Role Reversal, Tea Party Edition

Tim Wise goes off on the Tea Party, with the simple thought experiment "what if the Tea Party activists were black?"

Imagine that hundreds of black protesters were to descend upon Washington DC and Northern Virginia, just a few miles from the Capitol and White House, armed with AK-47s, assorted handguns, and ammunition. And imagine that some of these protesters —the black protesters — spoke of the need for political revolution, and possibly even armed conflict in the event that laws they didn’t like were enforced by the government? Would these protester — these black protesters with guns — be seen as brave defenders of the Second Amendment, or would they be viewed by most whites as a danger to the republic?...Because, after all, that’s what happened recently when white gun enthusiasts descended upon the nation’s capital, arms in hand, and verbally announced their readiness to make war on the country’s political leaders if the need arose....

Imagine that a rap artist were to say, in reference to a white president: “He’s a piece of shit and I told him to suck on my machine gun.” Because that’s what rocker Ted Nugent said recently about President Obama.

Yes, let's imagine how that would have played out in the media.

(H/t Good blog)

Recycling, Courtesy of S.P.Q.R.

In the first century B.C. Roman merchants lost their cargo to the Mediterranean.
In the 21st century we're using that same cargo to study the physical properties of neutrinos.

Because 2,000 year old lead has almost completely lost its natural radioactivity - it can shield a particle detector without adding its own signature.

How freaky is that?

(H/t Neatorama)

More on the Horizon

Check out Grist's slideshow on the gulf oil disaster.

Not only are the pictures impressive, but you learn things like:

1) They've been trying to use robots to switch on safety measures underwater (as in, take robot to control panel, use robot arm to pull lever, hope it works).

So far, it hasn't worked.

2) They're currently building a "recovery system chamber" - a massive metal dome - to drop over the wellhead and stop the leak. They've never used a dome this big, nor have they used one at this depth. Cross your fingers.

3) The oil slick is currently 16 miles away from Lousiana's Delta National Wildlife Refuge.

(H/t Good blog)

I [heart] WTF

Not in a general sense, mine you.

I [heart] WTF CNN - a website that allows you to compare the inane offerings of America's "Most Trusted Source for News" with sites that cover news.

In a world where a media company was capable of shame - this kind of comparison could spawn changes.

But I'm still young enough to remember that Glenn Beck used to have the second highest rated show on CNN.

(H/t TechCrunch)

Flames on the Horizon

The oil rig Deepwater Horizon

While it's far too early to know exactly what events led to the explosion, fire and sinking of the oil rig, Deepwater Horizon - you'd be hard pressed to come up with a bigger black eye for offshore drilling.

Consider:

• Eleven people are missing and presumed dead
• This occurred less than 50 miles from shore.
• The oil rig is state of the art, with a replacement cost of well over a half a billion dollars.
• The wellhead is continuously leaking thousands of barrels of oil a day.
• The preferred method for sealing the leak could take months.
• The resulting oil slick is headed into the delta of the most significant river in the country
• The oil slick will be set on fire - to reduce it by 3%.
• Offshore drilling is regulated by the (utterly disgraced) D of I Minerals Management Service.

Check out The Big Picture's post on this They have some commentary and some photos of the rig and the fire that help you appreciate the size of this mess.

That's not to presume corruption or ineptitude played a role. What happened may very well have been unavoidable.

-But the visuals are just unbelievably bad.

Kick the Can

Trudy Lieberman digs into a report from Medicare's chief actuary, Richard Foster. It's an analysis on the projected effect of health care reform on health care costs.

Here's Trudy:

Foster crunched some numbers and found that health care costs will likely continue to increase, despite promises from politicos that reform would actually lower them and make those darn insurance premiums affordable. Upon signing the new law last month, the president himself said that the measure would “bring down health care costs for families and businesses and governments.” Well, what do you know? It may not.

Simply put, Foster says that the new law will not slow the growth of the nation’s health care bill. Instead, the cuts in Medicare spending and other ways Congress has finagled the financing won’t offset the big bucks needed to provide health insurance to thirty-four million currently uninsured Americans. In fact, Foster wrote that the country’s medical spending would increase by about $311 billion (0.9 percent) over the next decade. One of the biggest reasons is that more insured people will be using more services. That should have been obvious, given that the total health care expenditures equal the number of services times their price.

So, yes, you will have more people insured, yes egregious exploitation of consumers will be reined in somewhat - but the overall problem remains. We will continue to spend more on health care.

The last time we went after Medicare spending (mid-1990s) - we did not fix much of anything. Newt Gingrich described that effort as "a little bit like having a car that needed an engine overhaul, and we changed the spark plugs and got you to the next phase."

As if that weren’t enough, Foster['s report] raised the specter that Congress might have to revisit some of the Medicare cuts—perhaps even cancel them, as they have done for the doctors year after year. Even though in the late 1990s Congress decreed cuts for the docs, physicians have repeatedly lobbied the press and the pols to stop the cuts from taking effect, and they are scheduled to do that again this week. Furthermore, the report noted that the proposed cuts might be deep enough to affect the solvency of about 15 percent of hospitals and nursing homes, causing some to stop treating Medicare patients and “possibly jeopardizing access to care for beneficiaries.”

So, we've created a promise to cut Medicare payments - that will likely get lobbied out of existence. If the cuts do go into effect we'll have hospitals in jeopardy.

I don't think anyone ever believed that the heath care bill would put our health care troubles to bed - but if Mr. Foster's projections prove out - I'm sure I won't be alone in my disappointment that we had a year worth of legislative combat, and the end result was Medicare getting another shiny new set of spark plugs.

You Can Have My Pasta When You Pry It From My Cold, Dead Hands

Scientific American is obviously in league with the devil - as it is saying terrible things about my beloved carbs:

“If you reduce saturated fat and replace it with high glycemic-index carbohydrates, you may not only not get benefits—you might actually produce harm,” Ludwig argues. The next time you eat a piece of buttered toast, he says, consider that “butter is actually the more healthful component.”

Did he really just say that?

Oh, yes he did.

Blasphemer!!!

Tellin' It Like It Is

You just have to love the NY Post:

(Ht CJR)

Bloomberg: SIGTARP Says NY Fed Investigation Could Lead to Charges

AIG Probe May Lead to Criminal Coverup Charges, Barofsky Says

Barofsky's talking about people who walk some mighty hallowed halls there. As in, Sec. Geithner,
Chittum's take: Yow.

But I'd read the whole thing.

Go, Barofsky!

Blameless

The NYT reports that former First Lady Lara Bush is "opening up" about her 1963 at-fault car accident that killed another driver.

It was 1963 and she was a 17 year old driver on a back country road. She goes through a stop sign, hits another car, and kills its 17-year old driver.

Y'know, we're talking about over four decades ago... and there's not a lot of relevance these days, but look at the defensive onslaught she's bringing to bear:

• It was dark
• It was a bad intersection
• The stop sign was small
• The victim's car was unsafe

Oh, and she points out that she was chatting with a friend in the car when she went through the stop sign - so you can pretty much ignore everything in that list.

No worries, there's more:

• Immediate concern for the other driver - “The whole time,” she adds later, “I was praying that the person in the other car was alive. In my mind, I was calling ‘Please, God. Please, God. Please, God,’ over and over and over again.”
• The victim's car was unsafe

Whatever relevance these two items might have, it is beyond dispute that they do nothing to excuse the initial mistake of blowing through a stop sign. And shame on that poor kid for driving an unsafe car, no?

Look, you want to come clean about a mistake of yours that killed somebody - you should probably dial down the surrounding noise.

It doesn't stop with the accident.

She doesn't go the the victim's funeral - but even that wasn't her fault, you see? Her parents didn't want her to go, so instead she slept through it.

Honest to Pete - if I killed somebody in an accident, I wouldn't go to their funeral - because it would be an insult to their family. No matter how sorry I was - I'd be a distraction from an event that should be entirely focused on the deceased and their family.

You could say that, and hold your head up - but no. Her parents stopped her. It was beyond her control.

I'm sure this will get a good amount of press for her new book, but this hardly sounds like a person opening up. More like papering over. She's said nothing in the past, so sure, you could say it's more open than nothing.

But "open"? I think not.

No Caption Required

(H/t Imagefave)

AC/DC + Castle + High-end Projectors

Creative artists at seeper put together a seriously cool light show they projected on the side of Rochester Castle in Kent.

Sadly, it is a commercial for the Iron Man movie - but the effects are really good (particularly the last bit, at 5:20 into the clip)

Great Moments in UI - Vol. I

As part of my contracting gig - I'm required to submit a weekly timesheet using a web app.

Rather, I'm required to:

1. Log into a web application
2. Select the current date (because defaulting it would be hard)
3. Select my current client company (because defaulting a field that doesn't change would be hard)
4. Print out a hardcopy
5. Get my manager to sign it
6. Fax it to my staffing company

As procedures go, this is about middle of the road for a large business: it employs multiple and expensive components (human and software), it has a looping workflow, numerous opportunities for failure, and data that passes through four mediums - to be ultimately archived in three.

That's when things go as expected.

This past week, things did not go as expected.
I logged in,

for the 224th time in this system - I told a computer what the current date was.

Then (again, for the 224th time) I told my employer's web app where I am currently working.

And something new happened - a JavaScript Alertbox popped up saying the following:

The page at [your staffing company's website] says:


Current Week Ending Date has passed Actual End Date for this placement.


You cannot enter time and/or expenses for this placement.
Please contact your recruiter for assistance.


Placement: [Where I currently work] [My Start Date] - May 2, 2010

If you're me - you read that a couple times over before anything sinks in.

Actual End Date...?

And then somewhere in your higher logic center - some neurons fire and you're madly emailing your recruiter: Seriously. I call WTF?.

Since I do my timesheet is at the end of the week, I'm sending this email at 4:20pm on a Friday. Amazingly, I don't get a reply for three days.

When I do - it goes like this:

Good morning!
There seems to be a glitch with [our timekeeping system] this week. It is a company-wide problem that we are aware of. I know several of you are receiving an error box that says your project is ending 05/02/10. This is NOT the case! We don’t know why the system is showing that as an end date, but please disregard it. Again, your position is secure and not ending this weekend.

.....*ahem*.....

Fail.

It's the 198th Anniversary of the Battle of York!

You know, in the War of 1812...where the Americans overwhelmed the British garrison of the Town of York (present day Toronto) and then sacked the town after their leader, Zebulon Pike was killed by an exploding armory?

...And...the savagery of the Americans at York was used as a justification for the British burning Washington D.C...?

Nothin'...?

Yeah, me neither.

I just wanted an excuse to post this video of the Three Dead Trolls playing their War of 1812 song. Enjoy.

There Are Two of Them?

(Via the BBC)

The twin brother of Poland's former president, who was killed in a plane crash in Russia this month, says he will run to be elected in his place.

Jaroslaw Kaczynski said he would stand in the 20 June presidential election despite his "personal pain", in order to continue his brother's mission.

Dangerous Game

In the early nineteen-seventies, Mark and Delia Owens, two graduate students in biology at the University of Georgia, were seized by the idea of resettling in remotest Africa. They organized an auction, sold their possessions, and used the modest proceeds to buy camping equipment and a pair of one-way air tickets to Johannesburg....

The story progresses until these two people find themselves locked in a deadly struggle against ivory poachers, poverty and corrupt government officials.

Heard this one before, right?

No you haven't.

The Hunted is a long, slow-boil story that starts with youth and idealism - and ends with a dead body dumped in a lagoon.

(H/t Marc Ambinder)

Sen. McConnell?

Don't look now, but opposing financial reform just got a little harder:

Goldman executives cheered housing market's decline, newly released e-mails show

As the U.S. housing market began its epic fall nearly three years ago, top executives at Wall Street powerhouse Goldman Sachs cheered the large financial gains the firm stood to make on certain bets it had placed, according to newly released documents.

The documents show that the firm's executives were celebrating earlier investments calculated to benefit if housing prices fell, a Senate investigative committee found. In an e-mail sent in the fall of 2007, for example, Goldman executive Donald Mullen predicted a windfall because credit-rating companies had downgraded mortgage-related investments, which caused losses for investors.

"Sounds like we will make some serious money," Mullen wrote.

Mitch...? You reading this? How are those 41 signatures lookin' there, boy?

0 for 90

The [California Department of Managed Health Care] randomly selected 90 instances in which Anthem Blue Cross of California dropped the insurance of policyholders after diagnoses with costly or life-threatening illnesses to determine how many were legally justified.

None were. “In all 90 files, there was no evidence (that Blue Cross), before rescinding coverage, investigated or established that the applicant’s omission/misrepresentation was willful,” the DMHC report said.

Full article on Reuters.com

(H/t CJR)

Magnetar, the Musical

Sure, most folks have heard this - I didn't realize they had a video out there as well:

Paying For It

When I was in college - I was out with a group celebrating our mutual friend DM's birthday. Late in the evening. DM suggested that I (as the lone car-owner) drive him to a bar he wanted to visit.

Uh, okay

This suggestion and my agreement received an odd reaction. Nobody else seemed to want to go. My car was small, so the whole group was never going to be able to go - but still. Odd.

My usual half-@ssedto drinking had kept me sober - and DM didn't drink. DM's enjoyment of the bar scene had always seemed vicarious - he'd watch what others would do, and then out-crazy them while sober. It sounds strange to describe it now, but at the time it was just part of being around DM.

I took his latest suggestion as an excuse to prolong the evening. He wanted to stay out - okay.

For reasons that will soon become obvious - my line of reasoning will seem completely implausible - but at the time, I truly had no idea what was in store. DM wanted to drive to a bar, and I said okay.

When we got there - it was obvious that DM was using his birthday as an excuse, but for something else.

DM wanted to go to a strip club. And that's where we went.

I have three distinct memories of the evening:

First, talking with the bouncer on the way in. I briefly wondered if being 19 was old enough to get in. The bouncer made it clear if we had the cover charge, he didn't care if we were in pre-school.

Second, talking with a stripper at the bar. She was waiting for her shift to start, and amused herself by picking on me. She called me baby face and yelled at the bouncer for letting me in. I remember this woman looked...used up. She had feathery clothes and a voice like a chain smoker. She was having great fun trying to make me uncomfortable. It was working. I had never met a stripper before and it was like encountering someone from Mars.

This place and the people in it were normal to her. She was in her element - and I was the freak. It was a lasting and unsettling feeling.

However, the most disturbing impression was the one that made me write this. The one I was reminded of as I read this article from New York Magazine, Rachel Uchitel is Not A Madam.

At some point - I was standing back, having paid my $6 cover, drinking my required $8 can of beer - and I watched a stripper at the end of her routine crawl around picking up dollar bills off the stage floor. The act was over, the music had stopped - and this person was very clearly tired. The fake smile was gone, and this woman was picking up her money in a manner not unlike a person cleaning up dirty laundry. I have to do this, in this way, so this is what I will do.

My point isn't to get all sanctimonious about the objectification or degredation of women - I was a 19 year old male who went into a strip club for precisely the reason you'd expect. All protestations aside, I was there to see women take their clothes off.

What I'm talking about is the dreadful symmetry at work in such a place - This woman was surrounded by a group of leering predators. Her employer had created an environment where money ended up on the floor - and she was required to crawl around on all fours to retrieve it.

And off the stage was a decidedly sad bunch of men, buying overpriced cans of beer and throwing money on stage at a rate that none of them could reasonably afford. The more they paid, the more attention they would recieve from the strippers.

Economics governed the strippers behavior - once off stage, they would stalk the room - aggressively prancing in front of men who were hanging back from the stage (and consequently, were spending less money). Those who did not respond to these antics with cash were shunned by the strippers - but a regularly-attired waitress would soon approach and offer more $8 cans of beer.

It was a system - designed to exploit the intersection of what men will pay to see - and what women would do for money.

Well, duh - I'm sure you're saying. Of course that is the thinking behind it. Yes, but what I'm laborously trying to get across was my surprise at how systematic the whole thing seemed. How efficiently it ripped off both parties.

And what is clear from Lisa Taddeo's article in NY Magazine - is that however appalling this system appears - it is a thin slice of nothing compared to the one she describes. One constructed to maximize the financial return from putting attractive women in close proximity with wealthy men. They take great pains to avoid outright prostitution - but somehow that makes them appear that much worse.

Ms. Uchitel's rise to infamy with the Tiger Woods scandal has netted her the oportunity to tell us what she knows. She knows plenty - and while she comes across as a mid-level, more commercial Stephen Ward, it's hard to feel any sympathy.

She is just another predator, being turned into a different type of prey by Ms. Taddeo.

It is a fascinating story - but disheartening on so many levels. The world has gotten far too good at this sort of thing.