Friday, March 13, 2009
The Web Of Open, Linked Data
(http://www.ted.com/talks/view/id/484)
The implications of this technology for human social, economic, and political interactions will be enormous. As a specific example, think about what this sort of shared information will be able to do for market efficiency. Transactions costs across the board are going to plummet. This ought to make everyone better off.
Robert Wright And Timothy Noah On Lots Of Issues
(http://bloggingheads.tv/diavlogs/18271)
Topics covered:
Economic armageddon, up close and personal... Will a bad economy make us better people?... Tim: Obama is copying the wrong part of FDR’s program... Tim explains Obama’s health care plan to Bob... Why haven’t we been attacked since 9/11?... Are those Pakistan drone strikes worth the blowback?...
Jon Stewart Is Pretty Damn Cool
This is already linked pretty much everywhere, but I felt compelled to post it nonetheless:
Grand Old Jesters
Republican Party of Iowa Chairman Mike Strawn has a new comedy routine that he’s taking on the road. Filled with ironic self-deprecation, the act is bound to be a hit.
“We don’t need to change who we are to win elections,” the Iowa Independent reported that Strawn said during a March 10 appearance in Cedar Rapids. “I’m proud to stand up for the three legs on the Republican stool — pro-family policies, fiscal responsibility, and a strong national defense that includes secure borders.”
I didn’t attend Strawn’s performance in Cedar Rapids, but just reading that joke made me laugh so hard I nearly fell out of my chair. Regardless of the quality of his delivery, he obviously has a promising future on the standup circuit.
What, you don’t get the joke? That’s too bad, because it’s really funny. Let me explain it to you: Each leg of Strawn’s “Republican stool” has a name that means the exact opposite of the GOP’s actual position on that issue. His doublespeak is so blatant that he can’t possibly expect anyone of intelligence to take it seriously.
Let’s consider each of Strawn’s three “legs” individually.
First, there are what he calls “pro-family policies.” What he really means by this is “Christianism,” which is the politicization of Christian doctrines. Iowa’s Republicans don’t care about the well-being of families. They care about using the coercive power of the state to enforce their sectarian religious precepts. If these bigots really cared about families, they’d be in favor of gay marriage — or at least civil unions. There’s no excuse for leaving families headed by gay parents out in the cold. Refusing to recognize the legal validity of such nuclear families hurts the gay parents, but it hurts their children even more. And most Iowa Republicans couldn’t care less.
Next, there’s the issue of “fiscal responsibility.” According to Iowa Republicans, this primarily entails complaining about the waste involved in subsidizing minority welfare queens in big cities while simultaneously holding out one’s hands and demanding equally wasteful and even more pernicious farm subsidies that are nothing but welfare for rural Americans. It also involves objecting that increasing domestic spending on infrastructure development and maintenance is irresponsible after having insisted for years that alternately building and blowing up such projects in Iraq is a good use of American tax dollars. Really, all “fiscal responsibility” means to Iowa Republicans is bleating like sheep that President Obama is a socialist after having dutifully followed George W. Bush to our collective economic slaughter.
Finally, advocating for “a strong national defense that includes secure borders” is just another way of saying that the best way to protect the United States is to squander all the blood and treasure it can spare in establishing neoconservative colonialist fiefdoms in the Muslim world while at the same time pursuing a puritanical prohibitionist strategy in the all-important “War on Drugs” to the point of destabilizing Mexico enough to risk pushing it into failed-state status. Because that way, we not only have no money or troops left to actually secure our borders, we also create as dangerous a situation as possible along the entirety of our border with Mexico.
However, Strawn, who grasps the importance of using new media tools to be competitive in modern politics, is obviously a sharp guy. Thus my conclusion that his stale talking points aren’t actually talking points at all. No, he is up to something big here.
Having recognized that the troglodyte core of his base would have difficulty absorbing new buzzwords, he has chosen to keep using the old ones — but in an ironic way. If successful, this strategy will bring in new voters while at the same time maintaining the support of those too obtuse to notice the absurdity of claiming to be pro-family, fiscally responsible, and strong on national defense while pursuing policies that undermine those values.
But what demographic is Strawn aiming to bring into the Republican fold with his edgy new approach?
Hipsters, of course. These young, urban sophisticates may be solid Democrats now, but they’re suckers for ironic, self-deprecating humor. Strawn’s standup comedy may just be too wryly absurd for them to resist.
(Cross-posted at the Daily Iowan's main site and adopted from a blog post I put up earlier this week.)
“We don’t need to change who we are to win elections,” the Iowa Independent reported that Strawn said during a March 10 appearance in Cedar Rapids. “I’m proud to stand up for the three legs on the Republican stool — pro-family policies, fiscal responsibility, and a strong national defense that includes secure borders.”
I didn’t attend Strawn’s performance in Cedar Rapids, but just reading that joke made me laugh so hard I nearly fell out of my chair. Regardless of the quality of his delivery, he obviously has a promising future on the standup circuit.What, you don’t get the joke? That’s too bad, because it’s really funny. Let me explain it to you: Each leg of Strawn’s “Republican stool” has a name that means the exact opposite of the GOP’s actual position on that issue. His doublespeak is so blatant that he can’t possibly expect anyone of intelligence to take it seriously.
Let’s consider each of Strawn’s three “legs” individually.
First, there are what he calls “pro-family policies.” What he really means by this is “Christianism,” which is the politicization of Christian doctrines. Iowa’s Republicans don’t care about the well-being of families. They care about using the coercive power of the state to enforce their sectarian religious precepts. If these bigots really cared about families, they’d be in favor of gay marriage — or at least civil unions. There’s no excuse for leaving families headed by gay parents out in the cold. Refusing to recognize the legal validity of such nuclear families hurts the gay parents, but it hurts their children even more. And most Iowa Republicans couldn’t care less.
Next, there’s the issue of “fiscal responsibility.” According to Iowa Republicans, this primarily entails complaining about the waste involved in subsidizing minority welfare queens in big cities while simultaneously holding out one’s hands and demanding equally wasteful and even more pernicious farm subsidies that are nothing but welfare for rural Americans. It also involves objecting that increasing domestic spending on infrastructure development and maintenance is irresponsible after having insisted for years that alternately building and blowing up such projects in Iraq is a good use of American tax dollars. Really, all “fiscal responsibility” means to Iowa Republicans is bleating like sheep that President Obama is a socialist after having dutifully followed George W. Bush to our collective economic slaughter.
Finally, advocating for “a strong national defense that includes secure borders” is just another way of saying that the best way to protect the United States is to squander all the blood and treasure it can spare in establishing neoconservative colonialist fiefdoms in the Muslim world while at the same time pursuing a puritanical prohibitionist strategy in the all-important “War on Drugs” to the point of destabilizing Mexico enough to risk pushing it into failed-state status. Because that way, we not only have no money or troops left to actually secure our borders, we also create as dangerous a situation as possible along the entirety of our border with Mexico.
However, Strawn, who grasps the importance of using new media tools to be competitive in modern politics, is obviously a sharp guy. Thus my conclusion that his stale talking points aren’t actually talking points at all. No, he is up to something big here.
Having recognized that the troglodyte core of his base would have difficulty absorbing new buzzwords, he has chosen to keep using the old ones — but in an ironic way. If successful, this strategy will bring in new voters while at the same time maintaining the support of those too obtuse to notice the absurdity of claiming to be pro-family, fiscally responsible, and strong on national defense while pursuing policies that undermine those values.
But what demographic is Strawn aiming to bring into the Republican fold with his edgy new approach?
Hipsters, of course. These young, urban sophisticates may be solid Democrats now, but they’re suckers for ironic, self-deprecating humor. Strawn’s standup comedy may just be too wryly absurd for them to resist.
(Cross-posted at the Daily Iowan's main site and adopted from a blog post I put up earlier this week.)
Thursday, March 12, 2009
Coming Soon: Google Voice
Big news from Google:
We've just started to release a preview of Google Voice, an application that helps you better manage your voice communications. Google Voice will be available initially to existing users of GrandCentral, a service we acquired in July of 2007.
The new application improves the way you use your phone. You can get transcripts of your voicemail (see the video below) and archive and search all of the SMS text messages you send and receive. You can also use the service to make low-priced international calls and easily access Goog-411 directory assistance.
As you may know, GrandCentral offers many great features, including a single number to ring your home, work, and mobile phones, a central voicemail inbox that you could access on the web, and the ability to screen calls by listening in live as callers leave a voicemail. You'll find these features, and more, in the Google Voice preview. Check out the features page for videos and more information on how these features work.
If you're already using GrandCentral, over the next couple days, you will receive instructions in your GrandCentral inbox on how to start using Google Voice. We'll be opening it up to others soon, so if you'd like to be notified when that happens, please send us your email address.
Meeting Of The Matts, Liberal And Libertarian
(http://bloggingheads.tv/diavlogs/18272)
Topics covered:
Chas Freeman post-mortem: was China just a red herring?... Matt W. on which regime Freeman’s in bed with... Pork: the other right meat... Obama’s untransformative undermining of DC school vouchers... Matt Y. defends the Employee Free Choice Act... Should marijuana legalization be decided nationally or locally?...
Jay Rosen Explains Mindcasting
The NYU journalism professor and influential Twitter user has recorded a video--which he, of course, sent out via Twitter:
(http://seesmic.com/videos/FNwocVJU2d)
Here's the LA Times article about the new concept.
(http://seesmic.com/videos/FNwocVJU2d)
Here's the LA Times article about the new concept.
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
Google Reader Just Got Even Better
Google announces on one of its corporate blogs:
At this point, RSS feeds are more critical to my work as a writer than e-mail is. Being able to share items with friends, see their shared items, and comment back and forth is extremely valuable to me. No matter how busy I get, I always at least glance through my friends' shared items. There's no other feed I pay that much attention to. And there's no feed I get more valuable surprises out of.
One of the things that we love best about Reader is the ability to easily share interesting items with your friends. In fact, we like it so much that we've been adding bunches of new sharing features over the last year including choosing friends to share with, sharing with note and the sharing bookmarklet. But we quickly realized that one of the most important pieces of the sharing cycle was missing: the ability to have conversations with friends about all those shared items.
Continue reading.
At this point, RSS feeds are more critical to my work as a writer than e-mail is. Being able to share items with friends, see their shared items, and comment back and forth is extremely valuable to me. No matter how busy I get, I always at least glance through my friends' shared items. There's no other feed I pay that much attention to. And there's no feed I get more valuable surprises out of.
More On Free Lunches
Here's another great cartoon explaining an important economic principle (click image to enlarge it):
(Via Greg Mankiw.)
Gotta love the Heinlein shout-out. He's one of my favorite authors.
(Via Greg Mankiw.)
Gotta love the Heinlein shout-out. He's one of my favorite authors.
Republican Party Of Iowa Chairman Mike Strawn's New Comedy Routine Is Hilarious
Update: An expanded and polished version of this post ran as my column in the Daily Iowan's print edition on March 13--check it out here.
The Iowa Independent reports:
Ha, ha, ha! Those crazy Iowa Republicans. They're such adept comedians. And so willing to make fun of themselves--because that's obviously what's going on here.
What, you don't get the joke? Let me explain it to you: each leg of the "Republican stool" has a name that means the opposite of what the Iowa GOP actually represents. His doublespeak is so blatant that Strawn can't really expect anyone of intelligence to take it seriously.
By "pro-family policies," Strawn means "Christianism." Iowa's Republicans don't care about the well-being of families. They care about using the coercive power of the state to enforce their sectarian religious precepts. If these bigots really cared about families, they'd be in favor of gay marriage--or at least civil unions. There's simply no excuse for leaving families headed by gay parents out in the cold. Refusing to recognize the validity of such nuclear families hurts the gay parents, but it hurts their children even more. And most Iowa Republicans couldn't care less.
"Fiscal responsibility" is just ranting about the waste involved in subsidizing black welfare queens in Chicago while simultaneously holding out one's hands and demanding equally wasteful and even more pernicious farm subsidies that are, if one's honest, just welfare for corn and soybean farmers. Likewise, it also entails objecting that increasing domestic spending on infrastructure projects is irresponsible while having insisted for years that building bridges in Iraq is a good use of American tax dollars. Really, all "fiscal responsibility" means to Iowa Republicans is bleating like sheep that Obama is a socialist after having dutifully followed Bush to our collective economic slaughter.
And "a strong national defense that includes secure borders" is just another way of saying that the best way to protect the United States is to squander all the blood and treasure we can spare in establishing Neoconservative colonialist fiefdoms in the Muslim world while at the same time pursuing a puritanical prohibitionist strategy in the all-important "War on Drugs" to the point of destabilizing Mexico enough to risk pushing it into failed-state status. Because that way we not only have no money or troops left to actually secure our borders, but also create as dangerous a situation as possible along the entirety of our border with Mexico.
So, like I said, Strawn is quite a talented comedian. And he's obviously correct in saying that what the Iowa GOP really needs now are "candidates who can effectively bring that message of three to the people of Iowa." But I'm just not sure there are enough clowns of Strawn's comedic caliber in the state to step up and become those candidates. Or enough idiots to actually vote them into power.
The Iowa Independent reports:
The Republican Party of Iowa, according to chairman Mike Strawn, is a sturdy stool, which needs all three legs to remain functional.
“We don’t need to change who we are to win elections,” Strawn said during remarks to the Linn County Republican Women on Tuesday afternoon. “I’m proud to stand up for the three legs on the Republican stool — pro-family policies, fiscal responsibility and a strong national defense that includes secure borders.”
What Republicans need, according to Strawn, are candidates who can effectively bring that message of three to the people of Iowa.
Continue reading.
Ha, ha, ha! Those crazy Iowa Republicans. They're such adept comedians. And so willing to make fun of themselves--because that's obviously what's going on here.
What, you don't get the joke? Let me explain it to you: each leg of the "Republican stool" has a name that means the opposite of what the Iowa GOP actually represents. His doublespeak is so blatant that Strawn can't really expect anyone of intelligence to take it seriously.
By "pro-family policies," Strawn means "Christianism." Iowa's Republicans don't care about the well-being of families. They care about using the coercive power of the state to enforce their sectarian religious precepts. If these bigots really cared about families, they'd be in favor of gay marriage--or at least civil unions. There's simply no excuse for leaving families headed by gay parents out in the cold. Refusing to recognize the validity of such nuclear families hurts the gay parents, but it hurts their children even more. And most Iowa Republicans couldn't care less.
"Fiscal responsibility" is just ranting about the waste involved in subsidizing black welfare queens in Chicago while simultaneously holding out one's hands and demanding equally wasteful and even more pernicious farm subsidies that are, if one's honest, just welfare for corn and soybean farmers. Likewise, it also entails objecting that increasing domestic spending on infrastructure projects is irresponsible while having insisted for years that building bridges in Iraq is a good use of American tax dollars. Really, all "fiscal responsibility" means to Iowa Republicans is bleating like sheep that Obama is a socialist after having dutifully followed Bush to our collective economic slaughter.
And "a strong national defense that includes secure borders" is just another way of saying that the best way to protect the United States is to squander all the blood and treasure we can spare in establishing Neoconservative colonialist fiefdoms in the Muslim world while at the same time pursuing a puritanical prohibitionist strategy in the all-important "War on Drugs" to the point of destabilizing Mexico enough to risk pushing it into failed-state status. Because that way we not only have no money or troops left to actually secure our borders, but also create as dangerous a situation as possible along the entirety of our border with Mexico.
So, like I said, Strawn is quite a talented comedian. And he's obviously correct in saying that what the Iowa GOP really needs now are "candidates who can effectively bring that message of three to the people of Iowa." But I'm just not sure there are enough clowns of Strawn's comedic caliber in the state to step up and become those candidates. Or enough idiots to actually vote them into power.
Are you qualified to talk about sex?
Via U-Wire:
I'm sorry, but a sex column isn't legitimate only if the author is a trained sexologist. A human being doesn't need advanced degrees in psychology, biology, anthropology, or criminology to speak on sexual intercourse or sexual relationships. Unlike a column on the environmental hazards of "clean coal" which requires specific knowledge and training, sex is an act that any human being who has engaged in sexual intercourse should be able to write about.
A newspaper doesn't require a humor column writer to have a degree in rhetoric and psychology so as to understand the human mind's reaction to humorous speech. The humor writer need only understand humor and how to be funny. A sports writer doesn't need a degree in actuarial science or statistics to be able to analyze box scores and trends. As a lawyer certainly Juras is familiar with the threshold for expert testimony; training, education, or experience can qualify one as an expert. The weight attached to that opinion is obviously affected by the amount of each element, but nevertheless the opinion can be stated.
The fact that the column is in a student newspaper indicates that the majority of the articles are written by authors that have no degree at all. Juras might as well require the entire paper be shut down if her argument is that a lack of credentials bars one from using free speech.
I would rather read about sex or sex-related topics from a source that is experienced in the subject matter they speak about than from a scientist who is trying to remove all subjectivity and the humanity from the act. It's the same justification for why women make better gynecologists and why male doctors are better suited to handle prostate ailments. Personal experience and familiarity with the subject matter makes for a better source than books, diagrams, and other pedantic reasoning.
A University of Montana law professor who opposes the content of the Kaimin’s weekly sex column could eventually take the issue to the state legislature unless the newspaper establishes written policies for hiring columnists and reviewing content.
Since February, assistant law professor Kristen Juras has made clear to the Kaimin her opposition to senior Bess Davis’s “Bess Sex Column” by writing a letter to the editor as well as e-mailing and meeting with Kaimin editor Bill Oram. Juras said the material in the column is inappropriate for college students and reflects poorly on the university’s School of Journalism and UM itself.
...
Juras said someone writing a sex column should have a background in sexology, just as someone writing a column about the environment should have an environmental background.
Juras said she’s concerned because the Kaimin appears to have no set criteria for giving someone a job as a columnist writing in an area of “alleged expertise” or for reviewing objectionable material. She said that if these policies were put in place, the problems she has with the content of the sex column would correct themselves.
I'm sorry, but a sex column isn't legitimate only if the author is a trained sexologist. A human being doesn't need advanced degrees in psychology, biology, anthropology, or criminology to speak on sexual intercourse or sexual relationships. Unlike a column on the environmental hazards of "clean coal" which requires specific knowledge and training, sex is an act that any human being who has engaged in sexual intercourse should be able to write about.
A newspaper doesn't require a humor column writer to have a degree in rhetoric and psychology so as to understand the human mind's reaction to humorous speech. The humor writer need only understand humor and how to be funny. A sports writer doesn't need a degree in actuarial science or statistics to be able to analyze box scores and trends. As a lawyer certainly Juras is familiar with the threshold for expert testimony; training, education, or experience can qualify one as an expert. The weight attached to that opinion is obviously affected by the amount of each element, but nevertheless the opinion can be stated.
The fact that the column is in a student newspaper indicates that the majority of the articles are written by authors that have no degree at all. Juras might as well require the entire paper be shut down if her argument is that a lack of credentials bars one from using free speech.
I would rather read about sex or sex-related topics from a source that is experienced in the subject matter they speak about than from a scientist who is trying to remove all subjectivity and the humanity from the act. It's the same justification for why women make better gynecologists and why male doctors are better suited to handle prostate ailments. Personal experience and familiarity with the subject matter makes for a better source than books, diagrams, and other pedantic reasoning.
Monday, March 9, 2009
Bush Officials Far From Out Of The Woods
Scott Horton writes at the Daily Beast (via Andrew Sullivan):
A new Justice Department report could contain a bombshell that would spell fresh legal trouble for top Bush officials. The report may link controversial memos on civil liberties and torture—written by Justice Department lawyer John Yoo—directly to the White House, putting Yoo and other Bushies in the crosshairs of criminal prosecution.
John C. Yoo is a study in contrasts. He’s a soft-spoken legal scholar viewed by his colleagues at the University of California at Berkeley as a model of civility. But he’s also emerged as the public face of Bush-era torture policy, the author of a series of radical legal documents described by Yale Law School’s Jack Balkin as a “theory of presidential dictatorship.”
Continue reading.
What The Hell Is Up With The Economy?
I certainly don't know. And neither does anyone else--it's just too complicated of a system for any human mind to grasp in full. But Russell Roberts and Arnold Kling have has good of an idea as anybody, so this discussion between the two of them is well worth watching:
(http://bloggingheads.tv/diavlogs/18215)
Topics covered:
Russ and Arnold trade economic origin stories... Perils of Econ 101... The past decade as a massive misallocation of resources... Why Ben Bernanke might be the worst man for the job... Is the government making the crisis even worse?... A call for humility in economic prognostication...
(http://bloggingheads.tv/diavlogs/18215)
Topics covered:
Russ and Arnold trade economic origin stories... Perils of Econ 101... The past decade as a massive misallocation of resources... Why Ben Bernanke might be the worst man for the job... Is the government making the crisis even worse?... A call for humility in economic prognostication...
Sunday, March 8, 2009
Sorry About The Lack Of Posts This Weekend
I'll be back in full force tomorrow, starting with the extra material I couldn't fit into my Salvia column on Friday.
In the meantime, enjoy this installment of xkcd:
I'm not willing to concede that my lack of posting this weekend is causally related to the fun I had, but I will admit that there was at least a correlation.
Update:
The extra Salvia content is going to have to wait another day. Hopefully, the massive culling I engaged in today regarding who I follow on Google Reader and Twitter will help free up more of my time.
In the meantime, enjoy this installment of xkcd:
I'm not willing to concede that my lack of posting this weekend is causally related to the fun I had, but I will admit that there was at least a correlation.
Update:
The extra Salvia content is going to have to wait another day. Hopefully, the massive culling I engaged in today regarding who I follow on Google Reader and Twitter will help free up more of my time.
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