Political
- Daily Kos Will Sell Your Online Info
Daily Kos is upset that I am using an ad blocker filter. They live by ad revenue. There is nothing wrong with that. But their ads are served from another site. The same ad company serves ads for many other sites that I visit. The result is the ad company is profiling my web browsing. They know that I visit Daily Kos, TMP, HuffPo, etc.
Daily Kos is not selling ads to me, they are selling my visit to their site to the ad company. That information if more valuable than me noticing a particular ad and clicking on it.
Daily Kos is selling me.
Screw you Daily Kos. Screw You!
- Chunk the LibTards
I'm starting to realize that there is a certain class of liberals who think that government needs to do "stuff" regardless of reality.
No doubt, PubTards have the same problem.
Here is the issue: efficient systems don't look for ways to spend their resources. Resources are only gained because they must be saved for a future deficit. Only fools project good times into the future.
- Privacy? Try Daily Kos!
I blocked a bunch of ad sites yesterday. As a result, when I visit Daily Kos, I get a plea to undo what I did...to allow ads.
The problem is that the ads don't come from Daily Kos. The come from some "third party" website. Their plea amounts to asking me to agree to a web-cam on my first date, complete with where we went, what we spent, and how long we stayed.
Of all the issues which interest me, internet privacy ranks number one. But it is okay for the Daily Kos to open up their membership list to whoever wishes to place an ad on their site.
Then the have the nerve to talk about money. It is either my privacy, or I should pay money!
Screw you Daily Kos! It is not hard to run a website at zero cost. I don't need to ask for donations, I don't think my comments need financial support.
- Taking the Military Out of Intelligence
President-Elect Obama has chosen Leon Panetta as his next CIA chief. The going complaint is that Panetta isn't part of the intelligence community. More importantly, he isn't part of the military intelligence community.
Our current CIA chief and DNI chief are both high ranking military officers.
Civilian control of the army and navy should dictate a strict chain of command, which is somewhat compromised when you have institutional loyalties as a possible conflict of interest.
Generals, Admirals...these guys are almost senators. Within their respective organizations they are vice-presidents. More importantly, they have tenure. Loyalty is more likely to accrue to the perceived survivor of a time based contest. That means that loyalty is short-circuited. If an institutional leader is placed in charge, their advice could easily reinforce the institutional bias. The result is a president who must figure out which agency is providing the best information.
My guess is that Obama is placing a political operative, but someone with strong managerial experience, as a skeptical buffer between himself and the CIA.
Questions
- Why would Panetta be a good choice, strictly as a non-agent?
- Why do we need an institutional operative to lead the agency?
- Is the CIA of one mind, which can only be understood from within?
- If so, how can one person translate the internal understanding to something the president can understand?
- If such a person exists, doesn't that mean that someone without institutional knowledge can understand the internal workings of the agency?
- If so, why do we need an institutional operative to lead the agency?
Note that at some point we must span the gap between agents and elected officials. Is that gap better spanned at the cabinet/sub-cabinet level, or should we do it at the presidential level?
- A Rose by Any Other Name: Ideology Dressed Up as Science
Nothing annoys me more than reading Andrew Sullivan when he dresses up his conservative beliefs in a scientific argument.
The problem is not that I (and everyone else) don't know that Andrew is a conservative, I expect him to spout off his ideology.
The problem isn't that the he is using science to push his ideology because he thinks it will convince others that his ideology is correct.
No! The problem is that Andrew allows something which looks like science to make him feel better about his ideology. To be clear: he is drawn to scientific sounding arguments like flies to shit. And he believes this shit he reads, then posts links for others to read the same delusions.
One example which keeps coming back is the "gas tax". Conservatives hate tax, so this seems like a strange thing to want. But the conservatives are embracing this tax to help solve two other problems: other taxes and action on global climate change.
The conservative theory is that you can reduce demand for gas by raising the cost (supply/demand). Of course this only hurts poor people who can't afford the extra costs.
So the conservatives think that reducing gas consumption will solve the global climate change problem.
The also don't really want to raise taxes, and the know liberals will not go along with a tax which falls mostly on the poor. So they use the tax collected on gas to offset payroll taxes.
This pays back the poor guy, but not as much as it pays back the rich guy. For the rich, they don't spend that much on gas compared to their income. So, collect money from the poor and give to the rich, hope everyone forgets about other sources of carbon. It's a win-win-win!
Problems:
- Carbon tax must be used to reduce the price difference between clean and dirty fuels, not to offset payroll taxes.
- Reducing the demand on gas in the US will only lower global prices for oil. Carbon tax must be global, not restricted to one segment of the US market.
- Carbon is the problem, nothing in this plan reduces carbon emissions.
- If gas consumption is reduced, tax revenue from gas sales will go down, this reduces the benefit of the tax reducing payroll taxes. In the long run, either payroll or other taxes will need to go up.
- Obama's Children First Day at Sidwell
Today was the first day for the Obama's children at their new school in Washington D.C. The school is Sidwell.
Do you think they noticed a difference?
Here is a photo Sasha in super-armored limo:
And another, Sasha with entourage:
- BREAKING: Two (2) Tons of Ice Melt Since 2003! Yikes!
Extra, Extra, read all about it. According to the Huffington Post, over two tones of ice have melted in since 2003. That is an astounding rate of over one pound per day, almost two!
But that is just the headline, the body of the story reports a little more: 2,000,000,000,000 tones, closer to a trillion or two pounds per day.
- Screenshot-Arctic Ice Melt Of Over Two Tons Has Occurred Since 2003 - Mozilla Firefox.png[image]
- Screenshot-Arctic Ice Melt Of Over Two Tons Has Occurred Since 2003 - Mozilla Firefox-1.png[image]
- Why Afghanistan?
Assuming the Wikipedia history of Afghanistan is similar to fact, I can't help but ask why any world power would try to establish physical occupation of this country.
Regardless of the known difficulties in controlling the ground inside Afghanistan, the real problem is that internal resistance is in the mountains, not cities, and resistance groups can retreat to the tribal regions in Pakistan.
These cultures are not stupid. They do not resist just to maintain a single persona. They will kiss your ass until you turn your back. They will negotiate with you then violate that agreement. Why? Negotiation proves your weakness. If you could crush them, you would not negotiate. You think they are open to compromise, but they are only open to waiting until you go to sleep. Then they will strike. You think they are open to forgiveness, but it is only their ability to wait for revenge.
- I Was Here First, Get Out of My Way!
What is up with Illinois politicians? Every recounting of how someone won office there includes comments about one candidate living in the district for a longer period of time. They call this seniority. It is the last resort of a candidate who is fresh out of ideas.
Unfortunately people don't get ahead by waiting around for years to accumulate seniority. If you are on the same rung of the ladder as everyone else, the next rung is just as far away for all of you. Of course it is true that some politicians have the ability to leapfrog or climb up the side rails, but mere presence on a particular rung serves only as a structural advantage in reaching the next, but there are no rules on getting there.
There is one advantage to those already on the ladder: they can easily block technical climbers. These climbers follow the rules, believe in the rules and are hostage to the rules. One consequence of this is that they listen to those above them, they use a map to success provided by those who have been there.
Yet these political cartographers are prone to mislead, or even to misunderstand the the scale of their maps. What was easy with winds blowing West may turn out impossible when they are not. It is almost a guarantee that the best candidates will offer the least useful advice. Good candidates cannot transfer their attractive features. To abuse my recent movie viewing experience: Charlie Wilson was quoted by one of his beautiful female assistants as saying "you can teach 'em to type, but you can't teach 'em to grow tits."
Good politicians have "tits". You can't teach anyone to grow these. You can't go to school and learn to grow them.
UPDATE from New York (Same play, different actors):
"There are people who have worked hard their whole lives for the greater good who don't have the name [Kennedy], and should they be passed over?" Ms. Berkowsky said.
But Marie Owen, 69, a flute player who lives on the Upper West Side, expressed admiration for Ms. Kennedy.
"I somehow can't see her as being corrupt. It's not her legacy," she said. "I kind of like the idea, maybe because I'm old."
Caroline Kennedy doesn't fit the mold of corruption. She fits into my future Afghan post. She has the ability to serve more than one role. Most Americans can't do this. Serving multiple roles means that you can separate yourself and your personal needs from those of your current role. If you possess this ability and strive to use it, you establish sharp lines between your roles and actively seek to maintain useful boundaries. Observers might characterize this division of roles as an exercise in ethics, bound to failure. The fact is that this strict segregation of roles is independent of ethics and any zero sum definition of failure or success. Maybe this is easier to understand if you think of the role of playwright. A play has many characters. The writer cannot show favor to one character and disfavor to others. Her play would be a farce, an exaggeration, a comedy. How do you write authentic roles for distinct characters? By not taking sides.
As poet Robert Frost once theorized: "Good fences make good neighbors."
Unfortunately you either know this and agree, or you think I'm ignorant of the conflict involved in serving multiple roles.
- SNL's Paterson Skit: Why it was Funny.
Here is SNL's funniest skit of the year...by far:
Yet advocates for the blind apparently don't think it is funny. Here is a quote:
The National Federation of the Blind says it considers NBC's "Saturday Night Live" skit making fun of New York Gov. David Paterson an attack on all blind Americans.
Federation spokesman Chris Danielsen says the portrayal on Saturday's television show suggesting Paterson as befuddled and disoriented because of his blindness is "absolutely wrong."
Here is why they are wrong, big time:
David Paterson was thrust into the spotlight of National politics and instantly amazed everyone with his abilities to handle a demanding job. This instantly destroyed any preconceived notion that his blindness was any impediment to his ability to perform well, he had the skills we expect from any executive.
The next thing we discover about the newly sworn in Governor of New York is that he has massive flaws, just like other politicians and other humans, most which are not blind. In fact, I remember being somewhat amazed: you could easily think that he is luck to be married and have family and friends helping him deal with his disability. Yet, like everyone who is so lucky, some look for love in all the wrong places. This made him a little more human, he isn't just some amazing blind guy who can do things most sighted people assume he shouldn't be able to do. And he might take illegal drugs? Again, this cuts across the image of the blind as people who need help, who depend on others more than non-blind people, who could never do anything illegal, frail, weak, innocent.
But the skit was funny because the imitation was done so well. David Paterson speaks in jokes and put-downs. Then he "looks" around for the applause which should follow. The real Gov. Paterson is funny, he likes to roast his associates, he likes to minimize his failings by telling everyone about them as quickly as he can. He is like a drug commercial that spends most of the time reciting potential side effects in an under-breath, monotone voice, while hopeful music and images dominate the overall impression.
At any rate, the question which needs to be answered by the critics is how do you spoof David Paterson without acknowledging his persona, which includes, actually rejoices in his blindness?
- The Solution to the Power of Incumbancy
Once a politician gets elected they enjoy an advantage at the next election. They have experience, they have name recognition, they have favors they can call in. These can be good or bad, I'm not passing judgment.
But in close districts, which are usually designed by whoever was in power after the last census, the politician may need to do nothing special in order to win re-election.
Now imagine you hired someone to do a job. You take a risk on them at first. You expect that they will grow into the job. After a year or two you expect them to make less mistakes, get more done and need less supervision. Bottom line: you would expect to be more happy with their performance after a year or two on the job. But what if their performance doesn't improve? You kind of assumed that it would.
With a politician, improvement is measured at least partially in the amount of support they get from their district. Shouldn't you expect that it goes up at least a little?
So my solution to the power of incumbency is to require incumbents to win by more than 50% of the vote. How much more, and if it should adjust upward to some higher maximum, I don't know yet.
This would solve districts which are designed as 45-55 or closer. I'm thinking that for each year in office, the percent margin increase 1%. A US Representative would need to win by 2% at the first re-election. A Senator would need to win by 6%. Notice that even this is just a 47-53 election.
I think a top out of about 10% would be about right. Requiring that an experienced candidate get at least 55% of the vote after ten years in office is not an absurd standard.
One effect would be better primaries. If a candidate is barely holding on, a 2-10% boost in the advantage might force weak incumbents out of the race.
The same standard could be applied with presidents, although I would place no cap on the percent.
The main effect would be accountability. Politicians would be required to expand their appeal. If they fail to do so, they have a good shot at running again at the next election. (Senators would need to wait six years, they could not run for the other senate seat.)
Anyway, that is my idea.
- Gates Reviewed: My Impressions Over Time
Secretary of Defense Bob Gates may stay on for a at least a year into the Obama Admin.
I'm trying to think back and recover my impression of Gates.
The first thought was that although he was a university president, the university was Collage Station, Texas A&M. Unless you have visited the campus you have no idea how different this university is from any other state or private institution.
The distinct feature is the ROTC program. Essentially there is a mini-army on campus. But this fact explains nothing. They have a weird policy where you can't walk on the grass. And the ROTC enforces this policy. It is strange.
So Bob Gates is president of a university which puts up with this weird behaviour. My first impression was based upon his employment.
But once he was sworn in I remember many instances where he seemed to do the right thing. He seemed to avoid making excuses for bad behaviour, and the behaviour pissed him off.
What became clear to me was that he had a concept of how things should work, what was good and what was bad. And he was unable to make excuses. I can't explain how big of a signal this is to me. Mistakes will happen. But if they are denied, that is not a mistake, that is acceptance, even encouragement.
Gates refused to spin for a particular reason: he was protecting the institution not the people who were running it. Administrators should have this quality: support the institutional goals not the actions of your staff.
This is easier to understand in the context of a real leader. Leaders work toward institutional goals, not the goals of their boss, or their goals, but institutional goals.
The big risk for real leaders is that their boss or some other pressure group will try to influence the decision making process of the leader so that the decision is in conflict with the institutional goals.
It takes a big person to overcome these forces and Gates appears to be a big person.
- Bernanke is the Devil
Here is a quote from the New Yorker:
By this time, the President's ambitious plans to partly privatize Social Security had been stymied by congressional opposition, and his plans to simplify the tax system appeared likely to meet a similar fate. Nevertheless, the White House economics team was searching for market-friendly policy proposals, and Bernanke was happy to contribute. On the flight from Crawford to Washington, D.C., he and Hennessey discussed replacing tax subsidies to employer-based health-insurance plans with a fixed tax credit or deduction that families could use to buy their own coverage. In Washington, they continued to develop the idea, which proved popular with economic conservatives, though some experts have said it would lead to a dramatic drop in employer-provided health plans. "It's what we proposed, and it's what John McCain proposed, "Al Hubbard said. "If we can keep health care in the private sector, it is what eventually will happen. Ben and Keith are the guys who came up with it."
So Bernanke was the mother of the worst health care plan ever conceived and the one adopted by McCain.
Holy Shit!
- youtube: http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/12/01/081201fa_fact_cassidy?currentPage=all
- The Silent Coup Gets Louder
Before I started blogging my thoughts, I was logging my thoughts on OPBs (other people's blogs). Back around the time Obama secured the primary win I was predicting a silent Coup d'état of the final months of the Bush Administration.
The basic reasoning was that barring national insanity or an Obama screw-up (not a trumped up Wright-like story), Obama was going to be the next president. World leaders would recognize this first and would do everything in their power to help, mostly by just playing along and not saying anything contrary to Obama.
This is why the Obama World Tour went so well for him. But right at the start of his tour he got a huge bonus from the Nouri al-Maliki who was quoted by the German publication Der Spiegel as favoring a quick withdrawal of US troops from Iraq along a timeline similar to the 16 month Obama plan.
Obama had changed the debate because his position aligned with the Iraqis. But like everyone under the thumb of the Bush Administration, nobody dared to go against the Bush plan.
Now Obama has nearly taken over the financial and economic recovery of our country.
- Clinton as Secretary of State
We know what happens if two powerful individuals fight against each other. What happens if they work with each other?
Hillary as SoS. What if foreign powers must satisfy Hillary and Barack? What if B&H support each other so that instead of foreign powers playing Hillary against Obama, B&H team up against everyone else?
I think they call this "double team".
- Sarah Palin is a Complete Moron
I'm not going to link to this story, but Sarah Palin "pardoned" a turkey, which means that the bird would not be killed.
After this "pardon" she held a press conference. Over her left shoulder some guy killed several turkeys.
I don't know how she thinks that the optics helps her. She just pardoned a bird, then several birds were destroyed as she talked to a camera.
- Sports Metaphor: The Fake
I hope that I am right here. Maybe the Obama team is using the well documented behavior of our press or media to their advantage.
What?
For a week we have been obsessing over Hillary. At the same time the economic team members have been lost in the shuffle. My personal opinion is that domestic policy is more important than foreign policy. So Obama has allowed the drama to proceed with Clinton while he nailed down his domestic advisors.
I think about the Clinton drama differently than what I read in the press. Drama gives Obama more room and time to present a synthesis of thought. As an example, take a trial situation. We have two parties saying all kinds of stupid, obviously slanted bullshit. But after all of this we have a judge who is bound by tradition, is hopefully free of passion, and who recognizes that their judgments will be reviewed in a larger context who must make a decision. The decision must appear fair even to those who disagree.
Anyway, the problem is that the Hillary drama was allowed to proceed in the press and everyone got to express their opinion about the good and bad of Hillary as SoS. Meanwhile all focus was drained from the SoT position. This is key. There was a dynamic which suggested that Summers was a woman hating jerk so Obama should pick Timothy Geithner. The truth is that either pick would be good, if not great news. Maybe Summers is more intellectually qualified, but he can still be tapped, and probably will be, for advice.
But wait! Everyone wants to talk about Hillary. Good!
Foreign policy will be set by Barack Obama. The SoS is less important than SoT because Obama, and hopefully any president, doesn't know the technical details needed for Treasury. Nobody is going to wonder if Obama constructed the exact policy advanced by the Treasury Department.
So Obama has used Hillary to misdirect our attention away from the domestic cabinet. Good for him.
- This Blog Written By an INTP
Cool widget called Typealyzer takes a blogger URL and spits out an analysis of the writers personality type. This blog came back as written by an INTP (Introverted, iNtuitive, Thinking, Perceiving).
Here is the quote:
The logical and analytical type. They are especialy attuned to difficult creative and intellectual challenges and always look for something more complex to dig into. They are great at finding subtle connections between things and imagine far-reaching implications.
They enjoy working with complex things using a lot of concepts and imaginative models of reality. Since they are not very good at seeing and understanding the needs of other people, they might come across as arrogant, impatient and insensitive to people that need some time to understand what they are talking about.
Sounds about right, I've known I have strong INTP tendencies for a while, although you can never be sure when you just answer a bunch of questions.
- youtube: http://www.typealyzer.com/
- Syrian Nuke Factory: Why Did Israel Destroy Evidence?
Last year Israel bombed something inside Syria that it said was a nuclear facility under construction.
First off, an under construction facility is pretty safe, and completely devoid of nuclear fuel. If you bomb a non-functional facility the only thing that you achieve is the destruction of evidence.
Second off, nobody would bomb a functional nuclear facility unless they hoped that the nuclear material would be spread around and cause further destruction. This is the problem with nuclear power plants: attacks which destroy them while in operation.
So the question is why bomb this site and destroy evidence?
The new IAEA report says that chemically processed natural uranium was found at the site. But it should be obvious to anyone that if you bomb even a house and you wish to detect if the house contained books made of paper that you would find more than chemical signatures for cellulose, you might find even tiny scraps of paper, even charred.
In short, if you bomb something, it ends up looking like what it was, only bombed. It does not end up looking like a chemical signature which might support something the bombers wanted it to support...because it is easy to deliver chemical signatures with your bombs.
This is non-science. The Sirians are not better at hiding their activities than we are, so don't expect thin evidence as the only support for our claim that they were building a nuclear facility.
- Rant on Causes of Obesity Alert
Andrew Sullivan, the ultimate consumer of bad scientific studies, has consumed once again. This time he believes the old wife's tale about getting fat without consuming too many calories.
The published report is in Times Leader and says this:
But new findings from a San Antonio study point to another explanation: children living in poverty are obese in part because they don't eat enough to meet the daily nutritional requirements needed for cell function and metabolism.
...
"They were not overeating," Trevino said. "This study shows these kids were not eating enough, and when they did eat it was all the wrong things."
Okay, lets get some things very clear: if you store fat, it is due to an excess of calories in your diet. Storing fat requires metabolism.
What a lot of scientists don't understand is that there is no magic with calories. We very efficiently turn every available calorie we eat into instant energy, or stored fat. We also very efficiently regulate the amount of food that we eat. If we didn't do this, a tiny amount of food, one slice of bread being 100 calories, would lead to about 10 pounds of fat gained over the course of one year. In five years, that would be 50 pounds, in ten years, 100 pounds. One slice of bread is not too much food, yet we rarely find anyone in their 20s or older who is 100 pounds over weight.
We can reasonably control only two things with regard to our weight: our metabolic rate/activity level and the caloric density of the food we eat.
With regular exercise, we actually become more efficient in energy utilization, and aerobic exercise triggers a need to eat more to make up for the loss. So exercise does not help anyone lose weight. Starvation diets also don't help you lose weight because our bodies lower their metabolic rate to match our lack of food. Within a few weeks a lower calorie diet will cease to result in weight loss. In addition, you will get into a starvation mentality due to the need to have food in your stomach. Eventually you will start eating again at the original calorie level, but at the new lower metabolic rate. This will cause you to gain weight for a few weeks until your metabolic rate readjusts to a higher rate.
So, exercise does not help, starvation does not help, what does?
First, non-aerobic exercise like walking, doing house work, moving around. Any activity which does not cause you to huff and puff or sweat will cause you to use calories and will not trigger a need to replace those calories.
Second: eat lower density foods. Whole grains have fiber, but they also have "bulk", they take up more space, which sends a signal from your stomach that you have eaten enough. Pure fat, pure sugar, purified foods, these things are high density and don't give a big enough signal to satisfy your stomach for food.
An easier way to summarize this is to give your body useful work. Purified foods don't give much work to your digestive system, which is stupid and only wants to work. If it finds itself without work, it sends a powerful signal to seek and eat more food. Aerobic exercise is useless work in the sense of losing weight, but simple activity, just moving around, will increase calorie use without triggering calorie replacement.
If poor nutrition caused weight gain, I would suspect that famine would not exist.
My favorite saying is that "there are no fat people in China." Well it was true when I was there 20 years ago. But the truth is that nobody was starving, they were just eating less processed foods and keeping active.
- youtube: http://www.timesleader.com/news/Obesity_among_poor_children_tied_to_diet_11-19-2008.html
- youtube: http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2008/11/urban-obesity-a.html
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