Star Wars: The Old Republic trailer

I'm with Phil - the kids these days just don't appreciate how good they have it.

Witness the trailer for the latest Star Wars video game.

My day, we thought the drifting movement in Asteroids was impressive. I remember thinking Donky Kong on Colecovision was just amazing.

Sigh.

A public health option would destroy the free market...

...that is, if that market hadn't already been destroyed by consolidation.

Defenders of the status quo on health care like to point out that a public option will destroy the system of robust free-market competition that currently exists.

[snip]

But the notion that most American consumers enjoy anything like a competitive marketplace for health care is flatly false. And a study issued last month by a pro-reform group makes that strikingly clear.

The report, released by Health Care for America Now (HCAN), uses data compiled by the American Medical Association to show that 94 percent of the country's insurance markets are defined as "highly concentrated," according to Justice Department guidelines. Predictably, that's led to skyrocketing costs for patients, and monster profits for the big health insurers. Premiums have gone up over the past six years by more than 87 percent, on average, while profits at ten of the largest publicly traded health insurance companies rose 428 percent from 2000 to 2007.

Taibbi beats the hell out of Goldman Sachs

(Via Barry)

Great read from Matt Taibbi in July's Rolling Stone. Here's a sample:

[Goldman Sach]'s unprecedented reach and power have enabled it to turn all of America into a giant pump-and-dump scam, manipulating whole economic sectors for years at a time, moving the dice game as this or that market collapses, and all the time gorging itself on the unseen costs that are breaking families everywhere - high gas prices, rising consumer-credit rates, half-eaten pension funds, mass layoffs, future taxes to pay off bail-outs. All that money that you're losing, it's going somewhere, and in both a literal and a figurative sense, Goldman Sachs is where it's going: The bank is a huge, highly sophisticated engine for converting the useful, deployed wealth of society into the least useful, most wasteful and insoluble substance on Earth - pure profit for rich individuals.

Taibbi on a tear is always fun, but there are some good factual bits in there as well.

Read it.

Late edit: Here's a link to the full version on Rolling Stone's website.

A cherished myth of the mortgage meltdown returns!

An oldie but a goodie:

The subprime mess was caused by government regulation that forced banks to loan money to poor people.

No, it freaking wasn't.

Just something to remember the next time somebody tries to feed you this line of bull. Do your part to get this into the zeitgeist: It was NOT the Community Reinvestment Act of 1977.

(Via CJR, naturally)

Spot the snark

The SCOTUS just ruled on Ricci v. DeStefano, the case famous for being about white firefighters who feel that they were subject to racial discrimination.

Kennedy joined with the right wing of the court to validate their claim.

Justice Ginsburg's read her dissent aloud in court.

I'm wondering if the following line from her dissent was delivered as snarkily as it sounds:

The white firefighters who scored high on New Haven’s promotional exams understandably attract this Court’s sympathy. But they had no vested right to promotion.

I certainly hope so.

Late edit: in her oral delivery of her dissent, Justice Ginsburg used the word "empathy" in place of sympathy. Double snark!

(Via the NYT)

Jenny Sanford: Calling him out

Up to a point, L'affaire Sanford was adhering to the protocols we've come to expect in America:

1.  Public figure is caught dead to rights - tries to lie his way out.
2. Public figure is then confronted with ironclad evidence of their misconduct
3. Public figure then races to publicly admit wrongdoing before that evidence is made public.
4. In this admission of wrongdoing they:
   
• Invoke religion & the sprit of forgiveness
• Accept "full responsibility for their actions"
• Loudly invoke the personal cost incurred by them up to this point
• Minimize or fail to mention future tangible consequences for their actions

Frequently the public figure is accompanied by their spouse who is drafted to give the appearance that the very people they wronged the most have already begun to forgive them.

We've seen this with Sens. Vitter, Craig, Ensign - Reps. Burton, Livingston - Hell, even Pres. Clinton and Gov. Spitzer (although I'd give Spitzer and Livingston props for immediately resigning after being caught).

Gov. Sanford has departed a bit from the script - with members of his own party wailing on him and the absence of spousal support - but he's gamely tried to right his ship in the orthodox way.

But you really have to hand it to Jenny Sanford for not putting up with his crap.

The AP has her latest broadside. And it hulls the governor but good:

"I was hoping he was on the Appalachian Trail. But I was not worried about his safety. I was hoping he was doing some real soul searching somewhere and devastated to find out it was Argentina. It's tragic."

In her first extended comments on the affair, Sanford recalled how her husband repeatedly sought permission to visit his lover in the months after she discovered his infidelity.

"I said absolutely not. It's one thing to forgive adultery; it's another thing to condone it," she told The Associated Press during a 20-minute interview at the coastal home where she sought refuge with their four sons.

Boo Yah.

Call it what it is. Say what you have every right to say.

I don't fault other spouses for not putting the hatchet to their straying partners - but it is refreshing to see one use their unassailable position to its full effect.

(H/t bmaz)

We shouldn't even be here

Any fan of US soccer had to go into this match expecting the worst. Brazil is better staffed at every position except goalkeeper. They have a history of crushing us, and they play a posession game that spells death for teams who (like ours) can't reply in kind.

Still, if you are a fan of US soccer - you are hopeful. To the point of delusion. Yes, you've been burned over and over again, but there are those moments (USA v. Portugal) when you are rewarded with a result you simply have no right to ask for.

So, while every part of a US soccer fan's mind is telling them the Confederations Cup final vs. Brazil is simply the crushing defeat we've been begging the fates for - you still have this thought you can't shake:

You just never know, we just might get lucky.

And you really should have learned this lesson.

Do you see America? do you see how I crush your hopes and dreams??

Scoreline - June 28, 2009
USA: 2
Dempsey 10'; Donovan 27'
Brazil: 3
Fabiano 46', 74'; Lucio 84'

You have to hand it to the soccer gods. Looking back on this tournament - its as if they had designed it specifically to destroy US soccer fans.

Consider the bait they used:

By all rights, the US should have gone home in the group stage. In a group with Brazil and Italy and you make it out on 3 points?

Insane.

Being rewarded with a death sentence matchup with SPAIN? and then winning shutting them out 2-nil?

Beyond insane.

So now that the gods have all US soccer fans watching (yet another) no-hope matchup for their team - the gods let Brazil trail.

Early. By two goals. Now that's just sick. I know the US should lose, but c'mon I'm only human. They close out the half still leading 2-0 and I'm freaking out.

You never know... we just might-

And then the soccer gods pounce. Fabiano gets two and it's clear that the US has abandoned the midfield (again) to build fortress America right at the 18 yard box. We cannot keep possession for more than a few passes and Brazil is banging on our door like Nicholson.

Brazil should have won by two -they actually put one past Howard that he pushed out fast enough to fool the linesman - (another masterstroke by the soccer gods) but we were clearly trying to hold onto something that wasn't ours.

Yet again, the US fans are dragged against their will into hoping- and yet again they are savagely beaten. Yet again, the US media begins to pay attention to the fortunes of the national squad only in time to see them choke on an international stage.

A virtuoso performance by Brazil, but one eclipsed by the heartless bastards who rule the fortunes of international soccer.

Hook, line and sinker - they got me again.

B@stards.

David Simon: Somebody Ought to Pay

Having read his Senate testimony, I have to applaud Mr. Simon for spelling out his contempt for the current state of media and the crop of current suggestions for how to improve it.

What I say will likely conflict with what representatives of the newspaper industry will claim for themselves. And I can imagine little agreement with those who speak for new media. From the captains of the newspaper industry, you will hear a certain martyrology – a claim that they were heroically serving democracy to their utmost only to be undone by a cataclysmic shift in technology and the arrival of all things web-based. From those speaking on behalf of new media, weblogs and that which goes twitter, you will be treated to assurances that American journalism has a perfectly fine future online, and that a great democratization in newsgathering is taking place.

In my city, there is a technical term we often administer when claims are plainly contradicted by facts on the ground. We note that the claimant is, for lack of a better term, full of it. Though in Baltimore, of course, we are explicit with our nouns.

High-end journalism is dying in America and unless a new economic model is achieved, it will not be reborn on the web or anywhere else. The internet is a marvelous tool and clearly it is the informational delivery system of our future, but thus far it does not deliver much first-generation reporting. Instead, it leeches that reporting from mainstream news publications, whereupon aggregating websites and bloggers contribute little more than repetition, commentary and froth. Meanwhile, readers acquire news from the aggregators and abandon its point of origin –namely the newspapers themselves.

In short, the parasite is slowly killing the host.

It's a great read.

I've often thought of blogging as little more than a free clipping service. There are obvious exceptions (actual new media like TPM and the like) but aggregators/ commentators and those who just link to and comment on what stands out to them are all utterly dependent on somebody doing the actual work of journalism.

If the NYT were to go dark, I'd have a lot less to do - and I'm nobody. Those sites out there that depend on millions of eyeballs showing up to devour their daily take on the news, where do they go when the content producers shut down?

There are all kinds of journalists who don't deserve the title - and plenty of bloggers who surpass paid professionals in terms of output and dedication. But the blogger's free lunch - newspapers giving away high quality content - cannot go on indefinately.

Simon's rebuttal to citizen bloggers holding government accountable is deliciously blunt.

I am offended to think that anyone, anywhere believes American institutions as insulated, self-preserving and self-justifying as police departments, school systems, legislatures and chief executives can be held to gathered facts by amateurs pursuing the task without compensation, training, or for that matter, sufficient standing to make public officials even care to whom it is they are lying or from whom they are withholding information.

I remember a lot of teeth gnashing about what Mr. Simon has said in the past - but I think his underlying logic is correct. If the content producers are dying - those who rely on them won't be far behind. I love a great many news blogs, but I can't help but see them as complimentary services.

I have no idea what new business models will shake out to deliver information to the public - but its clear that giving away content for nothing is not working as expected.

SCOTUS: Say it to my face

 I agree with Justices Scalia & Thomas.

Justice Kennedy, you're full of crap.

(Yeah, I know...it seems very weird to say that.)

Melendez-Diaz v. Massachusetts, deciding whether or not the confrontation clause applies to scientific evidence presented in court. This would be the fingerprint evidence, the DNA or hair sample that is offered as proof of guilt or innocence.

Previously, there was no constitutional requirement that the people who prepare this evidence be available for cross-examination.

Thanks in part to Scalia and Thomas, now there is.

Meaning if you're on trial and the prosecutor presents a damning crime scene report linking you to the crime - you have a right to haul the guy who wrote it into court to explain how he came to those conclusions and what methods he followed.

By itself, that doesn't seem like too big a deal, but when you consider that in many jurisdictions, such evidence is shielded from deeper scrutiny - you get an idea of what's so messed up.

Guy testifies that he saw me at the crime scene - my lawyer gets to cross examine him on the stand. See if he's credible, if he's a drunk, if he's pathological, if he has vision problems.

If that same guy works in a state crime lab and writes a report saying he found my fingerprints at the crime scene - all I used to be able to do was read the report. I could rebutt the evidence with my own experts - but if the author of the report was an incompetent. I'd never get to know.

And just yesterday, I was wondering if Justice Thomas gave a damn about anyone's rights because of this this:

Unlike the majority, however, I would hold that the search of Savana Redding did not violate the Fourth Amendment. (Safford Unified School Dist. #1 v. Redding)

That was his view of how school officials strip searched a 13-year old girl, against her will, without parental consent, to locate a single tablet of ibuprofen.

Once that kind of conduct is acceptable, you wonder what is left to defend.

Thomas' concurring opinion in Melendez-Diaz is pretty brief - so you wonder if he's grudgingly going along because Scalia told him to, or if he genuinely believes that the constitution exists and that it can be used to protect the rights of citizens.

Amazing.

More amazing, (to my mind anyway) is that Justices Kennedy & Breyer dissent - LOUDLY - against this opinion. They are joined by Roberts and Alito (which surprises me not at all), but Breyer thinks we should not be allowed to confront those who accuse us in the form of an evidence report?

Yikes.

The looming ARMageddon

(via CJR's Ryan Chittum)

We keep hearing it and hearing it, that we're doing better now - the economy is rebounding.

But there's that other datastream that keeps *ahem* raining on the parade - the one about "another monster wave of foreclosures coming, this one driven by resets of adjustable-rate mortgages, especially so-called option ARMs."

Here's Chittum:

Option ARMs are particularly dangerous because they backload the debt, allowing buyers to pay much lower payment in the early years of the note than if it were amortized like a standard thirty-year mortgage. In the case of negative amortization notes, borrowers don’t even have to cover the interest on the note in the early years, meaning the size of the note actually increases as the months and years go by.

and

More evidence that the state of California is just screwed: 

California accounted for 58 percent of option ARMs, according to a report by T2 Partners LLC, citing data from Amherst Securities and Loan Performance.

The McClatchy article Chittum closes with is full of quotes that give you the heeby-jeebies.

Ick.

I want my private jet now

Having established that my every prediction will be wrong, I think I can say that the time has come for me to buy a lottery ticket and watch my mailbox for the deed to a G5 jet.

Holy sh!t... I scored on Spain!!!

To hell with Governor of the long distance dalliance, let's talk real news:

Scoreline - June 24, 2009
Spain: 0
USA: 2
Altidore 27'; Dempsey 74'

That would be the US shutting out the number 1 ranked team in the world.

But FIFA rankings are crap, you say...

Yes, they are - but this isn't just some computer ranking, Spain has won 15 straight matches, has only allowed three goals in 17 matches, and hasn't lost since November of 2006.

But this is a minor tournament, you say...

So? Spain wasn't fielding a bunch of losers - they brought the A team:
Fabregas, Torres, Xavi, David Villa, Puyol, Ramos.  World beaters, all.

This wasn't spain - this was SPAIN in all caps. They were here to tune up for next year's World Cup - get some practice under their belt vs. some quality opposition. Likely they were especting to meet that quality in the final, but now they get the third place match.

Owch.

The US was not stellar - but we attacked with spirit early and put the Spaniards off their game a bit. Altidore's goal was pure opportunism - but that's the only bad thing you could say about it.

By the time Dempsey added our second - Spain was definitely hearing the footsteps. Our defense held, but only just. We got absolutely shelled for the last half of the game, and our forwards and midfielders could not hold the ball to save their lives.

It did not help that (of course) there was another total BS red card ejection for Bradley (Honestly, FIFA, WTF???) so we played the last six minutes a man down.

Overall US possession was pitiful. Our standard run was: Howard kicks it downfield and we lose the ball. Or we get the ball, only to offer a desperate pass that is easily intercepted.

Then Spain would surge into the attack again. Over and over - we couldn't hold the ball for any length of time. That's going to ruin us against any quality team - Unless we get as many good breaks as we got tonight. (har!) We were not dominating, we weren't artistic, and we certainly weren't much to look at - but we got a lead and sat on it.

Despite all the griping - this is a massive win for the US. Top flight opposition - with a full slate of their best - going down 2-0.

The US's first final in a major tournament. That's just awesome...

(Yeah, yeah, we'll play Brazil and they'll kill us, but what the hell? we shouldn't have gotten this far... Go USA!!)

 Dempsey ices the cake in the 74th minute. Suck it, Ramos.

Sanford: it was a woman...

Gasps of amazement. The missing governor was seeing a gal in Argentina.

What an idiot.

Late edit: Having established that he lied to his staff, there doesn't appear to be much reason to accept Gov. Sanford's current story (that he went there to end the affair) at face value.

Zach Roth has two questions that go right to the vitals of the Governor's current story:

3) Why did it take a six-day trip to break off the affair? Not to sound cold, but couldn't a difficult phone call -- or at least a one day trip for a face-to-face conversation -- have done the job?

4) If the trip really was just to break off the affair, and Sanford's wife had found out about it five months ago, as the governor suggested, why couldn't he tell her where he'd gone?

People do things that make no sense all the time, but it doesn't take six days to dump somebody. And if he's determined to make it up to his family - I'm curious what led him to think his wife would be happier if he broke up with his mistress in person. In secret. For almost a week.

Garrison's ode to the NYT

(Via CJR)

Garrison Keillor waxes poetic on his love of the New York Times:

Thank you so much for coming
I wish I saw you more
Sorry I can't offer lunch
I've got to shove you out the door
I'm afraid I'm just too busy
I have fallen way behind
My garage is full of ten years
Of the Sunday New York Times

Some get their news from the radio
Some people read headlines
I read every single word
In the Sunday New York Times

...

Read the rest.

Wall Street calculations

You gotta love the Wall Street minds.

After being told that their bonuses cannot exceed a set percentage of their salaries - they rein in their bonuses in deference to their tax subsidized statu-

-sorry, I meant to say they raise their salaries so their total compensation will increase by 20 or 30 percent.

Because...? They're having such a good year?

and there's this bit of Wall Street math:

21% of $0 profit = $3.1 million

I want to live in their world (as opposed to merely footing the bill for it).

Penelope Trunk: Informed candor on abortion

 As a guy - there's only so much you can understand about the abortion issue. You're always talking in the third person - referring to friends who had the procedure, speculating on how this or that law will theoretically affect people's behavior.

You're not talking from any kind of direct experience - which is why the latest offering from Penope Trunk is such a kick in the head.

Penelope Trunk, the train wreck that keeps on giving - has written a monster of a post on abortion and careers. Specifically hers.

People think abortion is such an easy choice–they say, “Don’t use abortion as birth control.” Any woman who has had one will tell you how that is such crazy talk. Because an abortion is terrible. You never stop thinking about the baby you killed. You never stop thinking about the guy you were with when you killed the baby you made with him. You never stop wondering.

I don't know why I need to keep learning these things - but no matter how I try to simplify abortion for myself - there are always infinitely more dimensions to wonder about. Ms. Trunk's unflinching narrative has (yet again) yanked me out of my comfortable assessment of an issue.

Which is one of the reasons I read her blog.

Is the President the kwisatz haderach?

John Hodgman is absolutely brilliant in the Radio & Television Correspondents dinner.

Shades of Colbert's WHC Dinner address.

Bask in its greatness.



P.S. Bonus points for anyone who can answer Hodgman's three part question.

(Late edit: forgot the H/t to TPMTV)

NAMUDNO vs. VRA ends in a draw

You just have to wonder. The case that posed the biggest threat to the Voting Rights Act for decades has been decided - and the Supremes have elected to punt.

(Via SCOTUS blog)

With only one Justice voting to strike down Congress’s 25-year extension of the Voting Rights Act’s controversial Section 5, the Supreme Court on Monday interpreted the law in a way that saves it.  The Court said that all local units of government must be given the option to bail out of the requirement that they get Washington approval for any changes in their election laws or methods.

So, rather than hold Section 5 underwater until it dies - they've merely chosen to dangle its head over the water and ask people to load it up with heavy objects.

Oh, and Justice Thomas thought the court should have nullified Section 5, since-

...the violence, intimidation and subterfuge” that led to its enactment “no longer remains.”

True, there are no stats to show how many attempts to disenfranchise voters were never attempted under the VRA - but I imagine we'll get some stats as soon as more districts escape federal oversight.

Weak.

SCOTUS blog's Tom Goldstein has a similar view, although he's thinking Section 5 is drowning a lot faster than I do (and, in contrast to my opinion, he actually knows stuff).

Phone cops play hardball

Andy, I'll do anything, I'll play the Carpenters, just hide me, these phone cops play hardball!
-Dr. Johnny Fever

By now, stories about teen hackers are pretty dated. And they all arc the same. Bright young mind, gets hooked on learning stuff that know one else knows about, goes too far - gets brought down hard.

But reading this C|Net interview with orignal hacker Kevin Mitnick there was a very interesting angle you don't think much about - how having exclusive knowledge of computers cuts both ways.




Here's Kevin:

I ended up in solitary confinement for a year because a federal prosecutor told the judge that if I got to a phone I could connect to NORAD (North American Aerospace Command) and somehow launch an ICBM (Intercontinental Ballistic Missile). So the judge, reflecting on the movie War Games, put me in solitary confinement. I think it was a strategy they used to get me to plead out or cooperate. I was held for four and a half years without a trial.

So here you have a judge's technical ignorance being exploited to increase Mitnick's punishment. Now, I think we're way past judges being quite that stupid these days - but you can see that the limited number of people who understand the issues can frame the issue to lay persons however they want.

Kevin again:

[The government] claimed all my hacking into those companies was a huge elaborate fraud and that I caused $300 million of damage. They said the value of property I copied, the R&D development cost, was $300 million. The government tried to use the old (definition of) loss for tangible property. If I copied that code and they no longer had use of it, it would be a $300 million loss or whatever.

In other words - those with an interest in making an example out of Mitnick claimed that his hacking into their source code caused a loss equal to the total cost of developing the code. Given that Mitnick didn't publish the source code, it's proprietary value wasn't lost - but prosecutors could certainly press that argument with a good chance that their voice vs. Mitnick's attorney's could carry the day.

Here's the other bit of hardball that isn't tech related:

They told my attorney that if I didn't cooperate and plead out, not only would they take me to trial in Los Angeles, but they would put me in a revolving door of trials and put me on a bus and take me from federal jurisdiction to federal jurisdiction. So I signed the deal and admitted causing between a $5 million and $10 million loss. I signed it not believing it. I signed it to get out.

Nice.

There's sort of a pattern there, I'm just having trouble picking it out.

Coming to a bookstore near you...

(Via the NYT, emphasis mine)

An Afghan journalist who was held captive by the Taliban for more than seven months along with a New York Times reporter revealed details on Sunday of a nighttime escape that included weeks of careful plotting, taking advantage of weary guards and dropping down a 20-foot wall with a rope.

The Afghan journalist, Tahir Ludin, 35, said in an interview that the escape early Saturday from the second floor of a Taliban compound in North Waziristan, in Pakistan’s tribal areas, was a desperate attempt by two severely demoralized reporters who believed that the Taliban were not seriously negotiating and would hold them indefinitely.

Mr. Ludin and David Rohde, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist at The Times, along with their driver, Asadullah Mangal, were abducted outside Kabul on Nov. 10 as Mr. Rohde traveled to interview a Taliban commander for a book he was writing about Afghanistan.

I realize this is an insensitive response to a serious matter - but...

-Mr. Rohde's book just became a whole lot pricier.

The Soccer Gods are A$$holes

Hubris is... heckling in a language you do not speak.

[Spoilers abound... but since it's the Confederations cup, I didn't bother with blackout text.]

Let's recap my prior pronouncements on the future of the FIFA Confederations Cup, shall we?

...we're in a tough group - facing the likes of Brazil and Italy. No sleight against Egypt, but well - they suck.

Top two will make it out and - let's be fair - odds are it won't be us. Brazil and Italy will mop the floor with Egypt and it's not like we're a massive obstacle.

Naturally, Egypt then proceeded to beat world champions Italy 1-0.

Then, I took pains to illustrate the impossible scenario of the USA making it to the next round:

...our [goal] differential is -5...

So, sure, Brazil could beat Italy by three goals, dropping them to -2, and we could crush Egypt by three goals, boosting us to -2. This would leave us tied on points, but (assuming Italy scored no goals at all) we’d be ahead on total goals scored.

But we know that’s never gonna happen.

Allow me to present the following information:

Scoreline - June 21, 2009
Italy: 0
Brazil: 3
Fabiano 37', 43'; Dossena 45' (O.G.)

and

Scoreline - June 21, 2009
Egypt: 0
USA: 3
Davies 21'; Bradley 63', Dempsey 71'

That's the US finishing 2nd in group B. You have just GOT to be sh!tting me here.

I'd lay good odds the US support crew spent a good part of this evening unpacking gear that had been sitting on charter jet since kickoff.

With my predictive track record firmly established - I would like to go on record as saying the following:

1. The US CANNOT win against Spain in the next round.
2. Also, I will never win the lottery.
3. Further, I will never have a previously unknown, obscenely wealthy relative die and leave me their private jet stocked with World Cup tickets.

I mean what the freaking hell?? Our exact scenario for victory plays out - and I get to watch it happen? That's just insane.

That's just too cruel... I mean, I only bothered watching the Italy/Brazil match because as soon as Italy scored I knew the US would be going home. I figured I'd save some time and get to watch some real talent for a change.

Then all hell breaks loose. Suddenly Italy's scoring on themselves and the US is two up, then three up and I'm watching the US try their hardest to let Egypt score in the last three TORTUROUS minutes.

And they don't!

When the soccer gods really want to d!ck with you, they simply REFUSE to d!ck with you. It's beyond savage. I spent the entire game killing all traces of hope - and then they win?? And advance??

That's just sick, I don't care how you look at it.

I'm still expecting a global alien invasion to screw this up. I've been burned way too many times.

Nice one, Dempsey... if you're going to break a

scoring drought, you might as well do it with style.