exodus/Leah/Pg. 547 And now we get to the parallels for the reconstruction of Iraq. The Halliburtons and Bechtels of the world have always functioned this way, glomming onto the government teat to be paid for acheiving nothing. The only signs of their passing are the crippling interest payments third world countries pay on the money they borrowed and gave to the multinationals who built nothing and blamed the natives for being too primitive. In the Congo's case, it was for a power line that would only benefit foreign-owned diamond mining concerns located at the wrong end of a large country. So, the Mobutu government, with its people's interested firmly in mind, agreed to borrow a phenomenal amount of money and give it to a foreign contractor to build a power line that the people would not and could not use. "The power line was never meant to succeed at all. With no way to service a utility stretching across the heart of darkness, the engineers watched the monster's tail crumble as fast as the front was erected. The whole of it was eventually picked clean in the way a forest tree gets gleaned by leaf-cutter ants: nuts, bolts, and anything that might serve for roofing material trailed off into the jungle. Anyone could have predicted that exact failure. But by loaning the Congo more than a billion dollars for the power line, the world Export-Import Bank assured a permanent debt that we'll repay in cobalt and diamonds from now until the end of time." This is the standard operating procedure for dealing with resource-rich third world countries. Invade them, instill our market principles on them, push through projects that have no prayer of working in that culture, then glean interest and loan repayments in the form of resources. All on the up-and-up since it works according to well-defined market principles that we, of course, also abide by. We're just better at it than they are, but there have to be losers in every game, don't you know? This isn't colonialism because we haven't occupied the physical land exactly, just co-opted their economy. It's economic colonialism. Many African nations pay over half of their GDP in interest on loans to first world countries. Loan-sharking on a national level is not only legal, it's the preferred way of doing business. Exodus/Rachel/Pg. 573. "... Democracy and dictatorship are political systems; they have to do with who participates in the leadership. Socialism and capitalism are economic systems. It has to do with who owns the wealth of your nation, and who gets to eat." This is a clear definition that most Americans (and many others, I'm sure) simply don't grasp at all. Naturally, their failure to understand the rather stark differences are strongly supported by a media and government that is happy to maintain the brainwashed status quo. The less you know, the more likely you are to believe what you're told. That's how we can believe that Arabs are religious zealots only interested in a strict religous state who also happen to go out and vote in droves when the U.S. administration needs them to. "Okay, let's take Patrice Lumumba, for example. Former Prime Minister of the Congo, his party elected by popular vote. He was a socialist who believed in democracy. Then he was murdered, and the CIA replaced him with Mobutu, a capitalist who believes in dictatorship. In the Punch and Judy program of American history, that's a happy ending." Is it any wonder that peoples (like the Iraqis) who actually read and understand history are so strenuously opposed to the "benevolent" occupation by the United States? How does this happen? How is it that the U.S. government always has so much money and leeway to invest in "foreign adventures" (as they're so endearingly called in the US media, to take the edge off of wars that kill countless millions of foreigners)? After the Congo was secured for democracy and freedom (the freedom for US and other western corporations to acquire African raw resources for nearly nothing), the fight moved to Angola, where: "...the U.S. has now spent nearly thirty million dollars to bring down Angola's sovereignty. every dollar of it had to come from some person ... it's a commerce of imagined dreads, the Bethlehem housewives [read: soccer/security moms] somehow convinced that a distant, black Communist devil will cost them some quarter in their color-matched living rooms." Round and round we go on the fear merry-go-round. Exodus/Leah/Pg. 603 It was the Godless, Communist Cubans who helped Angola resist US efforts to overthrow their government. US soldiers fought alongside South African mercenaries to deny yet another socialist seedling the chance to take root and pull an amazingly resource-rich country and people out of the abject poverty to which the robber barons of capitalism would consign them. "Rachel informs me I've had my brains washed by a Communist plot. She's exactly right. I've been won to the side of the schoolteachers and nurses, and lost all allegiance to plastic explosives. No homeland I can claim as mine would blow up a struggling, distant country's hydroelectric dams and water pipes, inventing darkness and dysentary in the service of its ideals, and bury mines in every Angolan road that connected food with a hungry child." And so it goes, with the brainwashed and uninformed notifying the educated of their ignorance. The jingoist kettle calling the humanist pot black. A world in which it is so easy for an overrich and oversated populace to see military attacks as necessary and unique solutions to the barbarity of foreign peoples. The landmines continue to be used today -- they are an effective way of preventing subjugated peoples from travelling and resisting occupation. The air attacks on civilian infrastructure are still the first wave of attack today -- witness Iraq's complete and utter destruction, to the point that now, two years after the official ending of hostilities, many places still have no water and electricity, as even a brutal dictator was able to provide. The people of the US chirp happily from their palaces that this is a necessary step in the instillation of freedom; they, in turn, expect to be paid back in lower fuel prices and increased security, as their televisions promised them. When this does not transpire, it is simply time to open wide and swallow the next load of palliative lies delivered steaming hot and so comforting, to explain away their mild discomfort and allay any lingering qualms of guilt. In effect, it is a government that manages to subjugate several peoples at once, starting with its own. Americans are treated as the human energy cells in the Matrix -- instead of providing energy, they provide compliance and tax dollars to feed the endless, ravening maw of the capitalist war machine. When there is nothing left, it will consume itself and expire, leaving a bewildered population to fend for itself in world filled with billions looking for revenge. ]]> https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=1125 2005-06-04T22:27:22+02:00 https://earthli.com/users/marco

offers some good advice to teachers charged with spending time on alternative theories to evolution. The crux of the matter is that in two states so far, Pennsylvania and Kansas (big surprise there), teachers must address a theory of the world known as intelligent... ]]>

offers some good advice to teachers charged with spending time on alternative theories to evolution. The crux of the matter is that in two states so far, Pennsylvania and Kansas (big surprise there), teachers must address a theory of the world known as intelligent design. This is not religion; it is a pseudo-scientific justification for a God-like being. "Intelligent design is not creationism per se. It holds that higher forms of life are so complex they must have been created by an unspecified higher power. The key word here is "unspecified." Many school board members who support an intelligent design mandate believe that higher power is Jesus. But they aren't forcing anyone to teach that in schools." Morris suggests that enterprising teachers can hold students' attention, teach good science and get a dig in on the puritanical school board by critiquing evolution from a scientific basis. A good place to start, naturally, is sex; start a discussion as to why when " it comes to the human female orgasm ... evolutionists are stumped". When you're done with that one, open another theme that evolution has trouble explaining: homosexuality. "The theory of natural selection should guarantee the disappearance of males that don't reproduce. But they keep hanging around, in considerable numbers, in every culture and every era." The alternative explanation offered by intelligent design would naturally have to credit "an intelligent power" with creating and maintaining homosexuality through the ages, "Does that mean God is gay?" Surely a subject to hold the attention of young minds for an hour or two. This would probably also be a bang-up way to schedule an exit from your teaching position, but it would be hella fun. The next step is to analyze creationism as a possible intelligent design theory, poking holes in the paucity of empirical evidence that backs up the claims made in the Bible: "the scientific evidence for the-heavens-and-the-earth-and-all-life-was-formed-in-six days theory of the origins of life is virtually nonexistent". Once the Bible's explanation is shown to be dubious at best, replace it with another theory that also has many adherents: "[l]ife derived from outer space". Swiss writer Erich von Daniken has "amassed an enormous amount of evidence to substantiate his thesis [that] evolutionary seed or seeds, were planted by space travelers". Hell, if you're feelling frisky, drag a copy of L. Ron Hubbard's Dianetics in and have a ball. For most kids, the lessons in critical thinking you impart will serve them better than the science you're charged with teaching. In the America that's taking shape today, you can't start too early learning that 90% of what you hear is crap. ]]> https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=1123 2005-05-29T23:04:33+02:00 https://earthli.com/users/marco

, there is now in America a purification device for the wicked emissions coming from Hollywood in the form of "[a] new device [that] allows consumers to cleanse their DVDs of sex, profanity and violence." Whoop-dee-doo. It's called network television or... ]]>

, there is now in America a purification device for the wicked emissions coming from Hollywood in the form of "[a] new device [that] allows consumers to cleanse their DVDs of sex, profanity and violence." Whoop-dee-doo. It's called network television or basic cable; we've had it for decades. This brilliant technology is now also available for the home in the form of a ClearPlay DVD player: " that are designed to mute or skip over foul language, nudity, violence and other "inappropriate" behavior in hundreds of commercial DVDs. What content will be expunged is theoretically left to the viewer's discretion. For example, if you load When Harry Met Sally and select the "Vain References to Deity" or the "Sensual Content" filters, you will skip right over Meg Ryan's ersatz, "Oh God!" orgasm." This new product is one legalized by Bush's signing of the Family Entertainment and Copyright Act (FECA), which includes severe punishments for copyright breaking - up to ten years - and a family clause, which legitimizes such 'post-processing' devices for the home. Previously, these were considered copyright infringements as they allowed alteration of copyrighted content by entities other than the copyright holders. The uproar seems to be more over whether yokels want to ruin their own cinema experiences* than over the fact that copyright infringement now carries a longer minimum sentence than rape. The drastic sentences for victimless crimes (include most drug crimes here) proposed by businesses and lackadaisically sworn into law by fully-bought representatives is far more outrageous than companies that enable people to self-censor. *Even more than they already do by missing out on "European" versions of films (that would be the "full" version of a film for non-US readers). I think the post-processing is fine (especially when it reduces the amount of time I have to see Meg Ryan on screen). Americans already accept all of their news about the world in a similarly pre-processed way; why not carry the concept to movies? They can buy this device and have it provide a palliative experience with no fun and no mental stimulation. I'm not sure who'll buy it though. The business itself doesn't seem to be really booming, as the model involves hand-picking the areas to block, which they've only done for "hundreds of films". "To true cinephiles, the absence of such iconic moments might ruin these films completely." Most "true" cinephiles probably aren't that worried about "Vain References to Deit[ies]" in their films either. However, in America, the FCC already censors the living crap out of anything that makes it onto the airwaves. What exactly is the difference here? Imagine "A Clockwork Orange" on American TV, perhaps on NBC. It would be the most confusing 5 minutes of your life. At least this system carries the censoring system to those that want it. Naturally, they can't choose exactly which portions are removed: those choices lie with the churchy folk at ClearPlay. That shouldn't worry anyone who's spent any time getting their news from Reader's Digest, though; it's called a digest because they censor out all of the "offensive" ideas and any bits that aren't sufficiently jingoistic. If they want to censor themselves, let them. What with the popularity of horror, hyper-action, porno and other films in America, I can't imagine who the hell's going to use this thing. If a segment of America (most of these censorship companies are headquartered in Utah) wants to make itself even more culturally ignorant and divorced from reality, more power to them. It's just another stage of evolution, like when Neanderthals had to live with Cro Magnons until they died out. We can do these folk the same favor, can't we? At least they'll be happy as they slide into obsolesence. "Censorship under the guise of child protection," added Heins, "has traditionally been, and continues to be, a convenient excuse for not educating children -- about media, critical thinking, and moral values." This hyperbole is completely unjustified, as the state has no business what happens in a private home. Children raised without any television at all and those raised with a massive amount of television have just as little training in "critical thinking and moral values". These ideas still assume that children can be raised without parenting, learning only from out wonderful machines. All of a sudden, people are concerned about education and think that Hollywood movies are a source of "critical thinking" for kids? Gimme a break. The article even asks "why did the government approve such technology?" as if the government has any right to ban it in the first place. If a parent wants to install the most idiotic safeguards against the Internet(s) on their computer at home, who is the government to stop them? There is a dark side to this, though. MegOnTheMountain makes a good point (in one of the last comments attached to the article) in mentioning that this technology is being used publically, instead of by private citizens. Government programs, like TANF (welfare), sometimes screen films for their classes; these cannot impose a blanket censorship on a group. "Meg" said her class saw Erin Brockovich and that the "video had been edited by ClearPlay" to eliminate cursing. Even worse, though, was how the class was run: "The other disturbing thing was that the facilitator of this "class" - a middle-aged woman, by the way - kept stopping the tape to point out all the things Erin was doing wrong: her low cut clothes, her foul mouth, her outspoken nature, the way she questioned and challenged authority and the sta[t]us quo." This, for me, is far more dangerous than people using ClearPlay in their homes. Even using ClearPlay in this government program is not nearly as bad as women being trained not to "challenge authority and the status quo". The government is training the poor to be docile and subservient - that's much more frightening. It is here that I like to invoke the name of George Orwell and his good pal, Big Brother. Let parents install the device. Kids will just go watch at their friends' houses and life will continue for them as it always has. The best we can hope for is that the kind of people that feel they need these, can convince their children that sex is so evil that they never breed and evolution closes off another useless loop in its long, long history. Until then, we'll just keep electing as many of them as possible to office. ]]> https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=1117 2005-05-23T00:12:43+02:00 https://earthli.com/users/marco

covers yet another brilliant idea from Britain, in which a home's television usage can be keyed to a counter in a pair of sneakers. As with many other things British, it has a totally lame, weird name that doesn't make any sense to anyone outside of Britain:... ]]>

covers yet another brilliant idea from Britain, in which a home's television usage can be keyed to a counter in a pair of sneakers. As with many other things British, it has a totally lame, weird name that doesn't make any sense to anyone outside of Britain: "Square Eyes". I honestly have no idea what that's supposed to mean. As with all kooky ideas that will never work, it starts from the best intentions: getting kids to both eat less and watch less TV. Let's get a description of the thing first, so you can see just how well-thought out it is: "The shoes ... contain an electronic pressure sensor and a tiny computer chip to record how many steps the wearer has taken in a day. A wireless transmitter passes the information to a receiver connected to a television, and this decides how much evening viewing time the wearer deserves, based on the day's exertions." I'm sure the idea works perfectly in inventor Gillian Swan's world, but in the real world, populated by clever little brats out to make their parents' lives miserable, it's going to flop hard, not least because it looks like it will totally make every shoe look orthopedic. If the kid doesn't figure out how to hack it or disable the receiver or download a kit that reconfigures the regulator, s/he can still make other people's lives miserable. The next natural question is how much time does a kid get and how much does s/he have to walk to get it? "Health experts suggest that a child take 12,000 steps each day and watch no more than two hours of television. So, every 100 steps recorded by the Square Eyes shoes equates to precisely one minute of TV time." This is the kind of ass-backwards approach to rearing children that's preordained to backfire. The richer kids will simply use their massive allowances to pay other kids to run up their TV time. Others will simply hang out at their friend's houses, where the TV doesn't turn itself off. But probably the easiest way to thwart the TV restriction is to simply not wear the shoes while watching. Unless, this is only to prevent a child from watching their own private TV. Otherwise, the parents' TV wouldn't work either. So, basically, this device will prevent a child from watching their own set. If it's hooked up to the one and only set, what happens when the kid's already used up his share of TV time (perhaps having accrued a grand total of 15 minutes by walking down to a gas station to buy a gallon of coke)? Why, he'll come in and sit in the living room with his parents when they're trying to watch their show. Click. Off goes the TV. A couple of days of that and that device and shoes are sitting in the trash. ]]> https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=1100 2005-05-01T23:45:58+02:00 https://earthli.com/users/marco

is a wonderful, fun 3d visual interpretation of John Coltrane's musical classic. It's a sign that Flash can used for something other than annoying ads that flicker, flash, make noise, hover around over the web page and find ways around our popup blockers. Really cool, soothing stuff. "Check" ... ]]>

is a wonderful, fun 3d visual interpretation of John Coltrane's musical classic. It's a sign that Flash can used for something other than annoying ads that flicker, flash, make noise, hover around over the web page and find ways around our popup blockers. Really cool, soothing stuff. "Check it out" . ]]> https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=1093 2005-04-14T22:22:54+02:00 https://earthli.com/users/marco

or a "game" and the site itself is a one-hit-wonder of the 21st Century. There is invariably not enough bandwidth to go around and the site is laid low in minutes by stampeding hordes of... ]]>

or a "game" and the site itself is a one-hit-wonder of the 21st Century. There is invariably not enough bandwidth to go around and the site is laid low in minutes by stampeding hordes of attention span-deprived, insatiable internet users. To avoid those problems, there are now sites based on much larger servers, like "Blogger" that don't go down so easily: not even when they host a huge page filled with 2MB of pictures like "PostSecret" does. This site encourages people to send in anonymous postcards revealing a secret. Now, people who don't know what makes people tick will wonder why this idea takes off while others die. It's because you get to participate in this experience in a permanent way that other people see. It's because your artsy ass can bend the awesome powers you honed in ten wasted years of "school", where you learned how to emote and mimic and you can dump it all out into heartbreaking "cluster bombs of ennui" that simply "smite the soul" . Notice how many cards aren't even postcards, but other materials and the writing isn't done with a pen, but pasted letters and other media. You just get chills, don't you? It's online masturbation without the mess. What else can explain "pathetic pleas for forgiveness" , where the submitter is obviously hoping his ex will recognize his handwriting and credit him the chivalry he's so obviously due. There's so much "pithy" , "Deepak Chopra-esque" "crap" to "choose from" , it's hard to know where to stop pasting "links" to "images" . It's a site that's just begging to be bombed with fake postcards, taunting this wellspring of self-pity that others have started. It's nice to see that "someone's already beaten us to the punch" . Even Adbusters seems to have "gotten into the act" . The site drives its own artsiness with stories like this one, about the best postcard ever: "My favorite postcard was lost before it could be displayed. When I pulled it from my mailbox, I noticed that it looked worn and had creases indicating it had been folded into quarters. The card was filled with two vertical lists of grocery items; milk, cheese, chicken, etc. But squeezed into the lower left corner was a revealing admission, "I am still struggling with what I've become." "Maybe that secret was so difficult to share that the person had tried to use up the card as a grocery list - twice. But part of him or her, perhaps the part that took the invitation in the first place, would not allow the postcard to be used up, thrown away, or lost before the confession was made." Another deep, deep thought, almost lost forever. It may sound cruel for me to mock this troubling admission, but don't forget: this is the Internet, folks! The poster could be lying about the card and could just be making it up entirely. It's a nice story, maybe the person writing about the writer is a writer. Or maybe the person who sent the card is an artist, looking for exposure. Or maybe none of the cards are real and are all created by the same person. There are scads of email messages sent by people. Are those real or not? On the Internet(s), you just can't tell. ]]> https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=1089 2005-03-31T21:32:11+02:00 https://earthli.com/users/marco

https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=1047 2005-01-15T20:45:24+01:00 https://earthli.com/users/marco

is all that and a bag of chips. Go on, read it. It's short. It's the touching story of two small boys in Ireland who convince an even smaller boy to do something whereafter he's "...blinded,"... ]]>

is all that and a bag of chips. Go on, read it. It's short. It's the touching story of two small boys in Ireland who convince an even smaller boy to do something whereafter he's "...blinded, shrieking for help, [and] covered from head to toe in a hideous stew of viscera and decay." Not a lot of end-of-the-year recaps include that kind of imagery. The final twist on the metaphor comes at the end, all at once, with: "That boy, ladies and gentlemen, is us. The cow is 2004, and the boys that convinced us to jab the cow with a stick are laughing themselves silly in Washington, DC. Or we are the cow and the boy is Washington, and the boy is 2004, or possibly I am the walrus. The point is, 2004 blew like a dead cow." Perhaps it's just more fun to write when drunk ... a lot of people swear by it. ]]> https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=1038 2004-12-24T15:09:53+01:00 https://earthli.com/users/marco

is an eight minute Flash film ("English transcript" ), depicting a possible future for our media. It's extrapolations of customized content aren't far-fetched at all. Their hypothetical "Googlezon" that generates personalized news articles for each user is downright eerie. Imagine a world where... ]]>

is an eight minute Flash film ("English transcript" ), depicting a possible future for our media. It's extrapolations of customized content aren't far-fetched at all. Their hypothetical "Googlezon" that generates personalized news articles for each user is downright eerie. Imagine a world where your Google News is combined with your personal preferences from Amazon. Imagine if you clicked a link for an article and it was generated on-the-fly based on various blogs and online papers that the software thinks you would be interested in. You don't read the original article ... you get used to reading the personalized summary. After a while, you forget that it's not what actually happened anymore. Is this our future? Take a look at your news today and ask yourself how you couldn't have noticed how it's already happened. The vision in EPIC ("Evolving Personalized Information Construct") is scariest when one realizes that an unsophisticated version is already in place. The only difference is that news is tailored to the average user instead of to each individual user. EPIC is only an evolutionary step from the system we already have. ]]> https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=1037 2004-12-24T14:48:53+01:00 https://earthli.com/users/marco

. Imagine going into Earth Science and being greeted by a teacher who carefully explains that he will be teaching you that the Earth is a sphere so that you can pass the test administered by the State, but that he, personally, is convinced that the Earth is flat. He generously provides a few details about this other theory of the world before continuing with the government propaganda he must teach in order to get a paycheck. In contrast to most everything else on earthli News, this is not made up. This person actually exists and teaches in central New York. If he were not serious, it would be a brilliant tactic that would force kids to study hard, looking for ways to prove their teacher wrong; a way of showing them how to back up arguments with proof and a way of showing them how some arguments and theories cannot easily be disproven. If he were kidding. A quick perusal of the "Flat Earth FAQ" indicates that these folks have not chosen to take the path of creating an alternate theory that is also seductively supported by physical evidence. A Flat-Earther apparently doesn't believe in "Idaho", "North Dakota" or "Australia". They stop short of mentioning which government agency invented these pieces of land or to what purpose. As with most of these societies, a little bit of science goes a long way to providing enough terminology to sound extremely smart. If asked why the earth looks like a sphere, they respond with: "The reason for this effect is that the Earth's atmosphere becomes denser the further one ascends, after thinning out at about 5 miles. This causes light to be refracted more at high altitudes, giving the appearance of a spherical Earth." Sounds intimidating if you're a bit shaky on your own science convictions, doesn't it? It's a bit tough to believe that these people aren't just kidding though, because of stuff like this explanation of gravity (which doesn't exist, by the way): "There is a school of thought which states, however, that the Earth does not move through space, but rather that it rests on the back of a giant turtle, and that what we call gravity is, in fact, the turtle's animal magnetism." The "Springfield Effect" sounds like something straight out of the Simpsons: "The Springfield Effect is the name given to the phenomenon by which every place named Springfield is hard-linked in hyperspace to every other place of this name. In other words, there is only one place named Springfield, but it is "linked" to various locations in the world." I just can't tell anymore if they believe this stuff or not. Direct links to the "Cartographer's Conspiracy Cabal" convince me that the whole crew is nuts, but some of the phrasing is almost so deliberately tongue-in-cheek that they have to know how ridiculous is sounds. Or do they? ]]> https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=1025 2004-11-08T00:01:35+01:00 https://earthli.com/users/marco

https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=1019 2004-10-25T23:44:02+02:00 https://earthli.com/users/marco

is an interview with Trey Parker and Matt Stone, the creators of South Park and the movie "Team America: World Police". I haven't seen the movie (yet), and I've heard it's pretty funny. I'm a little confused by the interview here because they usually interview well.... ]]>

is an interview with Trey Parker and Matt Stone, the creators of South Park and the movie "Team America: World Police". I haven't seen the movie (yet), and I've heard it's pretty funny. I'm a little confused by the interview here because they usually interview well. In this case, they did not. Let's get a few things straight. They're satirists and comedians, not political analysts. You can't hold them to a standard of proof or thought that you would Noam Chomsky. However ... when you spend a lot of money making fun of celebrities for how earnest they are and how they take themselves too seriously, you should probably watch your back a bit more than these two have. To the question "...do you ever feel like you cover your asses too much by taking on targets on opposing sides?", they somehow manages to twist around enough to respond with an affirmative negative: "I don't think so, because we do take somewhat of a stand at the end. I mean, ... Some people consider that point to be fairly right wing, and some people consider it to be fairly left wing." So, is that "yes, we cover our asses" or "no, we take a stand, but it's such a hazy one that it can be interpreted in two completely different ways"? Then, there's the fact that they didn't want to make a morality play because "then we'd be no better than the f -- actors we hate". OK, that's cool, but then, in the very next sentence (perhaps even the same breath), he expands on the point, saying "so, too, does America have this role in the world as a d -- . Cops are d -- , you f -- hate cops, but you need 'em." Which, to me, sounds like a half-assed endorsement for the US stomping the shit out of the world because it contains a -- -- - who need to be taught a lesson. That doesn't sound like "shutting up and being a celebrity" any more than any of the celebrities they make fun of in their movie. From this pretty lame and self-righteous (in a brainless, gung-ho kind of way) beginning, it gets even worse, as they expand on this philosophy: "You have the Michael Moores of the world and all these people telling you, "These people are evil and America's going to be destroyed in a matter of five years!" And it's just, to us, not that dire. It's like, "You know what? Our lives are pretty f -- great. And a lot of the lives we see around us are pretty f -- great, and everything's gonna be OK." That's just our basic philosophy." Lovely. "I've got mine" is neither a new nor a very interesting philosophy. It's actually kind of an insult to call it a philosophy, because that implies you need to think to come to that conclusion. Thinking is not required, it's more a matter of preventing yourself from thinking that helps massively when applying this way of life. Watching these two interview at the intellectual level of Britney Spears was a little disappointing. The interviewer tries to inject a reality check into the interview with a meek "What about the people who'd say, "Well, you've got to get out of your bubble and check out the world and see how f -- up things are for everyone else?" The response to that is a confused melange of justifications for an optimistic worldview, regardless of reality, even if "it's naive, and it's unfounded, and it's even wrong" (which, methinks, puts them squarely in the Bush fantasy world). They explain that even a completely unjustified optimism is what "keeps America looking forward and trying to make the world better". Keep in mind that, given the optimism, it neither has to be true that America is looking forward nor that it is making the world better ... it matters only that people think it is. I think. It's hard to navigate this kind of jingoistic stoner philosophy. True indignation sets in with people who are just downers (like Europeans, who "are not optimistic about the future"), because that makes it "almost taboo to say, "My f -- life is awesome, and I have a great time, and I have a sweet house and a nice car." It's not taboo to say that. Go ahead and say it if it's true. It's just that nobody's going to really love you for it. Especially if their life sucks and they can pretty much trace it to the fact that your life is so f -- - sweet. I mean, hell we've got MTV "Cribs", don't we? Where the hell have these guys been? It seems like it's actually the opposite in the US: you can crow all you like, showing off all you've got regardless of whether you've even earned 1% of it and people who work two jobs trying to get food on the table will eagerly tune in and watch you at every opportunity. But, if you point out that, while things are pretty great for you, there are a lot of people for whom things really suck and maybe we should do something about that, a couple of morons make a movie about you, calling you a whiner and god knows what else. All it takes to shatter this way of thinking is to meet people for whom it can never, ever, ever apply. The people that don't have it great and never will, who's kids will never have it great and who the system continues to chew on, so that you can have a "great car". Then, poof, the guilt sets in. And I think it has for them, in a way. That's why they're so full-on about it being OK to think the way they do ... you get the feeling they're trying desperately to convince themselves more than anyone else. They wrap up by reiterating a point they made in a previous interview, about voting, that "[i]f you have absolutely no idea, f -- it." I think they have a good point there. If you really have no opinion one way or another, you haven't been paying enough attention to exercise your democratic right. You still can, you just have no idea whether your vote is helping or hindering you. That's why, if they actually practice what they preach, I imagine they'll have their whole morning free on November 2nd. ]]> https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=971 2004-07-29T23:02:49+02:00 https://earthli.com/users/marco

https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=959 2004-05-20T09:43:15+02:00 https://earthli.com/users/marco

was rated 'Brilliant' for saying said that: "What most parents are trying to get through homeschooling is not a better education but one that more" ... ]]>

was rated 'Brilliant' for saying said that: "What most parents are trying to get through homeschooling is not a better education but one that more closely fits their own ideology, even to the point of downright denial of facts and the censorship of ideas. For the sake of their ideology they exclude knowledge, which is a harm to the child." Whereas the point is valid, the commenter is ignoring the fact that all education is indoctrination. It's just a matter of how well the education lines up with "reality" and how well that education prepares the person for survival in the world. Also important is whether that education creates a moral being. Is it worse to indoctrinate your child with your own world view ... or to let your child be indoctrinated with a government-sanctioned worldview intended to create worker drones/consumers that will perpetuate the existing system of power without question? It all depends on whether your worldview is even stupider and more dangerous than the one recommended by the government. What about world views that look at capitalism and society's definition of success with skepticism -- even suspicion? What about world views that emphasize morality above success? Treating others with respect, equally and fairly is often in direct contrast with a formula for success in our society -- if you emphasize ethics, your child will probably not be successful or 'fit in' to the higher echelons of society. Have you, in that case, wronged your child? I don't think so. Whereas empasizing ethics above success is also indoctrination, it is preparing your child to make a better world, a better society than the one we have today. The child will not necessarily be geared for success -- will perhaps view success in a society such as ours (primarily material gain) as hollow and worthless -- but will be geared for change that benefits society in the long run. That's a far more useful education than the short-term survival training the government wants you to have. If you take a look at public education in America today, say in the history or social studies areas, I think that "downright denial of facts ... censorship of ideas" applies there as well. The world view you pick up in American school is only coincident with reality in the sense that it creates and maintains a reality our society needs in order to continue. (anybody else here take High School economics or history in the 80s? Anybody else discover there's not a whole lot of overlap with reality?) Without sufficient indoctrination, the whole system would fall on its face, as 99% of the people wake up and find that they, in fact, are getting screwed. How can a parent screw it up worse that that? ]]> https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=954 2004-05-17T22:38:56+02:00 https://earthli.com/users/marco

is a Swedish supercar company that you've probably never heard of. They make the CCR1, the beautiful orange car to the left, which goes from 0-100km in 3.2 seconds and tops out at "395+ km/h (242+ mph)". It reaches "806 HP at 5900 RPM" for maximum power output. Being European, it doesn't... ]]>

is a Swedish supercar company that you've probably never heard of. They make the CCR1, the beautiful orange car to the left, which goes from 0-100km in 3.2 seconds and tops out at "395+ km/h (242+ mph)". It reaches "806 HP at 5900 RPM" for maximum power output. Being European, it doesn't even guzzle gas to the extreme amount you would expect -- about normal for an American car ("13 l/100 km" (about 20MPG highway) -- see "A gallon of gas" for info on Euro/US conversion). There are a lot more "technical details" about the car available here. [image]Another amazing car is the "Bugatti Veyron" , which delivers an unbelievable 1001HP! The Bugatti home page is made with Flash and doesn't allow easy linking, but "How the Bugatti Veyron Works" article is most excellent. This car sports a W-16 engine (more on that later) and does "0-100km in 3 seconds" and tops out at "250+ mph (400+ kph)". It can be yours for about a million bucks. The engine is basically two overlapping V-8 engines "merged ... onto one another, and then let both of them share the same crankshaft" and voila! A 16-cylinder engine! They draw on their F-1 racing experience a lot to get make an engine that uses "1.33 gallons of gasoline per minute" at peak output, but that it is a relatively reasonable size: "710 mm (27 inches) long, 889 mm (35 inches) wide and 730 mm (28.7 inches) high". They use a super turbocharger to compress inflow to "a maximum turbo boost of 18 PSI to double the output power" and reduce engine size "to a more manageable 8 liters". You should really check out the Bugatti site's video section to see how the engine was put together and to see the "intricate internal oil path to ensure proper lubrication and cooling". It's really well done. This car rounds out with "full-time all-wheel drive" (of course, you wouldn't be able to control the damned thing any other way) and seven gears. For a million bucks, you also get a fine-looking all-leather interior -- hell maybe they even throw in a year's supply of Turtle Wax products for free. [image]The final car rounding out this review is the new Mazda RX-8. The Mazda site is also chock-full-o-Flash and doesn't allow linking, but I'll do my best. It's a lot more affordable at about "$30,000" and doesn't really qualify for super-car status. It's a sports car, but unique in two ways: it's a 4-passenger sports car and it has a rotary engine. They can fit in four passengers because the engine is smaller and more efficient. The rotary engine was actually invented at the beginning of the 20th century by "Dr. Felix Wankel". Again, "How Rotary Engines Work" comes to the rescue with a wealth of information. It was decades before manufacturing techniques were advanced enough to mass-produce this type of engine reliably, and Mazda has been involved with them for decades. The latest incarnation, called Renesis, is a "two-rotor engine [that] produce[s] about 250 horsepower". Though a rotary engine still has a "four-stroke combustion cycle" (intake, compression, combustion, exhaust), it doesn't have any cylinders at all, avoiding loss of efficiency when converting from longitudinal to rotational power. [image]"The Four Strokes" (How Rotary Engines Work: Producing Power) has a great Flash animation showing how the engine works. The picture to the right is from the Mazda website and shows the inside of the RX-8 engine. As the rotor circles the central shaft, the three chambers created where its points touch the engine walls change size. As the chamber grows, it passes an intake; the reduced pressure sucks air into the chamber. As it continues, the chamber shrinks, remaining sealed on both sides against the engine wall, compressing the air. At maximum compression, the chamber encounters two spark plugs, which fire in rapid succession to push the rotor onwards. Finally, it passes the exhaust port and, compressing again, forces the exhaust out, ready to continue past the intake again. "The rotary engine has far fewer moving parts than a comparable four-stroke piston engine. A two-rotor rotary engine has three main moving parts: the two rotors and the output shaft. Even the simplest four-cylinder piston engine has at least 40 moving parts, including pistons, connecting rods, camshaft, valves, valve springs, rockers, timing belt, timing gears and crankshaft." Because of this and other factors, a rotor engine is much more efficient and quiter than a cylinder engine, but more difficult to manufacture. Mazda's site has a history of their development, detailing problems with sealing against the chamber walls and heavy damage due to rotor chatter. Those problems are behind them and the current Renesis runs hundreds of thousands of miles without any chatter marks at all. So it's no $1Million 1001HP supercar Bugatti supercar or a Swedish exotic no one's ever heard of, but, at $30,000, you might actually be allowed to test-drive one if you ask nicely. Good luck! ]]> https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=946 2004-05-06T22:16:32+02:00 https://earthli.com/users/marco

. The "15-minute film" is sponsored by "a nonprofit group that distributes films promoting social causes and human rights" and simply shows people... ]]>

. The "15-minute film" is sponsored by "a nonprofit group that distributes films promoting social causes and human rights" and simply shows people sending their opinions to the White House via public phone. "This is the worst administration I've ever known," said Michael, a software developer who lives in the Village. "You're leading the country in the wrong direction." Though we here at earthli News have a hard time seeing how this gets "...people to see the difference between the two parties and get out and vote", we also applaud any and all involvement in politics. Here's hoping you ruined Bush's day. ]]> https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=938 2004-04-16T22:56:11+02:00 https://earthli.com/users/marco

. The main site's at "TV Turnoff Network" and is a spinoff of "Adbusters" . It's a good idea and I've got just the challenge I need this week: the second season of 24 is playing 2 or 3 hours per week on a local... ]]>

. The main site's at "TV Turnoff Network" and is a spinoff of "Adbusters" . It's a good idea and I've got just the challenge I need this week: the second season of 24 is playing 2 or 3 hours per week on a local German channel. I've watched the first 14 hours or so over the last 5 or 6 weeks. I don't watch a lot of TV anyway -- I'm debating what the significance of skipping 24 this week would be. I'm sure everybody's got a similar thing, but this is kind of like deliberately going to dinner in the middle of a movie. A comment, "Oldmanmurray said it best" reminded of that late, great website, which is still running an archive and has the original article, "Bi-weekly roundup" . Their take on people who don't watch TV is probably indeed the best: "People who don't watch TV love to mention it and never fail to pair that statement with the fact that they read books too. But as long as they're patting themselves on the back for simply not doing something, it seems to me that there are lots of worse things you could be taking credit for not doing. For instance, next time someone decides to lord over you the fact that he doesn't watch TV, go ahead and tell him "Good for you!" Then while everyone around you is reflecting on his massive intellect, up the awful-things-you-don't-do ante by mentioning that you don't rape people and then add that you watch lots of television instead. Not only does that make you a better person - after all what kind of psychotic jerkoff wastes his time not watching TV when he could be busy not commiting violent sex crimes? - but it gives you sort of an air of barely suppressed operatic rage, which makes you more like Batman." "Area man constantly mentioning he doesn't own a television" did something similar, but not rude enough to quote. ]]> https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=918 2004-04-04T15:02:21+02:00 https://earthli.com/users/marco

(Sorry --- No a la Carte Cable: Channel Packaging Is So Much Cheaper, Incredulous Senators Are Told) explains that the same people are hard at work making sure your cable bill never, ever goes down. What is "a... ]]>

(Sorry --- No a la Carte Cable: Channel Packaging Is So Much Cheaper, Incredulous Senators Are Told) explains that the same people are hard at work making sure your cable bill never, ever goes down. What is "a La Carte Cable"? Imagine, if you would, a world in which you only pay for things you actually want and use. As a cable-consumer advocate put it: "When I go to the grocery store to buy a quart of milk, I don't have to buy a package of celery and a bunch of broccoli." The cable-subscription model we're all familiar with forces you to do just that; if you want ESPN, you probably have to order a "package that includes MTV, FX, MSNBC and 33 other channels." Cox Communications Inc. President's reasoning is selfless: "Expensive set-top boxes would be needed to give consumers the pick-and-choose capability, and the upgrade could cost the industry billions of dollars. Companies would inevitably be forced to pass on some or all of the expense to subscribers." Translation: cable companies are just trying to prevent our silly demands from costing us too much; they're just here to protect us from ourselves. Why do you have to have new set-top boxes? They already do a great job of preventing HBO from showing up if you haven't paid for it; can't the same be done for every channel? It's really just a billing system change, not an infrastructure change; don't be fooled. Cable companies are ready with further logical ripostes to arguments against the current model, maintaining that "[u]nder the current system, consumers effectively subsidize less-popular channels, ... provid[ing] diversity in the cable and satellite universe." Let's tackle that one bit at a time. Diversity? It's exactly the lack of diversity that makes subscribers want to dump large swaths of channels that all look alike and they never watch. Subsidizing? Since when do American corporations, much less large media conglamerates, support this type of socialist business model? If subscribers cared about diversity, they would pay for it, no? (just playing devil's advocate here, ... I personally think non-profitable entertainment is a necessity in a society). Cable companies gladly hide behind the 'diversity' shield while forcing consumers to purchase dozens of channels they don't want in order to get the ones they want. The channels are usually strategically placed in different packages to ensure you buy more than one. Since you're buying a package of channels, you naturally can be charged much more than if you purchased only a single channel; it's your choice not to watch the other channels. These types of arguments, including those that the system would cost astronomical amounts and that the cost, unfortunately, would have to pass to the consumer, are all a smokescreen. The real problem, from a cable company's standpoint, comes when a subscriber could actually get only ten channels at a dollar apiece per month (with perhaps a flat service fee for cable on top). That subscriber just went from $60 a month for cable to $30. That's the reason we're seeing such resistance to this; given the actual choice of paying 1 or 2 bucks a month for most channels, people would quickly narrow right down to the 15 or 20 channels they actually watch and that would hit profit margins pretty quickly. Another interesting side-effect would be that more channels would experience the "HBO-effect" (ever notice the shows people talk about most are on HBO?) -- they'd be forced to create better, more interesting content because people would be purchasing them directly. Higher-quality entertainment as a result of market forces -- that's the capitalist way, isn't it? ]]> https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=920 2004-04-01T20:11:57+02:00 https://earthli.com/users/marco

), the Democrat and Republican parties have officially merged into one organization. The move was ostensibly made to cut down on administration and production costs and does not mean the two parties themselves cease to exist; it just means Kerry and... ]]>

), the Democrat and Republican parties have officially merged into one organization. The move was ostensibly made to cut down on administration and production costs and does not mean the two parties themselves cease to exist; it just means Kerry and Bush might be sharing the same TV studio when filming mud-slinging commercials. RNC Chairman Ed Gillespie explains: "...this move has nothing to do with ideology -- it's simply a matter of good business ... [if] we can provide the same wide range of choices to the American people for less cost, it's a win-win situation." Whereas the parties will contain to exist and campaign separately, they will share "federal funding for administrative costs" and have even compromised on a new logo to represent the new, hybrid organization. This final merging of the two remaining parties in the US is seen by many in government as the "holy grail of Democracy ... what could be more Democratic than everyone agreeing all [of] the time?" [image] The situation is, of course, portrayereplublicat.pngd by both parties as a win for voters, though it's more likely going to limit choice as the parties' ideologies continue to merge. In fact, that's even one of the reasons cited by officials from both parties for merging. As Jackson Dunn, the DNC Finance Director put it: "...you can barely tell the difference now anyway, why not let us save some time and money while we're at it?". It may indeed make things clearer and easier for the American voter (after all, who hasn't been confused by the myriad parties in foreign elections?), but this is exactly the kind of short-term thinking that sounds the final death knell for Democracy in America. With Democratic ideology constantly swinging further and further right, always seeking the middle, political thought in America has pretty much coalesced into a narrow world-view. However, there were still two major parties. Now, despite complicated explanations to the contrary, only one remains. Joe Voter isn't going to know where his vote is going and more coalescence is likely to follow as the organization finds its feet. In fact, the Republicans could have never simply legislated Democrats out of existence, but are now free to swallow the Democratic wing whole and simultaneously shed the bad press associated with their old name, a la "Altria" . The two Republicrat presidential candidates are happy with the merger, citing their willingness to "compromise" and "avoid partisan politics". Ralph Nader and Noam Chomsky were not available for comment as both were sobbing inconsolably at press time. ]]> https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=919 2004-03-31T23:14:25+02:00 https://earthli.com/users/marco

(the gas price crisis: president's remarks celebrating americans' patriotic privilege to invest our 'tax relief' in oil baron vacation chateaus) is, as always, a highly non-reliable... ]]>

(the gas price crisis: president's remarks celebrating americans' patriotic privilege to invest our 'tax relief' in oil baron vacation chateaus) is, as always, a highly non-reliable news source, but they did include a fake quote from Bush that caught my attention: "Vice President Cheney and I know the oil industry inside and out. In fact, one of the reasons a near-majority of Americans voted for us was they believed that with two petrochemical superstars at the helm of this great national supertanker which is the US of A, we would never suffer the indignity of having to spend as much for a gallon of gasoline as we do for a cup of Dunkin' Donuts coffee. And yet here we are. Funny how life throws you curveballs, ain't it? (emphasis added)" That got me thinking -- you've got a country full of people staggering from one Starbucks to the next, ready and willing to pay $4.50 for a cup of coffee. This same crowd screams at the top of their lungs should gas prices rise as much as a penny or three per gallon. Now that gas is about $1.80 per gallon (I know, I know, that's the national average and people from civilized parts of America are paying way more), you're still getting about 3 gallons of gas for every cup of coffee you buy. That's a bargain when you think of the effort that goes into harvesting and refining the oil -- to say nothing of the environmental cost. [How the US stacks up vs. Europe] People say Europeans pay way more for gas; let's see how much more. Since summer always means higher gas prices (people travel more, demand is up, oil companies reap the benefits -- every summer), and prices are expected to reach $3.50 in some places, let's see how an American measures up to a European. Since I only have empirical data for Switzerland (the gas station on the corner) and they're not part of the EU, we'll just have to settle. 1L = CHF1.35 1Gal = 3.79L CHF1.35 = $1.05 (rate for March 31, 2004 found at "Oanda" ) 1L = $1.05 1Gal = $3.99 So, there you have it. If gas gets 2.2 times as expensive as it's ever been in the States, it will cost as much as European gas. While we're at it, let's see how much gas you're probably going to need. In Europe, a small car uses about about 5L/100Km (Polo, etc.). A sportier thing with more carrying capacity might use 12L/100Km (Passat, etc.). Let's take the average and go with 8.5L/100Km. This assumes that just as many people drive tiny, super fuel-efficient cars as sportier, mega-horsepower cars. OK. Since over half the fleet of America is SUVs and light trucks, we can take the bottom gas mileage of about 12Mi/Gal and take the mileage of a car like a Honda Civic, which has about 35Mi/Gal. The average then should be about 23.5MPG. That's without taking into account that manufacturers get these numbers in ideal conditions; road conditions are lower, by "10 percent for city mileage and 22 percent for highway mileage". See "Fuel mileage data overstated, some say" for more information. After all of that work, I found a report, "US 2001 vehicle mileage falls to 20-year low - EPA" , which pegged the "average of all 2001 model vehicles [at] 20.4 mpg". We'll go with that number because I know it hasn't improved in the last 3 years. Let's do some more math now: 1Gal = 3.79L 1.6Km = 1Mi 8.5L = 2.24Gal 100Km = 62.5Mi 8.5L/100Km = 27.9Mi/Gal Looks like the average European car is about 40% more efficient than an American car. Back to the math: CH = 62.5Mi = (2.24Gal @ $3.99) = $8.93 US = 62.5Mi = (3.06Gal @ $1.80) = $5.51 So Americans are still paying way less at the pump than Europeans. Let's play with a few more hypotheticals: the price two years ago was about a dollar a gallon in most places. How does that stack up? US = 62.5Mi = (3.06Gal @ $1.00) = $3.06 Now, what if you drive one of those gas-guzzling SUVs and you get about 10MPG? US = 62.5Mi = (6.12Gal @ $1.80) = $11.06 US = 62.5Mi = (6.12Gal @ $1.00) = $6.12 (2 years ago) So, if you were driving an SUV that guzzles gas in a sickening fashion two years ago, you were paying about 70% of what a European was paying for a car that was almost 3 times as efficient. It's only with today's skyrocketing gas prices that you're actually paying more for your gas-guzzling tank. ]]> https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=891 2004-02-15T20:40:30+01:00 https://earthli.com/users/marco

summed it up best: "[W]hat the goddamn hell is wrong with you people, it's just a breast, and did no one see Mike Ditka throwing a football through a tire to advertise erection pills? You want a disgusting image? Three words: Mike Ditka erection. Thank you and good night." ]]> https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=878 2004-01-11T23:22:11+01:00 https://earthli.com/users/marco

talks... ]]>

talks about a new "Reversible Inhibition of Sperm Under Guidance", an injectable contraceptive for men "developed by professor Sujoy K. Guha, an Indian researcher of biomedical engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology". Even though you may have never heard of him or his drug, he has been testing it on men "for more than 25 years": "The entire procedure is virtually painless and becomes effective within one hour of injection. There are no known side effects, aside from slight swelling immediately after the injection. Guha reports some of his test subjects were sexually active on the same day they received the injection. None of the men who has tested RISUG has gotten a woman pregnant." You may be thinking, "Sounds great, where/when can I get it?". If you live in the States or Canada, the answer is nowhere/never. Even though it's completely reversible, "renders a man infertile for six to 15 years", has never failed in 25 years of testing and has no side-effects, there is a big problem with it: it's too cheap. Hardcore, free-market countries always use their free markets to allow corporations to offer products to consumers, allowing the best, most desired product to freely evolve from those consumers' needs and desires. Therefore, if you're wrongheaded (read: communist or terrorist) enough to think some things should simply be provided by the government, you're wrong. If health care is best provided by corporations savagely competing with one another to give you the best care for the best price (this level of sarcasm is getting difficult to maintain, even for me), then contraception more so. The fact that a large portion of the country would benefit immensely from non-invasive, non-hormonal, non-forgettable birth control doesn't enter into it: all (legal) drugs in a truly advanced society must be profitable to the purveyor. Now that we have the ground rules of the society we live in established, anyone can see what the problem is. Let's use the US as an example: the FDA approval process costs " $20 million to $70 million" and "10-15 years". No corporation is going to push a drug through this process in order to be able to sell one dose per male every 6 to 15 years. See how that works? So, even though 'The Pill' involves hormones, pharmaceutical companies continue to pour money into their development, because they must be taken every day and involve good, solid, old-fashioned, repeat business. "In the Western world, men will soon have the option of controlling their fertility with hormones. Weiss says he guesses the male pill will be on the market in five to 10 years." So, whereas "men in parts of the developing world may be able to use [RISUG]", getting a single (until now) failsafe injection, Western men will get to bloat, experience mood swings and other wonderful side-effects as they take a pill every day. So, if you're tired of having your choices limited, or don't relish the thought of being laughed at by the rest of the world (excluding Europe and Canada, this time :-), book a trip to India in the next couple of years and stop by a local clinic. ]]> https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=871 2003-12-25T11:42:15+01:00 https://earthli.com/users/marco

highlights two completely inadvertent examples of high comedy. Apparently, George Pataki has pardoned Lenny Bruce of his obscenity charge 37 years after his death. Unfortunately, that's a little late to prevent the US government from having... ]]>

highlights two completely inadvertent examples of high comedy. Apparently, George Pataki has pardoned Lenny Bruce of his obscenity charge 37 years after his death. Unfortunately, that's a little late to prevent the US government from having hounded a man to his death for having an unsanctioned sense of humor. For those bits of high comedy, you have to read his announcement: "Freedom of speech is one of the greatest American liberties, and I hope this pardon serves as a reminder of the precious freedoms we are fighting to preserve as we continue to wage the war on terror." Yes, that's right. Bruce wasn't pardoned because our government actually believes that he had a right to do what he did, but because his conviction on obscenity charges were uncomfortably too similar to charges an Islamic government might level against its own people. So the charge was repealed 37 years after his death as a remarkably bold show of First-Amendment support by our incredibly principled government in order to distance our great land from the Muslimoid hordes on the other side of the world. Can someone please write a single, fucking article that doesn't use the word "terror" in it? In a show of dry wit almost previously unknown to the old gray lady, the Times noted: "Being dead, Mr. Bruce is not expected to reap any immediate benefit from the pardon." All the other pundits and sources have a predictably exhuberant take on Republican Pataki's pardon, making the most of it as a single step that forgive all of the other rights that have slid away recently: "There is only one reason for Governor Pataki to do this: for the principle of the thing. ... Indeed, Governor Pataki's decision to pardon a symbol of the left came during a year in which he took many actions to shore up his Republican and conservative credentials, including supporting the Bush administration's antiterrorism efforts, like the Patriot Act, which some civil libertarians see as a threat to the Bill of Rights." Indeed, Pataki is a shining beacon in a world of darkness: he supported all of the other anti-First Amendment measures, but his pardoning of a man 37 years dead, who was convicted under unconstitutional laws, is more than enough for the NY Times to paint him as a champion of freedom of speech. Not to be too much of a bitch about it (as if!), but note that at the end of the previous quote, they make sure to let you know that only those crazy-ass 'civil libertarians' have any problems with the Patriot Act -- never mind that the literal translation of 'civil liberatarian' is actually anyone who thinks that people should be able to do more or less what they want, as long as they don't harm anyone else. This is a rather larger group of people than that suggested by the name, no? They even dug up his daughter to dole out some fat quotes that would probably kill Lenny all over again: "Isn't this wonderful? Isn't this a great day in America? ... This is what America is all about." Yes indeed, Ma'am, that is what America is all about. Take a harmless comic with views differing from those of the ruling elite, hound him and convict him of a crime under harsh, Puritanical law, keep hammering on his fragile psyche for years until his will-to-live crumbles and he succumbs to drugs. Then, pardon him 37 years later for political advantage. I've got a warm feeling all over. I'm sure Thomas Jefferson and Ben Franklin are smiling down on this fair land today. ]]> https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=833 2003-08-18T00:23:57+02:00 https://earthli.com/users/marco

(Elite Force Aviator: George W. Bush - U.S. President and Naval Aviator - 12-inch Action Figure). It's not Bush in the oval office or gazing with steely resolve into the distance; it's Bush dressed up as a fighter pilot and designated as an "Elite Force Aviator". Go to the link and read the text; it's not a... ]]>

(Elite Force Aviator: George W. Bush - U.S. President and Naval Aviator - 12-inch Action Figure). It's not Bush in the oval office or gazing with steely resolve into the distance; it's Bush dressed up as a fighter pilot and designated as an "Elite Force Aviator". Go to the link and read the text; it's not a joke. A more fitting symbol of the deep illness of America society would be hard to find. A wonderful sign of the hope for American society would be if people boycotted KB toys because of this. I hope they don't sell a single one. ]]> https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=476 2003-03-12T10:31:57+01:00 https://earthli.com/users/marco

I learned a new word today; it means "the study of flags". I was pointed to a cool site by a "Plastic" post, "New EU Logo Looks Like TV Test Pattern" about an article pointing out "EU may get new 'bar-code' logo" on "Ananova" . The logo has not been accepted yet (nor is it likely to be, if you look to the... ]]>

I learned a new word today; it means "the study of flags". I was pointed to a cool site by a "Plastic" post, "New EU Logo Looks Like TV Test Pattern" about an article pointing out "EU may get new 'bar-code' logo" on "Ananova" . The logo has not been accepted yet (nor is it likely to be, if you look to the left). The current logo is 12 stars in an circle (like a clock face) over a blue background. "EU rejects call to change flag" (also on "Ananova" ) reports: "All the ideas put forward at our meeting have been welcomed with interest, but we did not commission a design for a new flag and there is no intention of replacing the current one" said a Commission spokesman." One of the Plastic posts pointed out "The world's flags given letter grades" , which grades every flag in the world by several criteria, like "Rule 1: Do not write the name of your country on your flag" or "Rule 3: Do not use a tricolour unless you are in Europe". Read up on his "methodology" before heading over to the grades (sorted by "name" or "grade" ). Notably, "Pakistan" , "Switzerland" and "Turkey" all got an A. "China" got a B ("too many stars"). Only 3 flags got an F: "Guam" , "U.S. Virgin Islands" and "Northern Mariana Islands" . Take a look. The grade is well deserved in all three cases. They all look like some potentate's cousin who got kicked a bit too hard during milking one morning "won" the contract to design their flags. The "United States" got a C+, rated as "too many stars" and "too busy". ]]> https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=760 2003-01-13T23:31:22+01:00 https://earthli.com/users/marco

There's a new world record holder for largest rollercoaster: the "Top Thrill Dragster" at Cedar Point in Ohio is "420 feet" (128 meters) high. It shoots up a "90 degree", pure vertical climb into a 400 foot vertical drop that takes you from 0 to almost 120MpH (193KpH) in just "4 seconds". The ride was... ]]>

There's a new world record holder for largest rollercoaster: the "Top Thrill Dragster" at Cedar Point in Ohio is "420 feet" (128 meters) high. It shoots up a "90 degree", pure vertical climb into a 400 foot vertical drop that takes you from 0 to almost 120MpH (193KpH) in just "4 seconds". The ride was manufactured by "Intamin AG of Wollerau, Switzerland", and they say the Swiss are boring. The whole thing is basically a "long loop that has one end vertical" . The cars are "look like dragsters" and each train holds up to 14 people. The ride starts flat, using a hydraulic propulsion system to get up to 120MpH on the flat, then shooting up the vertical track. It twists 270° and comes back down, hitting top speed again. All in 20 seconds. ]]> https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=755 2002-12-30T16:12:44+01:00 https://earthli.com/users/marco

. You may have thought that it was ridiculous since the character is complete digitized; nothing of the actor himself remains. However, "The Next" ... ]]>

. You may have thought that it was ridiculous since the character is complete digitized; nothing of the actor himself remains. However, "The Next Reel - December 18, 2002" on "Green Cine" has a very good (and long) article about the filming. The last page, "Gollum" , contains a lengthy explanation of how this character was brought to the screen and was so life-like. The actor, Andy Serkis... "was in the shots with Frodo and Sam; we filmed him. And he'd be doing Gollum, down on all fours, he'd be reacting, saying his lines, working out the timings with them. Everything would be natural, would feel like he wasn't a special effect because, of course, he wasn't at that point. It was Andy Serkis in a leotard, playing out the drama of the scenes." The reason they think he should get an Oscar is because every natural action you see Gollum performing comes from Andy. The animations were laid right on top of the actor and the actor himself was simply edited out. "If Andy decided to suddenly pull his hand back because he was frightened, then Gollum's hand would go back." His motions were also captured with a "motion capture suit", so even other movements added in later were mapped from his physical frame. "Also, with the close-ups, we modeled Gollum's face to look like Andy because we wanted every expression that Andy pulled as an actor doing the performance reflected in a computer Gollum that would actually look like Andy." So, in fact, the actor was extremely involved in the final product. It's just that he's been replaced by a stylized digital image; it's more a form of digital make-up than anything else and all credit for believability and for the incredible performance goes to him. ]]> https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=718 2002-11-22T09:16:35+01:00 https://earthli.com/users/marco

(Cretinous clerks, --- woolly-headed waiters, angst-ridden attendants --- you just can't get good help these days.) on "Salon" by Mary Elizabeth Williams, you find yourself agreeing with her. Her tales of "rude, pathological or clueless service people" resonate with our own experiences. It's an article about what it's like to exist in a world supported by service industry... ]]>

(Cretinous clerks, --- woolly-headed waiters, angst-ridden attendants --- you just can't get good help these days.) on "Salon" by Mary Elizabeth Williams, you find yourself agreeing with her. Her tales of "rude, pathological or clueless service people" resonate with our own experiences. It's an article about what it's like to exist in a world supported by service industry staff, and having to put up with it all. In many ways, I'm sure it sounds just like the kind of "you just can't find good help these days" griping that's accompanied the upper classes since the dawn of time. A closer examination of what she's saying, the assumptions she's making and the questions she doesn't ask quickly show that she's not at all interested in a real solution, she just wishes they would stop being so noticeable in their misery: "Frankly, I don't give a rat's ass. All I know is that I'm pretty sure that whatever his current job description, it doesn't include making me painfully aware he is capable of much much more." And isn't that what's always been required of the menial lower classes? Granted, these people are being paid to perform a service, but do most people realize how carefully those service jobs have been created to maximize their economic efficiency with no regard whatsoever to the psychological state of the person that will have to fulfill the job? Do you realize that most of these jobs have phenomenal turnover rates because they are unbelievably boring, have no insurance, pay at or less than minimum wage, which, in New York, isn't anything approaching a living wage, and provide no training or possibility of advancement. Exactly what is the incentive for people to do a job well, when the moniker "wage slave" ceases to be a metaphor, for all practical purposes? I mean, honestly, how shallow do you have to be where you don't even consider the possibility that people do their jobs poorly not because "everyone but you and your brilliant friends are complete idiots", but perhaps because something is fundamentally broken in society? There are those who try to do a good job at minimum-wage jobs, but the system eventually will take these souls as well, and create jaded uncaring workers out of them. The corporations that provide the slew of minimum-wage service jobs (which now comprises almost 90% of the new job market in the US) have no interest in providing good service -- at least not before creating more profit. When you see how many jobs are at this minimum-wage service level, you see that quite large corporations, like Walmart and McDonald's have a vested interest in keeping the minimum wage low, despite the fact that in most larger urban areas, it can't possibly even support a single person, much less a family -- this despite the fact that it is a full-time job. "So now we once again roam freely in a world in which we have to tell the bartender how to make a cosmopolitan, where we hand out business cards with our correct phone numbers handwritten above Kinko's interpretative version. And to preserve the shreds of our sanity, we talk about it constantly." You'll note that the whole article focuses, laser-like, on the burden that the upper class carries, putting up with bad service, without asking which sort of places are they frequenting? Coffee shops, fast food places, all franchised and owned by enormous corporations who learned long ago that providing bad service to customers doesn't have nearly the affect on the bottom line that the self-same bad service does on increased profits. "I know that people have rich and complicated lives outside of selling handbags or hostessing at Chi Chi's. I'm not trying to hold anybody back; it's just that for the business at hand, we don't need to exchange SAT scores." In effect, she damns these service people for being human, and not being able to slough off the weight of their problems for most of the day. She damns them for perhaps, in a small way, tickling her conscience, making her wonder whether perhaps she does benefit from a system that chews people up and spits them out. And she resents them for reminding her. Does anyone like to think about the fact that, as a group, waitstaff in a restaurant are mysteriously exempted from being paid minimum wage? Can we wonder where the incentive is to do a good job? In the tips? Why must they rely on the kindness of strangers instead of being simply paid as other jobs are? The explanation will usually lie with powerful Restauranters of America lobbies or something similar. Another article at "Salon" called "Sunnyside down" (A new book gives waitresses a chance to say what they really think of their work --- and their customers.) is about a book written by a waitress, called Hey, Waitress!, appropriately enough. As you may expect, waitresses, in general aren't treated very well. Perhaps that adds to the poor service. Perhaps because "[m]ost of these women are paid $2 an hour by their legal employers so their livelihood depends on tips". Again, I ask, how is this possible? Why are restaurants exempted from paying minimum wage? They benefit from all sides in this: 1. They pay less than minimum wage, so... 2. Their prices are lower on the menu, so their fare is more enticing to the consumer, but... 3. The consumer still has to make up the difference with a tip in the end... 4. Not to mention that taxes are also never included "Virtually every rule of etiquette is violated by customers in their interaction with the waitress: the waitress can be interrupted; she can be addressed with the mouth full; she can be ignored and stared at; and she can be subjected to unrestrained anger." And still, Ms. Williams, above, is mystified as to why she gets bad service. Actually, that's a mischaracterization. It seems obvious that Ms. Williams gave no thought whatsoever as to why the service situation is as bad as it is. To me, this is worse than coming up with false premises or coming to the wrong conclusion. This is abdicating responsibility to even think about a solution at all. This is bitching just to bitch. The advice at the end of the review of "Hey, Waitress" is, of course, pandering to the waitress, again without attempting a solution of the real problem. "One waitress describes putting up with being literally prodded and jabbed all night because "my tip depended on staying meek."" Tips dehumanize a waitress (or waiter). The article's suggestion to "tip twenty percent even if she forgot your order completely" doesn't solve any problem. That's the kind of solution that suits the restaurant fine because it doesn't involve actually making a real job of waiting tables. The rationale that waitresses working for tips makes them friendlier and better somehow fails to apply to every other job in the world, and yet the logic is still put forth as proven and infallible. Tips should be abolished completely as an illogical growth from the past. ]]> https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=578 2002-08-09T00:10:29+02:00 https://earthli.com/users/marco

has an article called "A Circle Jerk Of L33t 8ull5h1t" , which is about the increasing tendency of a portion of the computing culture to use an extremely abbreviated shorthand typing language to communicate electronically. To some, like the author of "o my fkng gd" , this is an abhorrent... ]]>

has an article called "A Circle Jerk Of L33t 8ull5h1t" , which is about the increasing tendency of a portion of the computing culture to use an extremely abbreviated shorthand typing language to communicate electronically. To some, like the author of "o my fkng gd" , this is an abhorrent bastardization of the English language. That's almost an oxymoron, though, isn't it? English is probably one of the least consistent, bastardized languages already. Where do you think 'quake, shake, quiver, shiver' all came from, if not through mis-spelling? [more examples] To others, like this comment, "Well ... I think I disagree a little with folks" , which is really well written and makes many good points, it's a natural evolution such as English continues to undergo every day. It's always the same thing, though: "ok, I've learned how this works now, so stop changing it and I don't have to learn anymore. I know what's going on, all change is bad starting now." That's a bad philosophy in any case, but a positively laughable one when defending the English language. Have you ever objectively examined you you spell in English? Do you ever think about the grammar rules we take for granted? It makes no sense at all right now...how is this new truncated spelling any worse? At least it strives for some phonetic spelling instead of this guessing (silent 'e', two 's's) that you have to do in order to spell now. ]]> https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=593 2002-07-26T17:21:33+02:00

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on "Ars Technica" was incredibly positive about "Universal Music, the largest of the world's big five record labels, [releasing] about 1,000 of its hard-to-find back catalog albums through its online music subscription subsidiary, EMusic.com". They refer to an article on "SFGate" that... ]]>

on "Ars Technica" was incredibly positive about "Universal Music, the largest of the world's big five record labels, [releasing] about 1,000 of its hard-to-find back catalog albums through its online music subscription subsidiary, EMusic.com". They refer to an article on "SFGate" that first broke the news, "Universal Music provides alternative to file sharing..." (Universal Music provides alternative to file sharing: Rare old albums can be bought, downloaded on EMusic.com) For those of you that are into music and are having trouble finding good-quality music on Gnutella, this looks like a viable, for-pay alternative. There are "about 1,000 of its hard-to-find back catalog albums" and, in a surprise move away from DRM enforcement, there is no copy protection on the music, which allows "...the downloaded tracks to be burned onto recordable CDs or transferred to a portable digital audio player". ""EMusic.com" , which charges $10 to $15 per month for a subscription, will offer Universal's jazz, pop and classic hits from the 1950s, 1960s and early 1970s. The artists include Olivia Newton-John, Aretha Franklin, B.B. King, Gladys Knight, Oingo Boingo, Chuck Berry and Pat Boone." If that's the kind of music you're into, then it seems that the subscription is completely worth it. The only drawback is that it costs money and "all the MP3s are at 128k". That's not too bad...sometimes it's amazing the hours you can waste trying to find music on the 'gray' market of the Gnutella network. If you're still not sure, you can sign up, browse the library for free and you get "50 ... free trial downloads". Of course, you have to cancel within 14 days or you'll get charged a subscription, but there are at least a few happy customers out there; as Hannibal of Ars Technica says: "it took me about an hour on a fat Internet pipe to get my money's worth for the entire year." Check it out for yourself at "EMusic" . ]]> https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=470 2002-05-01T18:00:34+02:00 https://earthli.com/users/marco

Here's a great reference site with scanned images of currencies from all around the world. It's called "Ron Wise's ... Paper Money" (Ron Wise's Geographical Directory Of World Paper Money). Clicking through the continents, there seems to be unbelievable coverage here, with over 70 bills just from Tonga alone, for example. The one to the left is the... ]]>

Here's a great reference site with scanned images of currencies from all around the world. It's called "Ron Wise's ... Paper Money" (Ron Wise's Geographical Directory Of World Paper Money). Clicking through the continents, there seems to be unbelievable coverage here, with over 70 bills just from Tonga alone, for example. The one to the left is the beautiful 50 Gulden note ("back side" ) from the Netherlands, which is, of course, no longer legal tender in that country with their conversion to the "Euro" . If you look at the "replacement" , you'll have to agree that that's a pity. ]]> https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=337 2002-01-27T11:12:36+01:00 https://earthli.com/users/marco

has a "Marijuana Special Report" that covers "Decriminalization" , "Addictiveness" and "affects on memory" . Most people think of marijuana users as dreamers with the attention span of a gnat and no memory worth the name. Wrong. The picture emerging from psychology labs is that there is... ]]>

has a "Marijuana Special Report" that covers "Decriminalization" , "Addictiveness" and "affects on memory" . Most people think of marijuana users as dreamers with the attention span of a gnat and no memory worth the name. Wrong. The picture emerging from psychology labs is that there is at most a kernel of truth in this stereotype, while some studies find no evidence of even subtle mental impairment in heavy users. And even those that do are open to a range of interpretations -- not necessarily worrying to marijuana users. The World Health Organization is also more recently complicit in the promulgation of the myths of marijuana. Officials have recently "tried to suppress" their first official report in 15 years on the subject because it shows that "cannabis is safer than alcohol or tobacco." This was obviously not the point of the study, so the "good science" of popular politics deemed that it be thrown out. According to a document leaked to New Scientist, the analysis concludes not only that the amount of dope smoked worldwide does less harm to public health than drink and cigarettes, but that the same is likely to hold true even if people consumed dope on the same scale as these legal substances. In similar news, "Disinformation" published "Crystal Myths: Methamphetamines & Misinformation" , debunking some of the more popular myths about speed. Once again, the issue of addictiveness is covered, as well as usage by the government for soldiers. If speed is so addicting, where are the "addicted" recipients of over 200 million amphetamine tablets consumed by GI’s in World War II? If there were any problems then it is extremely doubtful that Uncle Sam would upgrade to meth (six times stronger) and churn it out in even greater quantities in Korea and Vietnam? ... More amphetamines were used - and abused - by American soldiers in Vietnam in 1965-68 than by the combined Allied and Axis combatants in World War II. Head over to "Humor" to see "Doonesbury compare cigarettes and marijuana" . ]]> https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=241 2001-12-10T11:25:35+01:00 https://earthli.com/users/marco

like a pro. There are a lot of Java animations that you can rotate with your mouse and play to show how each step of his method is done. His method involves solving the cube, not layers of the... ]]>

like a pro. There are a lot of Java animations that you can rotate with your mouse and play to show how each step of his method is done. His method involves solving the cube, not layers of the cube: Most people solve the cube layer by layer. This is a simple way for the human mind to approach the problem, but it is useless for speed cubing. No matter how good you are, you will use more than 100 moves. ... The basic problem with the layer method is obvious, and very big. When you have completed the first layer, you can do nothing without breaking it up. So you break it, do something useful, then restore it. Break it, do something, restore it. Again and again. In a good solution you do something useful all the time. This layer is in the way of the solution, not a part of it. ]]> https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=239 2001-12-09T16:11:52+01:00 https://earthli.com/users/marco

with step-by-step examples and small experiments to help you start approaching information with a healthy amount of skepticism. In order to be objective, you should have the same amount of skepticism for, and requirements for proof for all sources, regardless... ]]>

with step-by-step examples and small experiments to help you start approaching information with a healthy amount of skepticism. In order to be objective, you should have the same amount of skepticism for, and requirements for proof for all sources, regardless of whether you agree with the information or not. However, simply doubting everything you hear, regardless of facts, is also wrong (not to mention lazy). I highly recommend this site because it spells out the kind of questions you should be asking yourself about everything you hear. In the "Euphemisms" section, they warn of accepting a changed label as an indication of change: In the 1940's, America changed the name of the War Department to the Department of Defense. Under the Reagan Administration, the MX-Missile was renamed "The Peacekeeper." During war-time, civilian casualties are referred to as "collateral damage," and the word "liquidation" is used as a synonym for "murder." Other topics include "Name-Calling" , "Bad Logic or Propaganda?" and "Unwarranted Extrapolations" . To show how it can be used evenly, I found a good example (below). I noticed "What Really Happened" claims to have "caught Bush in a lie" . The article includes an excerpt from a December 4th press conference ("full transcript" , look near the end) in which he: ...saw an airplane hit the tower -- the TV was obviously on, and I use to fly myself, and I said, "There's one terrible pilot." And I said, "It must have been a horrible accident." What Really Happened points out that, at the time, "[t]here was no live video coverage of the first plane hitting the tower". This is true. They further claim that "Bush is lying through his teeth here". This is an exaggeration. There is a well-known phenomenon called confabulation which would account for this as well. This is the fact that the mind has a tendency to fill in past events with details that never really happened. A "study at Harvard" had an interesting experiment: Participants saw slides of action sequences that contained "effect slides"; for instance, oranges on the supermarket floor or a person cleaning wine from a restaurant table. They later received a recognition test including "cause foils"; these were slides that had not previously been presented and that represented the most likely cause for the effect slides (a person taking an orange from the bottom of the stack or a person knocking over a glass of wine). The experiment concluded that "participants had a reliable tendency to make backward causal inferential errors" (which means they claimed to have seen slides that were never presented to them). In a far-easier to read article, "How much of the world do we really see?" , the possible causes of this are discussed in more prosaic terms. It happens to everyone. Even those who lie about a lot of other things and are known not to be too bright, should still be given the benefit of the doubt. ]]> https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=183 2001-10-18T15:55:51+02:00 https://earthli.com/users/marco

at "Salon.com" spoofing the strong-arming going on in the government as bill after bill if shoved through with little to no comment and/or argument from the Senate of Congress. This "picture of a bomb signing" got coverage at "Yahoo News" . It would have been... ]]>

at "Salon.com" spoofing the strong-arming going on in the government as bill after bill if shoved through with little to no comment and/or argument from the Senate of Congress. This "picture of a bomb signing" got coverage at "Yahoo News" . It would have been pretty funny if they would have spelled hijack correctly and could have avoided disparaging 'fags' at the same time. Got to keep your message on target and let's not sully it with other bigotries, gentlemen. UPDATE: Aaron McGruder, writer of the comic strip the Boondocks, has been under attack for some of the views expressed in his strip in the last few weeks. He's even been censored in a lot of newspapers because he's not "standing behind a unified country." His latest strips are a pretty thinly veiled attempt to do just that ("Wednesday" and "Thursday" ). UPDATE: Here's a "conceptual map of the world from an American viewpoint" sent to me that might help explain that 90% approval rating for war. UPDATE: Speaking of approving the war, here's a "great cartoon" from "MNFTIU" (My New Fighting Technique Is Unstoppable). (Spoiler: it isn't really pro-war.) [Move on to Rumor:] In other news, the Pentagon is buying up as many satellite images as it can. This was first reported to me from "DAWN news" , and has a "much larger article" at "The Guardian" . This is to keep the whole operation secret so that it can't be sabotaged. It also, coincidentally, prevents us from getting the wrong ideas about what a 'military installation' is is in a country with little electricity and that is constantly on the edge of famine. For example, we can't see the "Red Cross facility" they hit this morning, which destroyed medical and food supplies. Looks like we get to find out how bad the war was after it's long over. The little 'leaks' and reports we get now can't possibly be the whole story. [Here comes Suppression:] On the same topic, "Mother Jones" has a lot of interesting articles, including this lengthy quote that I picked up from "Veggie" on the "ShackNews" messageboards (and whose text I can't find on the MJ site, so keep that in mind). It addresses how information was disseminated, managed and manufactured to properly manage public (our) opinions in our last big conflict, the Gulf War. All indications are that similar forces are at work today. "Gulf War aim: To promote public support for predetermined agendas "In the months following Operation Desert Storm, considerable evidence has emerged that the news-management strategy used by the Bush administration was designed not to enable the American people to make an objective evaluation of the events leading up to the conflict and the conduct of the war itself, but to promote public support for predetermined agendas, such as access to oil and support for controversial weapons systems. "Highlights of this evidence include: "Congressional testimony by a former Pentagon official that the Defense Department "doctored" statistics about the success rates of weapons systems in the Gulf to increase public support for the war and congressional support for additional weapons funding. "Congressional testimony by a former Pentagon adviser that the Patriot missiles were not as effective as the Defense Department claimed, and that they may have caused more damage than they prevented. "Statements by Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Merrill A. McPeak which indicate that Pentagon videos depicting laser-guided bombs hitting their targets with surgical precision -- which were shown repeatedly on the [broadcast] networks and Cable News Network -- presented a distorted view of the air war. At a postwar briefing, McPeak released statistics showing that such bombs represented 8.8 percent of the ordnance dropped by U.S. forces on Iraq. The remaining 91.2 percent of the 84,200 tons of bombs dropped by the United States during the conflict were "dumb" bombs that had no precision guidance systems. "Statements indicating that Pentagon briefer Lt. Gen. Thomas Kelly's claims during the first week of the war that bombing missions had an 80 percent success rate were misleading. After repeated questioning by reporters, Defense Department officials clarified that "success" meant a plane had taken off, released its ordnance in the area of the target, and returned to its base. "Indications that the Pentagon was unwilling to disclose what it knew about the likelihood of civilian casualties caused by U.S. and allied bombing. During Pentagon briefings, officials repeatedly stressed that U.S. planes were avoiding civilian targets, but little was said or asked about the long-range effects that the bombing of Iraq's infrastructure would have on the civilian population. A report prepared in May 1991 by a Harvard study team predicted that 170,000 Iraqi children would die within the next year as a result of the effects of the Gulf crisis. "Evidence of a sophisticated public relations campaign by private organizations and foreign groups to build support for White House policies in the Gulf. In August 1990, Hill and Knowlton -- a PR firm whose president and chief operating officer of public affairs, worldwide is Craig Fuller, Vice President Bush's chief of staff from 1985 to 1989 -- was hired by representatives of the Kuwaiti government to help sell the American people on the need for U.S. military intervention. Hill and Knowlton's president and chief executive officer, USA, Robert Dilenschneider, said in a speech that the firm's job was "to build support behind the President." One way it did this, Dilenschneider said, was by providing the media, which were "controlled by the Department of Defense very effectively," with "the kind of information that would enable them to get their job done." Hill and Knowlton was paid more than $10 million for its efforts." [Finish strong with Bias:] And lastly, speaking of biased media, we "certainly aren't the only ones doing it" . (article from "Wired.com" .) ]]> https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=176 2001-10-10T11:02:07+02:00 https://earthli.com/users/marco

called "All I Am Saying Is Give War A Chance" . If you need background music while you read it, try similar satire from Bob... ]]>

called "All I Am Saying Is Give War A Chance" . If you need background music while you read it, try similar satire from Bob Geldof, from the Vegetarians of Love (released in 1990), called "The Great Song of Indifference" . Lastly, "the Onion" urges us to let our ""Freedoms [be] Curtailed in Defense of Liberty"" . ]]> https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=169 2001-10-05T16:15:34+02:00 https://earthli.com/users/marco

is a popular comic strip created by Aaron McGruder that is available in the "New York Newsday" (and syndicated in over 200 other newspapers). When reading it this week, I got an overwhelming feeling of deja vu. The comics were repeated from a year ago. It seemed strange since there was... ]]>

is a popular comic strip created by Aaron McGruder that is available in the "New York Newsday" (and syndicated in over 200 other newspapers). When reading it this week, I got an overwhelming feeling of deja vu. The comics were repeated from a year ago. It seemed strange since there was no note saying that the 'author is on vacation' as is usual in these cases. Checking the online version of the comic strip revealed that there are comics for this week, but the Newsday isn't running them. The comics are for October "2" , "3" , "4" , "5" and counting. It's interesting where censorship crops up. These comics don't seem that incendiary, but perhaps juxtaposed with Garfield, they would offend too much readership. How's that for an objective press? ]]> https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=130 2001-10-04T11:53:34+02:00 https://earthli.com/users/marco

with the Swiss government in attempt to deal with impending bankruptcy brought on by the worldwide passenger slump following the WTC attack. However, the final solution will involve Switzerland's... ]]>

with the Swiss government in attempt to deal with impending bankruptcy brought on by the worldwide passenger slump following the WTC attack. However, the final solution will involve Switzerland's major banks, notably UBS and Credit Suisse: 'We think that it wouldn't be right for the government to participate in a solution, and we don't think that it would be necessary,' UBS Chairman Marcel Ospel said, citing regulatory reasons. On October 2, Swissair "suspended all flights" because "[w]e have no money for fuel.” On the same day, it was later decided that: The banks, UBS and Credit Suisse, will fold the airline operation into Swissair subsidiary Crossair AG, in which they bought a controlling stake for $161 million. The combined carrier will keep two-thirds of Swissair's flights and scrap the rest. About one-third of the carrier's jobs - roughly 2,600 positions - will be eliminated, with 24 planes grounded. Ticketed passengers in the last two days have "not fared well either" : Some 38,000 people were stranded worldwide and tens of thousands more held worthless tickets as Swissair desperately sought the cash to meet demands for upfront payment of fuel and airport taxes. At Zurich airport -- the worst hit by the chaos -- passengers without a flight or hotel faced the prospect of a second straight night in a nuclear bunker. This struck especially hard as Swissair was consistently rated one of the better airlines and was an enduring national symbol: The shock over the abrupt demise of Swissair was all the greater because of its reputation, built up over 70 years, as one of the world's most solid and reliable airlines. The planes all bore the Swiss emblem -- a white cross on a red background -- and were an enduring image alongside Swiss watches, chocolate and the Matterhorn. All quoted articles are from the "New York Newsday" . ]]> https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=127 2001-10-03T16:51:18+02:00

from the "Detroit Free Press" answering a lot of questions about Arab Americans. ]]>

from the "Detroit Free Press" answering a lot of questions about Arab Americans. ]]> https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=74 2001-08-21T10:17:39+02:00 https://earthli.com/users/marco

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At the end, someone asks him to 'refrain from trying to make George Bush look stupid': "...As for trying to make George W. Bush look stupid, that's not something anyone has to break a sweat "trying" to do, not with W. himself doing most of the heavy... ]]>

At the end, someone asks him to 'refrain from trying to make George Bush look stupid': "...As for trying to make George W. Bush look stupid, that's not something anyone has to break a sweat "trying" to do, not with W. himself doing most of the heavy lifting. Quoting our next Commander-And-Thief verbatim ("They misunderestimated me") makes him look plenty stupid...." ]]> https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=12 2000-06-16T10:51:00+02:00 https://earthli.com/users/marco

 for a nice analysis of a typical news report in America today. The piece is from 6/16/2000 (Today). ]]>

 for a nice analysis of a typical news report in America today. The piece is from 6/16/2000 (Today). ]]> https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=9 2000-05-18T10:54:00+02:00 https://earthli.com/users/marco

How do you vote? ]]>

How do you vote? ]]>