Archive for category punditry
Please Think.
Its a war that will never end!
I really like paying attention to United States politics. Its fun to notice shifts in opinion, changes in thought and how people react to that. Its also so petty and childish it makes middle school drama look like a upgrade. Yet I like it. In political thought I am more attracted to is reasoned opinion based on facts and the social good than hyper partisanship, anger and fear. I appreciate respectful discussion of the topics with attention to understanding the other side. For instance, I actually allocate time researching differing opinions. I do this because its fun to know what and how people think about things. You can’t really understand someone without understanding motivation, background and history. People rarely make choices that are not based on who they are, where they come from and current social group. Then again, I think its important to understand who you are and where you came from because it helps you know yourself. I guess this isn’t really a post about that, but I do apply this sentiment to people and politics as well. If you understand someone it also helps so your don’t demonize them. You realize they come to beliefs in much the same way as you even though they believe differently. I guess put another way is that its hard to make someone out to be the devil if they have many similarities to you.
That said, this post isn’t really about that. Its about a trend ive noticed lately in politics in the United States. Ill explain the trend by describing how ive viewed the last 10+ years of the political system in the United States.
* Bill Clinton is in office and does a few things people don’t like. He is a Democrat. He commits a few morally dubious acts and gets slapped for it politically.
* George Bush gets elected because he isn’t Bill Clinton and runs on a platform of not being Bill Clinton. He gets elected because is isn’t Bill Clinton and is Bill Clintons “moral opposite.” He runs on a platform of changing the Washington Bill Clinton created.
* During George Bush’s tenure he is very unpopular in certain political groups because of his stances on the war in Iraq. His party receives huge losses to the Democrat party because Democrats are not Republicans. After the sweeping election for the Democrats the Democrats change no significant war policy.
* George Bush leaves office largely unpopular. He is unpopular because of his policies regarding several wars, constitutional stances & more.
* Barack Obama is elected because he isn’t George Bush. He runs on a platform of not being George Bush. He gets elected because he isn’t George Bush and is George Bush’s “political opposite.” He runs on a platform of changing the Washington George Bush created.
I am going to now divine the future here folks:
* During Obama’s tenure he is unpopular in certain political groups because of the inherited poor fiscal US situation. His party receives huge losses to the Republican party because Republicans are not Democrats. After the sweeping election for the Republicans the Republicans change no significant fiscal policy.
/end divination
My charge is that the impending sweeping victories for Republicans will not impact fiscal policy in any significant way. The reason why the is because of the reason the Democrats didn’t change any significant war policy in the United States. Lets match it up some to illustrate my point.
* Democrats claimed if they were elected they would end the Iraq war. Clearly accountability would come to Washington. They tried to tie the presidents hands to a timetable through the laws they passed financing the war the Republicans and Democrats did not attempt to pay for. They conveniently forgot the president has the ability to veto laws he doesn’t like. The president vetoed every attempt to do this while painting Democrats as not supporting the troops. The Democrats caved in to the presidents position. In the end they brought no change to the current war policy.
* Republicans will claim if they are elected they will bring us out of the poor fiscal position we are in. Clearly “fiscal conservatism” will return to Washington. In one such action will attempt to amend Health Care legislation or repeal it. They will conveniently forget they need 60 votes to repeal due to a Democrat filibuster. A super majority they will not have. If by some chance they have a super majority they will conveniently forget Obama will veto the repeal. They will attempt to amend the current health care bill. They will conveniently forget the president will veto every attempt to do that while painting the Republicans as people that do not support positive health care change in America. They will eventually sign all bills funding everything that comes to them. The Republicans will cave in to the presidents position. In the end they will bring no change to Obama’s fiscal policy.
Im not sure if Republican politicians forget how stuff works or if they are simply being optimistic. That said, understanding what it takes to repeal something OR that passing a law requires a presidential signature seems like, you know, important to understand. Im not saying being fiscally responsible is bad, its great id love us to get back to that. Its just that the Republicans sweeping wins will change nothing in the way of that.
But I want to break it down to a more basic level for you:
* Political party A gets elected running on a platform of anti political party B. Political party A claims they are the party of the people and that political party B doesn’t listen.
* Political party A screws stuff up with political party B. Political party B blames it wholesale on political party A. Political party B claims political party A doesn’t listen. Political party A yells and moans political party B are obstructionists.
* Political party B gets elected running on a platform of anti political party A. Political party B claims they are the party of the people and that political party A doesn’t listen.
* Political party B screws stuff up with political party A. Political party A blames it wholesale on political party B. Political party A claims political party B doesn’t listen to the people. Political party B yells and moans political party A are obstructionists.
* Rinse, repeat.
This Article Contains Faulty Reasoning
?
Recently I was reading an article about “Linux on the Desktop being a non starter.” Most of these articles revolve around the author wanting to do something and failing OR it taking way to long to do it. I can accept that. Ubuntu isn’t perfect for everything. Its really great at some things though.
However, this article is so flagrantly poor quality it makes me wonder what quality standards Computerworld has for its bloggers. Obviously few.
Lets go over some of the gems contained in this article.
It claims Linux on the desktop is “still not happening.” Beyond the fact that is is and I know lots of people using it, its also constructed of basically two silly arguments.
* “For a while last year, things were looking up for Linux. Many of the early netbook vendors were forgoing Windows licenses and instead offering consumers machines that ran some form of Linux. That didn’t last long, though. Return rates for Linux netbooks were much higher than for their Windows counterparts, and most netbooks today are sold with some version of Windows, not Linux. What this means is that, though Linux is a great value for many server applications, it’s still a non-starter on the desktop.
Huh. So netbooks have a higher return rate than Windows netbooks? OK. Fair enough. The author notes this and jumps to the conclusion that Linux is a non-starter on the desktop. This is faulty logic. There could be a sea of reasons why someone would return a Linux netbook. How bout they thought Windows was on it? You mean customer made a mistake? I think its possible people may click before they read every sentence.
Netbooks are a nascent market in computing. Its like looking at ebooks and noting that Amazon controls the desktop. The author didn’t note how many people stuck with Linux powered netbooks. If the number of people with Linux netbooks is 20% then id say Linux on a netbook is a success.
* “Richard Stallman may not be typical, but you can read all about his setup here. It’s not something that’s going to win a lot of converts among the mass market of computer users, though. As he explains it, he uses a Lemote Yeelong, a netbook with a Loongson chip and a 9-inch display. “I spend most of my time using Emacs. I run it on a text console, so that I don’t have to worry about accidentally touching the mouse-pad and moving the pointer, which would be a nuisance. I read and send mail with Emacs (mail is what I do most of the time). I switch to the X console when I need to do something graphical, such as look at an image or a PDF file. Most of the time I do not have an Internet connection. Once or twice or maybe three times a day I connect and transfer mail in and out.”
Since most of us would go back to using paper, pens, envelopes and stamps before using the open-source text editor Emacs, it still seems likely that it’s going to be a Windows and Mac OS world for the foreseeable future.”
ARE YOU SERIOUS? <sarcasm>Obviously all Linux users have is Emacs and a console. Obviously</sarcasm>. Wait, no thats absolutely ludicrous. I use Gnome. Gnome is pretty, functional and elegant.
Anyways, felt it was worth sharing. I am not a Linux crazy but this kind of poor article makes me want to throw a Firefox at someone.
The Disconnect of Digital Pricing
When I was in middle school CDs were a new thing. I remember talking in school about CDs and how they cost about a penny to press and because of this insanely low printing cost, CDs would be ultra cheap compared to tapes or records. Imagine a world where the printing cost led to ultra low prices! Imagine that world. I can, its great. It would be awesome to pop over to Best Buy and get the latest album for $1. Or $3. At that price I wouldn’t really think about it, id just buy it.
And that is the topic of this blog post. The disconnect of digital pricing.
I buy games, music and software in a box from the store. I know this makes me a dinosaur but I am actually getting a better value and in most cases its cheaper. I want to live in a world where I download everything for a lesser fee, but I don’t. The idea WAS that when we went to the point where we download all our games or software online the price dropped because the cost of producing a physical product was circumvented. Ill give an example.
Modern Warfare 2 on PC costs $51.48 on Amazon. Now, since thats a physical box and manual product the digital copy should be cheaper right? Well on Steam its $59.99. Why the hell is it more expensive to download on Steam? Why does it cost me MORE TO DOWNLOAD IT? I have no idea but the disconnect between the download/physical product is absolutely nuts.
Same with music. The Book of Eli download on Amazon/iTunes is $11.99. The physical CD costs $11.99 as well.
Simply stated, I believe digital goods should cost a significant share LESS than their physical counterparts. However it seems the physical product actually costs less. OR in the case of music, you can get a better value if you buy a album for the same price because you can rip it long after MP3 is dethroned. Adopting a pricing model like the iPhone where apps are mostly $0.99-$5 means people dont think about buying stuff. They just buy it. I am not saying AAA game titles should be $5 but how bout $25. How bout $30? $60 for a digital download? No thanks.
I always I buy the physical copy these days unless the digital price is so low it doesn’t matter. Digital pricing needs to improve or I will always buy the physical product, because most of the time its a way better deal.
The Devil Sends a Letter To Pat Robertson
“Dear Pat Robertson, I know that you know that all press is good press, so I appreciate the shout-out. And you make God look like a big mean bully who kicks people when they are down, so I’m all over that action. But when you say that Haiti has made a pact with me, it is totally humiliating. I may be evil incarnate, but I’m no welcher. The way you put it, making a deal with me leaves folks desperate and impoverished. Sure, in the afterlife, but when I strike bargains with people, they first get something here on earth — glamour, beauty, talent, wealth, fame, glory, a golden fiddle. Those Haitians have nothing, and I mean nothing. And that was before the earthquake. Haven’t you seen “Crossroads”? Or “Damn Yankees”? If I had a thing going with Haiti, there’d be lots of banks, skyscrapers, SUVs, exclusive night clubs, Botox — that kind of thing. An 80 percent poverty rate is so not my style. Nothing against it — I’m just saying: Not how I roll. You’re doing great work, Pat, and I don’t want to clip your wings — just, come on, you’re making me look bad. And not the good kind of bad. Keep blaming God. That’s working. But leave me out of it, please. Or we may need to renegotiate your own contract.
Best, Satan “
Avatar Apologist Take 1
I saw Avatar last week. Ill do a pseudo review and then talk about a few reactions people had.
First off its a great movie. The 3D is mind blowing and even saying that doesn’t do it justice. Its a groundbreaking film in that it makes 3D something very very cool but it also breaks the CG barrier as well. For instance, the faces on the Navi look incredible. The facial detail is absolutely mind blowing.
I thought the story was a bit heavy handed at times. I thought the movie could have been more subtle in terms of its presentation of ideas. But it wasn’t and that doesn’t make it a bad movie. Its just not a very subtle one.
First source. (Warning Chrome seems to think this site hosts malware. Seriously.)
“The glee with which the American Marines participate in this massacre is appalling and does not show the true feelings and concerns of the real United States Military. James Cameron should apologize to the American Military and should make a statement that he does not truly feel this way about them. He should also apologize to the American public for painting our young men and women that defend this country as cold-blooded killers.”
Sweet lord where do I start. OK first off, the “space marines” presented are ex Marines that are now being employed by a large corporation. Second off does the United States exist in Avatar? I hadn’t heard it did in the movie. Cameron is presenting good and evil in the context of big corporate machines VS the environment or naturalism or whatever you want to call it. War and violence is part of that struggle. Are the Marines wearing United States flags? No. Are they chanting “for freedom?” No. Are the primarally white and speak with English voices? Yes.
The biggest thing I saw in the “space marines” is that they are pretty much 100% taken from Aliens, another Cameron movie. In fact the big corporate interest in Aliens and Avatar seem nearly identical. Was there a backlash from that movie? No. Then again they were hunting the bad guys, but still.
My final point on this topic is that one man in particular, the leader of the “space marines” is the only one that shows “glee with which the American Marines participate in this massacre.” Seems like during the speech he gives they are energized, but I don’t see them giddy or anything. Save the main bad guy character but he is a stereotype of a kind of ideal.
“AVATAR has an abhorrent New Age, pagan, anti-capitalist worldview that promotes goddess worship and the destruction of the human race.”
“For hundreds of years, the pagan, communist ideas expressed in this movie circulated among a threadbare group of outcasts with dirty fingernails and greasy hair, who shared their obtuse, occult ideas amongst themselves with manic, alienated glee. Now James Cameron has made these insane views the major bulwark of a very spectacular movie, but the spectacle does not make the views any more coherent, rational, or uplifting.”
I think when someone uses a word like “new age” they are pretty much admitting they don’t understand what they are talking about. Or put another way, they are a member of a very popular religion in the United States that doesn’t care to note the differences between other religions so they lump them into one bucket called “new age.” But thats just my first impression here.
I have no idea how this movie “promotes the destruction of the human race.” Its not that it doesn’t show a version of the future where the human race is suffering for its actions. But the quote said Avatar promotes it. Which is utterly absurd. Does “I am Legend”, “Zombieland,” and “Mad Max” promote the destruction of the human race? No, they simply show a future where our actions led to the human race mostly dying off. That is leaps and bounds different than promoting it. If they did they do a bad job because my first response to it isnt “Hey wow, lets keep on this path so we can all die off, how cool would that be. Wow!” Does the Bible promote the destruction of the human race because it talks about it in detail?
The second paragraph is so rife with insults and ignorance I won’t really comment on it much. Save that I am not sure the author knows what communism is. The Navi display a brand of governance similar to Native Americans and thats not communism.
In closing, the movie was good but if you want all your movies to display a certain kind of moral or religious belief that is Judao-Christian OR ProCorporateGreed then this movie won’t be for you. Because in the end this movie is about corporate greed gone horribly wrong. It is a bit heavy handed ill admit but then again so are some Sunday Sermons ive gone too.
About Those Missing Emails…
The incredible missing emails that were incredibly not missing!
“Computer technicians have found 22 million missing White House e-mails from the administration of President George W. Bush and the Obama administration is searching for dozens more days’ worth of potentially lost e-mail from the Bush years, according to two groups that filed suit over the failure by the Bush White House to install an electronic record keeping system.”
“The government now can find and search 22 million more e-mails than it could in late 2005 and the settlement means that the Obama administration will restore 94 calendar days of e-mail from backup tape, said Kristen Lejnieks, an attorney representing the National Security Archive.”
No comment.
Protecting The Dissolution of Marriage
Do you believe in marriage? Really? Want to protect it? Better sign this petition then.
“Til death do us part? The vow would really hold true in California if a Sacramento Web designer gets his way.
In a movement that seems ripped from the pages of Comedy Channel writers, John Marcotte wants to put a measure on the ballot next year to ban divorce in California.
The 2010 California Marriage Protection Act is meant to be a satirical statement after California voters outlawed gay marriage in 2008, largely on the argument that a ban is needed to protect the sanctity of traditional marriage. If that’s the case, then Marcotte reasons voters should have no problem banning divorce.”
First off this is very funny. Second off I think this is asking people that want to protect marriage to step up and be consistent. If you really want to protect marriage then why not make it illegal to divorce? I think, in fact, instead of protecting marriage what it really is is the continuance of tradition. Because honestly, 50% of people in the US get the big devo so if you wanted to protect it you could do much more than keeps gays away from the alter.
I support peoples ability to get a divorce at any time they want but if I was in California id sign this. Id also vote for it too. Strange I know, but even if this passed for a week before being overturned by the courts in California(which anything like this should as well as gay marriage bans) it would be kind of funny.
And really, people take the “protection of marriage” way too seriously. Ive been married for nigh on 9 years now(10 this next year) and I can honestly say I love AND like my wife but marriage can take a walk off a cliff into jagged rocks. I don’t care about protecting ideals, institutions or feelings, id do much to protect my relationship though, which is an ENTIRELY different matter.
A SOCALIST UTOPIA!
Posted by jdodson in flamebait, informative, punditry on November 23, 2009
So that’s Glenn Beck talking about a hundred year plan he has for America because Democrats and Republicans are creating a “Socalist Utopia” in America. I didn’t really understand the first minute of what he was talking about though. I had to watch it again and I think he is saying people that enacted The New Deal and other stuff like Medicare are socialists? I don’t really understand because its a short clip. I think he is doing a dis service to his audience because socialism is MUCH more than government programs. Why do we need to call every government policy socialism or nazism? Do they know what those concepts are? Well its a popular word now so I guess it can mean whatever we want it to.
Anyways about the clip…
I do agree on a few points he had. Bring the troops home now? Sure. Abolish the IRS? Hmmm well if you want to bankrupt the country sure. I guess we could survive that. I think the follow up to that is a flat tax. Not a bad idea but im not sure its the silver bullet like some people think it is. I am willing to hear more opinion about it though. Unsure how we can fight two wars and spend into oblivion with a flat tax though.
Anyways, regardless I think what this means largely is that the Republican party is going to be in for some fun. Basically it seems to me that Glenn Beck is going to outline a plan he has on what we need to do to return to the America of Tomorrow. That said I hope we keep some new Americaisms. Like womens rights, black voting and don’t return to slavery. Remember people some of the the founding fathers had slaves and it wasn’t a mistake the slaves and women couldn’t vote. It wasn’t a mistake because they were seriously flawed people that had some great ideas as well as some bad ideas. As well as many others that are too numerous to list. For instance, we have the EPA and its a great idea less you want to breathe in Chinaesque pollution and live in a nuclear waste pit. Capitalism left to its own lack of soul will use and abuse a population as fast as a Socialist nation. Thats why regulation is a good idea and unwinding it in most cases is silly nonsense. But I digress.
I don’t like glorifying the past when it was so obviously flawed. Its popular now though because when you rally people you can’t rally them on reasoned facts. Overstated opinions are better for that. Regardless I don’t mind some of these “new Republican values.” Like spending what you have. I wish they had those values for the last 8 years. Seriously people, pot meet kettle. I also thought it was a pretty conservative value to not be the worlds police but again values shift and we are in two wars now we didn’t pay for until now. So if we are returning to the spendthrifty no warsY Republican party I really support that. I also hope it doesn’t come with a loss of freedoms as well. According to Glenn Beck it shouldn’t but you know how that sort of thing goes. I imagine living by “a free america” doesn’t mean gay equity*. Why would freedom for all Americans include that? I would argue because you can’t have freedom for all when all are not free. Its the whole for all part that gets me every time.
The fun thing about seeing Glenn Beck do this is I imagine he will have some sort of “litmus test” for politicians. The net effect of this will be very hard on moderate Republicans. This is bad for the Republican party but will be good if Glenn Beck and co decide to start a new party which he really should do. I wish he would because the two party system is a poor one. However an unfortunate effect of that would be the near domination of the Democrat party, something that to me doesn’t seem like a good idea.
As we have seen, one party in control seems to be a bad move for the country. The last eight years of Republican domination being proof enough as well as the current Democrat control on everything. Then again, Democrats cant seem to do anything with a majority anyway. At least anything seriously useful.
Time will tell what this will turn out to be. I look forward to his ideas good or bad because ideas don’t scare me. Enacting bad ones do though.
* – Meaning the right for anyone regardless of sexual orientation to be equitably treated by the government under The Constitution of these United States.