Josh Reads the NYT, Saturday, December 19th, 2009

     China, India, Brazil and South Africa strike climate legislation deal.  I'd swear that the NY Times was never as critical of George Walker Bush for his zero international climate treaties as they were of Barack Hussein Obama for his one, non-binding agreement.  If Russia Today's newscasts are any indication, Russia denies the existence of global warming as much as Senator James Inhofe of Oklahoma. "Can we send him to Russia, please, Ma, can we, can we?" The NY Times fails to mention it.

     More stories of desecration in Iraq, this time of a Chaldean (Nestorian?) Church near Mosul and the Biblical city of Nineveh.  The 101st Airborne decided, out of profound humility, to paint their "Screaming Eagles" logo on the wall.  Way To Go, Cultural Sensitivity Training!

     The Times reports that non-profit medical center advertising claims are not reviewed for accuracy.  Hey, sorta like the NY Times itself. I mean, it would be nice if their own editors did that sort of thing.

     Per their long history, including places like Florida and Buffalo, the U.S. has entrapped more psychotic folk willing to earn lots of money, even if it happens to be for al-Qaeda.  These three Malians are obviously crackpots, saying al-Qaeda would "starve" without them.  Worse yet, they may have actually been involved in smuggling people into Europe.  Now that would have been something to keep tabs on!  Entrapment, illegal to do against us, them, not so much.

     Actual news: Pakistani Supreme Court trying to overthrow results of election by opening cases against "thousands" of politicians in the current Pakistani People's Party government.  Advanced Pakistani subject matter readers can get up to speed here. Intermediate readers are recommended to read this. These two are short and cover the basics. 

     Obama not an idiot! Unlike some Presidents of the last 5 years I could name.  Preventing nuclear terrorism, not new, mini-nuke bunker busters, is moving to the fore of our nuclear policy.  In related news, the U.S. and Russia are set to make another treaty reducing the world's nuclear arsenal.  The NY Times reports the next step, since stockpiles are getting fairly low, would have to involve the other permanent members of the Security Council.

     There were only a few hundred "hard-corps" members of al-Qaeda back in 2001.  Now, the U.S. insists, there are so many in Yemen we have to fire missiles into the country to deal with the problem.  No chance that could backfire, right?

     Kit Seelye, per usual, embarrasses the NYT.  Is she **cking someone, or lots of someones, to keep her job?  Is it blackmail?

Josh Reads the WaPo, Friday, December 18th, 2009

     Senator McCaskill wants more gov't oversight of contractors, 1/6th of the contracts audited, a small fraction of the total, is unaccounted for.  She questions what "additional controls are needed?"  How about not contracting at all and giving the job to the DoD?  In previous wars we've done that, but there aren't enough volunteers to fight these crappy wars, so we have to hire Hessians.

     Rep. Issa (R-CA-Extremist) wants the GAO to get law enforcement powers for the purposes of going after ACORN and the 0.0002% (rounded up) of the Federal Budget they get each year.  Way to prioritize Mr. Issa!  Can we send this guy back to the minors?

     I'm a born-anew Pashtun Nationalist.  While America continues to kill and murder with drone rockets in FATA, Pakistan, I support an indpendent Pashtuninstan for long-term stability in the region.  Has anyone polled the Pashtun about it?  I bet support would be over 80% except in the one or two regions which somehow benefit the most from the current chaos.

     Mexico has killed the #1 smuggler of cocaine into the United States.  That ought to fix it.

     Dana Milbank calls debating health care on Christmas Day "Unchristian!"  Puny human!

     I never thought the tax on expensive, private health insurance was a good idea, but someone points out today that the old and the sick, and even worse the old and sick, spend more.  Do they need a new tax?  Something tells me people who are old and sick aren't rolling in dough, and if they are, we can tax them some other way.

Climate Email Rebuttal

     For my own records, if I need to refer to what a crock of bull this widely-media-covered instance is: The Economist's Blog: Democracy in America, and in case that URL ever goes dead, it links to two more scienc-ey blogs, Tim Lambert and Things Break.

     I'd also note that the Economist's #1 "most recommended" comment is from a climate change denialist discussing one of the other supposed problems revealed by the e-mails (again, which would not even be important if not widely covered by Fox and other television stations), namely, that one of the e-mails talks about keeping two denialist papers out of the IPCC report, by nearly any means necessary.  The truth is that those two papers _were_ in the IPCC report, so nothing was ever squelched, and the further truth is that, after being published, they were both found to be full of holes... un-publish-worthy in the first place.

     The Democracy in America blog author, undoubtedly not anti-business, fails to see the utility in spreading doubt, not science.  Even if the oil/coal/gas industry can't disprove global warming, there is infinite utility if no one believes it is true.  At least, with rational people, one can argue and point to numbers, he should try debating the falsities of religion sometime!

Francis Parkman's Montcalm & Wolfe

A story of the French and Indian Wars, this part intrigued me:

The great colony of Virginia stood in strong contrast to New England. In both the population was English; but the one was Puritan with Roundhead traditions, and the other, so far as concerned its governing class, Anglican with Cavalier traditions. In the one, every man, woman, and child could read and write; in the other, Sir William Berkeley [ed: long-serving Colonial Governor of Virginia] once thanked God that there were no free schools, and no prospect of any for a century. The hope had found fruition. The lower classes of Virginia were as untaught as the warmest friend of popular ignorance could wish. New England had a native literature more than respectable under the circumstances, while Virginia had none; numerous industries, while Virginia was all agriculture, with but a single crop; a homogeneous society and a democratic spirit, while her rival was an aristocracy. Virginian society was distinctively stratified. On the lowest level were the negro slaves, nearly as numerous as all the rest together; next, the indented servants and the poor whites, of low origin, good-humored, but boisterous, and some times vicious; next, the small and despised class of tradesmen and mechanics; next, the farmers and lesser planters, who were mainly of good English stock, and who merged insensibly into the ruling class of the great landowners. It was these last who represented the colony and made the laws. They may be described as English country squires transplanted to a warm climate and turned slave-masters. They sustained their position by entails, and constantly undermined it by the reckless profusion which ruined them at last. Many of them were well born, with an immense pride of descent, increased by the habit of domination. Indolent and energetic by turns; rich in natural gifts and often poor in book-learning, though some, in the lack of good teaching at home, had been bred in the English universities; high-spirited, generous to a fault; keeping open house in their capacious mansions, among vast tobacco-fields and toiling negroes, and living in a rude pomp where the fashions of St. James were somewhat oddly grafted on the roughness of the plantation,--what they wanted in schooling was supplied by an education which books alone would have been impotent to give, the education which came with the possession and exercise of political power, and the sense of a position to maintain, joined to a bold spirit of independence and a patriotic attachment to the Old Dominion. They were few in number; they raced, gambled, drank, and swore; they did everything that in Puritan eyes was most reprehensible; and in the day of need they gave the United Colonies a body of statesmen and orators which had no equal on the continent. A vigorous aristocracy favors the growth of personal eminence, even in those who are not of it, but only near it.

T. R. Reid was on Washington Journal not so long ago

This Tumblr has it.

Immortality isn't so tough

And it may happen in our lifetimes. We need a gene therapy that adds on more TTAGT (telomere) on both ends of all your DNA. When that's worn off you start dying of "old age."

Next generation, of course, is going to wish for the scientific discovery that keeps people looking young. That's not too terribly tough, either, it just involves collagen. Not injections, I wouldn't think, but a real way to replenish it and prevent it from wearing out.

So, you may live for a real long time, you yourself, but you aren't going to be sexy anymore.

Also, people are going to have to stop being so mean to their livers and lungs if we live a real long time, since the problem solved above was just "old age" and not emphysema or cirrhosis. So, as we live longer, we'll be having less fun per year earlier on.

But the alternative to (eventually) banning alcohol and cigarettes is a lifetime of medical coverage for people who might live forever but who have killed their own body. I think pot will be OK, as long as it is ingested. See: Brave New World.

If I could sum up the Spartans and the Athenians during the Peloponnesian War...

     The Athenians were a commercial empire which demanded men or taxes from its allies, whom it would ruthlessly attack if they tried to secede.  The Spartans led a confederacy and demanded little from it, but instead from their countless slaves.  This reminds me of the U.S. Civil War.

     During this Greek civil war, which lasted decades, the Spartans took a large army and stood outside the walls of a city.  The leader of the Army, Brasidas, probably the General most respected by non-Spartans during the entire war, allegedly spoke these words:

Some of you may hang back because they have private enemies, and fear that I may put the city into the hands of a party: none need be more tranquil than they. I am not come here to help this party or that; and I do not consider that I should be bringing you freedom in any real sense, if I should disregard your constitution, and enslave the many to the few or the few to the many. This would be heavier than a foreign yoke; and we Lacedaemonians, instead of being thanked for our pains, should get neither honour nor glory, but, contrariwise, reproaches.

     This, perhaps, reminds you of Iraq.

Did I Ever Mention I'm A Total Techie?

     I think I did, a couple times, anyway, here's some more.

     I have a new server, hosted at a remote location, a server farm in Brooklyn.  I wanted to reconfigure some stuff with the network connection.  Fine.  How do you disconnect and reconnect, bring down and then bring back up, your network connections, from a remote host?  If you bring them down, you won't be connected to bring them back up!  Aha, you think, put it in a script.  That's part of it, but not all.  If the script is running and then you disconnect, the script will stop running unless you give it nohup.
#!/bin/sh
/sbin/ifdown eth0
sleep 4
/sbin/ifup eth0

then
nohup down_and_up

Is Sarah Palin Ignorant of the Constitution and History?

In her recent interview on Fox News with Bill O'Reilly [click for transcript] she says, concerning the choice by Attorney General Holder to try Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in NYC, "[W]e're going to create this circus atmosphere here in New York and try this terrorist in our court system that is reserved under our Constitution for American citizens to be able to have their rights exercised. That's a problem."

I'm sure Sarah Palin, if she were arrested for terrorism against a foreign country, would rather be tried on an isolated outpost serving as a military base than in a court, and I'd wager money that most Americans don't realize that close to 400,000 Nazis were kept in camps in States like Ohio, California and Texas. Personally, I'd be a bit more concerned about 400,000 Nazis than a couple hundred members of al-Qaeda, but maybe times have changed, and Americans are just a bunch of big scaredy-cats now adays.

But let's analyze that bit about the Constitution.  It turns out it isn't even close to correct.  One has to wonder whose Constitution Sarah Palin is reading!  From Article III, Section II, the only relevant portion of the Constitution of the United States...

The judicial power shall extend to all cases, in law and equity, arising under this Constitution, the laws of the United States, and treaties made, or which shall be made, under their authority;--to all cases affecting ambassadors, other public ministers and consuls;--to all cases of admiralty and maritime jurisdiction;--to controversies to which the United States shall be a party;--to controversies between two or more states;--between a state and citizens of another state;--between citizens of different states;--between citizens of the same state claiming lands under grants of different states, and between a state, or the citizens thereof, and foreign states, citizens or subjects.

Is the United States not an interested party in the trial of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed?  I believe it is.  Is there a single, cotton-picking word in there about rights?  Clearly, there is not.

As a Republican, I can only hope that Sarah Palin hangs her head and apologizes for this and countless, and seemingly endless, fundamental misunderstandings of the American political system.

Remember When Sarah Palin Was Relevant?

That's a question which will cause many a sentient being to smile, maybe even laugh, in the future, starting now, sinking in over the next few years until the completion of the 2012 Republican Presidential Primary, after which her relevance outside of the evermoreshamefaced Evangelical community will cease.

• [Slate] The Going Rogue Index: Sarah Palin didn't put an index in her book. So we made one for her.
• [NPR] A Conservative Read On Palin's 'Going Rogue'
• [Salon] The secret diary of Sarah Palin's ghostwriter

A Second Place for National Health Insurance in a Republic

Earlier I put forth the idea that communicable diseases was the place where everyone should get together; national health insurance for communicable diseases is consistent with our interests.

This morning, probably inspired by the discussions of health care yesterday, I realized another place where it makes perfect sense, preventative care.

I am here referring to things like nutrition (vitamin pills), exercise (gym memberships). In fact it is in all of our interests to make sure all of us aren't paying insurance premiums when we all get sick. In fact, it is clear that not only do we all save money on health care costs when we all don't get sick in the first place, but society itself operates more smoothely, less people call in sick, less people need to go on disability and replaced at their jobs, and the older, wiser folk will tend to live a little longer. All good things, and good for all
of us.

Also, since most private health insurers don't do that much in terms of preventative care, it means the government wouldn't be moving in on private industry.

Today I had an epiphany concerning the men who want to stop abortions.

These must be the guys who got women pregnant in order to force them to marry them.  Back in the 1950s and 1960s, when a lot of these guys were getting hitched, it was sort of like a game to them, the prettiest girl they could get pregnant would be their "prize."

If abortion is allowed, then their wives wouldn't have had to marry them, their life sort of become hollow and meaningless.

How come I never read that before?

Is the Voice of America getting drippingly sarcastic?

"Clinton Tries to Appease Arab Anger About Praise for Israeli Settlement Offer"

Clinton believes that the American commitment to the peace process is understood by Arab leaders. She thinks that, with their support, the process can move forward, despite what she calls the difficult and tangled history that too often prevents progress.

More Science Posts

• Sagan, de Grasse, Feynman and Nye


• Carl Sagan ft Hawking

Science Video Craziness

• DNA Replication 1:10, very accessible


• Apoptosis 4:38, no sound, laser sound effects


• The Life of the Cell, 8:00, nealy 100% technical

Just How Bad Is The State of Journalism Today?

     That reminds me to check the Columbia Journalism Review more often, not that they're perfect.

     I thought all three stories above the fold in today's Washington Post were awful, and here I'll examine one of them.

     "In Anbar, A Sense Of Abandonment" was written by WaPo staff writer Anthony Shadid.  If this is the best the post has to offer, it should be shut down.


     Above the fold Shadid only mentions one person who is actually unhappy, one person who got lots of money and guns from the Americans, and respect from the locals during the relevant period.

     After turning to page 8 we learn that, as expected, some Iraqis view the occupying U.S. military on their streets and busting into their homes as a foreign occupying military force and doesn't like it.  How many feel this way?  Certainly Anthony Shadid doesn't present any data. 

     In the 15th paragraph someone says that the British were better at occupying Iraq than the Americans.  You know, the British, who bombed the Kurds with chemical weapons and who summarily executed nearly 10,000 Kurds.  Didn't the Washington Post already tell you that maybe Saddam got the idea of gassing the Kurds from the British?  "[The British] understood how to take time to win someone to their side" the abysmal reporter Shadid dutifully echoes.  By the way, at no point does Shadid say how things went for the British after they left Iraq... within a few years the Iraqis were siding with the Nazis in WWII.  Could Shadid be any more stupid?

     Another unhappy guy, the second talked to in the article, now into its 28th paragraph, flashes a 25K rolex.  Listen, don't let this get back to the military or Sheik Issawi, but he's a crook who played the military for fools, and I'm thrilled he's now unhappy, and he can no longer loot the U.S. treasury.

     Anthony Shadid isn't worth shit as a reporter.  His Editor, the more responsible party, should be fired.

Language And Peace In the News: Honduras (UPDATE 1)

UPDATE 1: Added paragraphs past the first

     The best I can offer is the Google News Search for Honduras.  Without knowledge of Spanish, I simply can't read the Twitter search for Honduras, which makes you wonder, what type of people in Iran speak English? The elites, I betcha, the ones who can afford a device for twittering?

---

So, I translated this article from Portuguese to English, using Google translation.  It includes loads of facts I didn't find on CNN or Reuters or the AP.  1) 2nd Summit of the Countries of South America and Africa, going on now, has unanimously condemned Honduras/Micheletti. 2) The African Union has done the same, 3) the UN has decried the "acts of intimidation" against the Brazilian embassy.

The Best Weather Report for NYC

     This link should always get you the current 48 hour forecast from the National Weather Service in super sharp graphical format.  I have that linked tuned for summer, you'll want to tweak it slightly for winter.

     If you have a mobile device, you can point it to my service, here, which shrinks the image.  Red is temperature, Blue is sky cover %, Green is relative humidity, and Brown is precipiation potential.  This image gets updated a few times a day, rather than constantly.

You Bought It With Stolen Credit Cards

     If you were a normal person you'd have a hard time proving that you didn't buy something with stolen credit cards, wouldn't you?

Arms Control Wonk, I really used to like them

     I told more than a few people that the only people to trust on the subject of Iran and their nuclear ambitions, the only reasoned voices, were Dr. Jeffrey Lewis at Harvard and Ray Takeyh at the Council on Foreign Relations.  Well, Dr. Lewis's blog, ArmsControlWonk, has drunk the kool-aid.  Recent stories on Iran are completely one-sided and include all sorts of scare-mongering phrases like "a worrying development."  According to Ahmadinejad, they are one year ahead of their reporting requirements, and the IAEA will be able to inspect the facility, but for Andreas Persbo, this is "worrying."

     Even Jeffrey jumps on the scare-monger bandwagon, with his suggestion that the Qom site "ought to put the focus of our policy back on getting more access to the Iranian program to detect and deter the construction of undeclared facilities[.]"  For a moment, since there is no evidence to the contrary, let's take the Iranians at face value, and say that this is a facility for producing reactor fuel.  If so, Iran had every right to build it, and, no requirement to declare it before the shovels hit soil.  Are we really going to get into the business of stopping legal things?  Dr. Lewis doesn't leave me much wiggle room in interpreting his remarks.

---

Persbo suggests that any smuggling from Esfahan to Qom would be detectable by the IAEA, but he ignores the fact that the IAEA has already been invited to Qom.



Dr. Lewis writes "This is the scenario we’ve been warning about all along." but, if Iran is to be believed and the facility is for a nuclear power plant, what exactly are we being warned about?"