
Origami Around
tumblr dot com
sheepfilms
todays bird
Jules of Nature
Alisa U Zemlji Chuda
will byers stan first human second
NASA
Not today Justin
Three Goblin Art
almost home
No title available

JBB: An Artblog!
he wasn't even looking at me and he found me
taylor price

No title available
Claire Keane

祝日 / Permanent Vacation

No title available
One Nice Bug Per Day
seen from United Arab Emirates
seen from Türkiye
seen from United States

seen from Italy

seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from Italy

seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from United States

seen from Malaysia

seen from Lebanon

seen from United Kingdom
seen from Russia
seen from Spain
seen from Argentina
seen from Brazil

seen from United States
@robotspy
Colbert v. Brown
So I finally got around to watching the Campbell Brown interview on Stephen Colbert. While I am a big supporter of unions in general what stands out more for me in this interview is this exchange at the end about the funding of this anti-union campaign. (I removed the jokes to just get to argument)
Colbert: Your organization, where does its money come from?
Brown: Who’s funding this effort? Kirkland Ellis … the law firm is doing this for free, so we haven’t gone out to raise money
Colbert: You haven’t raised any money?
Brown: I’m going to be raising lots of money … because we want this to be a national effort; we want to help parents in states across the country who want to do similar things.
Colbert: So, the Partnership for Educational Justice has not raised any money so far?
Brown: Yeah, we are raising money.
Colbert: And who’d you raise it from?
Brown: I’m not going to reveal who the donors are because the people …
Colbert: I respect that cause I’ve had a super PAC!
Brown: But part of the reason is the people who were outside today trying to protest, trying to silence our parents, who want to have a voice in this debate …
Colbert: Exercising their First Amendment rights …
Brown: … absolutely but they’re also going to go after people who are funding this and I think this is a good cause and an important cause and if someone wants to contribute to this cause without having to put their name on it, so they become a target of the people who were outside earlier today, then I respect that.
There are a few problematic points from Brown here. First, she characterizes people who oppose her cause as inherently trying to silence it while in the next breath paying lip service to the First Amendment. Questioning the legitimacy of your opponent’s speech is intellectually dishonest; counterspeech does not silence you.
Second, she starts off by saying the law firm is working pro bono, I assume hoping Colbert will leave it at that, then says she isn’t raising money, then says she will be, then says she is. So which one is it? Again, there is intellectual dishonesty.
Finally, and this is the important one, she is arguing for freedom without consequences; for the freedom to speak without having to stand behind your speech. She says she respects people who want to support a cause without having to put their name on it. I’m sure John Hancock would think very highly of her argument.
This is a broader problem in the era of super PACs. The people who manage them and the people who donate to them want all of the benefits of free speech (i.e. the ability to participate in the political process) with none of the consequences (i.e. listeners being able to respond to your arguments and being able to analyze source validity).
Anonymous speech is an inherently deceptive practice and it is not something to be respected. It is deception by omission, deception by withholding information. In this interview Campbell Brown openly admits that it is the practice of her organization.
"The worldwide financial and economic crisis seems to highlight ... distortions and above all the gravely deficient human perspective, which reduces man to one of his needs alone, namely, consumption. Worse yet, human beings themselves are nowadays considered as consumer goods which can be used and thrown away. We have started a throw-away culture. This tendency is seen on the level of individuals and whole societies; and it is being promoted! In circumstances like these, solidarity, which is the treasure of the poor, is often considered counterproductive, opposed to the logic of finance and the economy. While the income of a minority is increasing exponentially, that of the majority is crumbling. This imbalance results from ideologies which uphold the absolute autonomy of markets and financial speculation, and thus deny the right of control to States, which are themselves charged with providing for the common good. A new, invisible and at times virtual, tyranny is established, one which unilaterally and irremediably imposes its own laws and rules. Moreover, indebtedness and credit distance countries from their real economy and citizens from their real buying power. Added to this, as if it were needed, is widespread corruption and selfish fiscal evasion which have taken on worldwide dimensions. The will to power and of possession has become limitless."
Pope Francis, from this address on Thursday 16 May
“It’s within his (constitutional) power to do it, but it’s so offensive it’s impeachable,” said Napolitano.
This is Judge Napolitano from an article on Fox News. Maybe the quote was taken out of context, but if something is within the president's power wouldn't that mean that, by definition, it is not impeachable?
Sandy Hook Truthers
Dear Sandy Hook "Truthers,"
You are exploiting the tragic deaths of twenty children. Please stop.
That is all. r
“Their paranoid fear of a possible dystopic future prevents us from addressing our actual dsytopic present. We can’t even begin to address 30,000 gun deaths that are actually in reality happening in this country every year because a few of us must remain vigilant against the rise of Imaginary Hitler.”
Jon Stewart
Third Parties and (lack of) media coverage
(cross-posted at robertnspicer.com)
In his book The Age of Reform historian Richard Hofstadter argues, “Third parties are like bees: once they have stung, they die.” In contemporary politics Ross Perot is the textbook example of Hofstadter’s characterization. Bob Woodward noted in his 1994 book The Agenda that Perot “elevated deficit reduction to topic A” and thus pushed the issue onto the Clinton White House agenda.
The real sting of Perot, however, was probably the one felt by Pres. George H.W. Bush who lost a lot of votes, and possibly reelection, in part because of the man. This could be why such third party candidates received little to no attention from the news media in 2012.
According to David Gillespie, author of Challengers to Duopoly, the lack of coverage for third party candidates, such as Greens and Libertarians, is nothing new. He cites an article that found that in the last three months of the 2008 election the New York Times and Washington Post published a combined 6,781 articles about John McCain and Barack Obama and a combined 66 about the four most significant third party candidates, a difference of more than 100-to-1.
The coverage is problematic not only in quantity, but also in quality.
“Even when third parties get coverage it tends to be not very complimentary coverage,” Gillespie says.
Third party candidates tend to be portrayed as “spoilers” that cost the election for one candidate. This is how Perot and Ralph Nader have both been portrayed. Gillespie says even historical accounts, such as Teddy Roosevelt swinging the 1912 election from Taft to Wilson, present third parties this way.
Spoilers, or not, third party political movements have the potential to offer some solutions to what a broad consensus sees as problems with the political system.
For one, there has been a lot of hand wringing about last year’s election being about Internet memes, attacks, lies, and trivialities. While it is too late to save 2012, 2014 and 2016 could be better, if third party candidates get some airtime they could inject new ideas into the debate.
Giving third parties a bigger footprint on the next election could also help to loosen up partisan gridlock. Gillespie says Perot had that effect during the Clinton presidency.
“The fact that Newt Gingrich was willing to work with Bill Clinton on budgetary matters was not through the goodness of either major party’s hearts. It was their responding to what they perceived as a possible challenging movement,” Gillespie says.
Pres. Obama and Speaker Boehner could probably use similar “help” with the fiscal cliff.
Whether it is about new ideas or moving beyond partisanship journalists should feel a sense of responsibility to give these candidates more media oxygen. Third parties present a challenge to the Democrats and Republicans but they also stir up new ideas and force the parties to deal with big problems.
“If you’re building your prerogatives on the public’s right to know, you have a responsibility to let them know about more than just the D and the R,” Gillespie says.
Given the behavior of the Ds and Rs over the last few weeks the public might be interested in knowing a little more about third party candidates and ideas.
pure idiocy
I unfriended someone on Facebook for posting a link to a blog post arguing the Sandy Hook shooting was part of a government conspiracy to distract the public from LIBOR and to institute gun control. I thought the tin foil hats had enough decency to not incorporate this tragedy into their Illuminati discourse. I guess not. Crazy is crazy no matter what the circumstances.
shelf life of news and the next election
Start by resigning three days after the election. Admit to the affair. Get the story out as soon as possible. Do it when there is enough happening in the news so that most people don't notice. This doesn't matter so much, what matters is that reporters know about it so that a year or two from now when you start putting together the exploratory committee reporters don't waste ink on it. "The affair? That happened two years ago. It's old news. Who cares?"
So, how long until David Petraeus shows up in Iowa and New Hampshire?
Quote of the day
I have to admit a bit of personal weakness since Pres. Obama's victory. I am feeling a bit of schadenfreude and I don't like seeing that in myself. If I expect Republicans to change their attitudes and attempt to cooperate with Pres. Obama I shouldn't be feeling happy about their disappointment in losing.
However, one thing I don't feel bad about feeling schadenfreude over is the amount of money wasted by right-wing super PACs. Sheldon Adelson, the Koch brothers and "boy genius" Karl Rove all flushed money down the toilet; with a little help from Todd Akin and Richard Mourdock.
I think David Axelrod said it best:
The heartening news is that you can’t buy the White House; you can’t overwhelm the Congress with these Super PAC dollars. I would think there will be reluctance in the future, when Mr. Rove and others come knocking on the door, because of what happened on Tuesday.
-David Axelrod
I hope he is right, but I have some doubts. The problem of money's influence is not going away. The big money losing this time is not a good reason to be complacent about it. It will be back with a vengeance in the next election.
Most importantly, we should also keep in mind that a lot of money flowed into the Obama campaign coffers this year. There are also liberal super PACs out there. So let's not deceive ourselves into thinking that moneyed interests were completely defeated on Tuesday.
Note to reporters, pundits and political analysts: Could at least ONE person please come up with an alternative phrase to replace "soul-searching" when describing the Republican Party? It has been used more in the last 48 hours than in the rest of human history combined.
two arguments
Option A: President Obama doesn't have an agenda for a second term.
Option B: President Obama's second term plans threaten Judeo-Christian values.
Either he has no agenda or he has a very specific agenda.
Pick one. You can't have both arguments.
Only four presidents elected since 1900 have seen the Dow rise 50% or more during their first three years in office. One is President Obama, a Democrat. The other three were Franklin Roosevelt, Dwight Eisenhower and Bill Clinton. All three were re-elected to second terms.
Quote of the day
Actually it's a quote from a couple days ago, but there was a hurricane getting a little media attention the last couple days. In a CBS Evening News report Bob Bennett, the chairman of the Ohio Republican Party, said this about data collection and voter targeting in this election:
“I think that if most people knew the type of information that we had in our database that they would be shocked and probably not too happy with it.”
It would be nice if this sort of thing got a little more attention from the news media. I liked that this CBS report explained at the end that the parties are targeting voters based upon consumer habits (i.e. magazines they read, cars they drive, etc.). But it really fails to capture the potential (and real) invasions of privacy already occurring and potentially happening in future elections.
"... there is no good reason to allow disparities in wealth to be translated into disparities in political power. A well-functioning democracy distinguishes between market processes of purchase and sale on the one hand and political processes of voting and reason-giving on the other. Government has a legitimate interest in ensuring not only that political liberties exist as a formal and technical matter, but also that those liberties have real value to the people who have them."
Cass Sunstein