When Product Placement Goes Bad

(Photo credit: Michael Temchine for The New York Times)

The Surreality-Based White House

In an executive order published last week in the Federal Register, Mr. Bush said that each agency must have a regulatory policy office run by a political appointee, to supervise the development of rules and documents providing guidance to regulated industries.

Because that worked out so well in the U.S.S.R.

And hasn't he already taken on enough things that he can't seem to manage?

Add to the inanity of this idea the following bald-faced lie:

In an interview on Monday, Jeffrey A. Rosen, general counsel at the White House Office of Management and Budget, said, "This is a classic good-government measure that will make federal agencies more open and accountable."

Gory details in the NYT.

Barack-Up Plan

I just noticed that the presidential campaign site that I linked to in my previous post has a prominent link, right on the home page, inviting you to "Visit the Obama 2010 Senate Re-Elect Website."

Ouch.

Takes "Defeatocrat" to a whole 'nother level.

Line of the Day: 2007-01-30

Regarding the "name problem" of a certain candidate:

He could barely have it worse even if he was called "Fidel Bin Repealthesecondamendment" …

Read the rest.

That Which Is Right

I've never really been sure about when to prefer that to which, or vice versa. But I just came across a tip:

As a handy help, imagine that a parenthetical "by the way" always follows the word "which." We wouldn't say "The weapon which (by the way) Xena prefers is the chakram," but we would say "Gabby's skirt, which (by the way) is brown, is made of leather."

And, from the same page, here's another:

Here's a very simple rule that should always work: Try replacing the word "who/whom" with "he/him." If "he" is correct, "who" is correct. If "him" is correct, "whom" is correct.

He is my brother.
Who is your brother?

I'm looking at him.
You're looking at whom?

Thanks, English Chick.

Bonus quiz, suggested by another page on EC's site: name a common English word, built by adding "-ly" onto the end of another common word, that is not an adverb.

Answer in the Comments.

On the QT

There's no easy way to get from Rochacha to Ithaca. You want to start on 490, pick up 90, and eventually get to 34. (I'm out of L.A., the thes are no mas.)

One of the good parts about a trip like this is a chance to see Main Street in a town you've never heard of.

Halfway through the trip, rolling at 25 mph, trying to follow a web map printout of the directions from one named street to another, hoping to get back on properly numbered roads, I saw a store.

Big Kahuna Burger.

Well, we were running late, freezing rain was everywhere, and the navigator is a vegetarian, which kind of made me a vegetarian, too, so we didn't stop.

But I know they got some tasty burgers, and I'm going back.

Bad Privatization Idea #209357

Today's NYT has a story on New Jersey governor Jon Corzine's idea to lease the NJ Turnpike and the Garden State Parkway to private companies. In return for paying the state for the right to run the roads, the companies collect the tolls. Corzine is not the first governor to go this route.

There are any number of reasons why this is a bad idea. Tolls will almost certainly rise sharply. Future improvements will likely be more difficult and expensive. The requirement that the companies plow and otherwise maintain the roads will inevitably require that a new bureaucracy be created to monitor the companies. Even if that bureaucracy doesn't become completely corrupted by becoming part of yet another revolving door, it will be at best wasteful and unresponsive to the citizenry.

The worst thing about this, something that the NYT story doesn't touch upon, is that privatization of things at this scale frequently leads to higher costs and worse service. As examples, I offer Enron's control of the electrical grid in California a few years back, the billions that have passed through the hands of Halliburton in Iraq, and the fact that the Internet infrastructure in the U.S. increasingly lags behind the quality and capacity available in other nations.

The NYT is right to call attention to this as being seen as a cowardly move by Corzine. It's a way to raise revenue without having to raise tolls or taxes. In effect, it buys a little short-term breathing room at the expense of larger long-term problems. It shields the governor from having to be realistic with his constituency, and it puts yet another charge on the credit cards of the next generation.

The worst part about this idea is that it is yet another case of the government giving a sweet deal to the already rich and powerful. This isn't capitalism, despite how it will doubtless be pitched. Once a lease deal for a roadway is struck, there is no way for anyone to compete. It won't be a cost savings for society as a whole, either, and forget about any claims of increased efficiency. Monopolies are never cheap, agile, or responsive. Think about your cable bill, the price for the latest version of Windows, and the odd borrowed trillion.

Control over infrastructure that we all depend upon is not something that should be handed off to a small group. If something needs fixing and it's going to cost money, then politicians should not shirk their responsibilities. Raise the tolls yourself, Gov. Corzine, or add another nickel to the tax on a gallon of gas. We all use the roads, we should all pay for them, and you should have the courage to make that case.

---

Update

2007-01-28 09:35 EST

Edward Ugel has an interesting op-ed piece in today's (Sunday's) NYT, on another bad privatization idea under consideration. He also presents an additional argument that I hadn't thought of, but which I certainly second.

Butt Out

All together now …

I need to quit smoking like I need a hole in the head.

I wonder about the term for that part of the brain:

… the insula, a prune-size region under the frontal lobes that is thought to register gut feelings and is apparently a critical part of the network that sustains addictive behavior.

Give yourself a "well done!" if you have recently referred to the Bush Administration as insular.

Reading Recommendations: 2007-01-26

In a change of pace from my recent RRs, this list contains no despair.

• You Say Tomato

  I just found out about Defective Yeti. Here's a short selection from a vast archive of funny reading.
  
  

• Faux-pas update [and other posts]

  A collection of foot-in-mouth episodes. A man after my own heart.
  
  

• Poll: Bush Approval at All-Time Low Among Bush Family Members

  Nothing to say except that I saved the best for last.
  
  

The Just Us Department

Thanks for the lethal pun, Richard Pryor. I hope you don't mind that I used it in a different sense.

Today's lead story in the NY Times, "Secrecy Is at Issue in Suits Opposing Spy Program," bears close reading.

You'll be unsurprised to learn that the government, who is the defense here, is being less than fully cooperative in dealing with the plaintiffs, their attorneys, and the judges hearing the cases. You might be interested, though, in just how ridiculous things can get when what's at issue is the NSA's domestic surveillance program; i.e., warrantless wiretaps.

The good news is that some serious people are finally taking the government to task.

During a dispute over access to a document, federal district judge Garr M. King said to Justice Department lawyer Andrew H. Tannenbaum:

My problem with your statement is that you assume you are absolutely correct in everything you are stating, and I am not sure that you are.

If there were ever a polite one-sentence summary of why the Bush Administration is such a disaster, that's it.

Oh, No! Not Another Post On Global Warming!

There's a website out there called bloggingheads.tv. It features video streams of two people having a conversation or a debate. Typically, the participants are pundits of some repute, especially in the blogosphere.

I happened across this site a while ago, and it's pretty good. Sometimes, the conversation devolves into a low-res version of what you can see on any Sunday morning shoutfest. But at other times, it stays a little more polite, and I find that I can actually pick up on some new thoughts.

Once such example is the "diavlog" of Robert Wright and Joel Achenbach, posted last May. Wright, among many other things, is the site's founder. Achenbach currently works for the Washington Post. The diavlog is entertainingly random, as Achenbach seems to have come into it with at least a partial goal of tormenting Wright, but they do occasionally stray on topic.

That topic is global warming.

Achenbach, at the time of the diavlog, was finishing up a long piece called "The Tempest" for the WaPo. The article focused on global warming skeptics.

Now, before you scream "YOU MEAN DENIERS!!!" let me finish.

Achenbach, in the diavlog, made me realize at least one thing that I didn't know: those who don't buy (completely) into the global warming idea are not at all unified. He said it more sympathetically in the diavlog; he said it more succinctly in his article:

But when you step into the realm of the skeptics, you find yourself on a parallel Earth.

It is a planet where global warming isn't happening -- or, if it is happening, isn't happening because of human beings. Or, if it is happening because of human beings, isn't going to be a big problem. And, even if it is a big problem, we can't realistically do anything about it other than adapt.

Right off the bat, I liked hearing this. Global warming is a complex problem, and it's instructive to hear that those who don't agree with me about its seriousness are not some homogeneous Rovian blob.

I have come to fear, however, that those who do believe that global warming is a problem are becoming a little too quick to band together. I'm not here to confess that I suddenly have my doubts about the central principle. What bothers me is that some aspects of the situation are less certain than others, and no one who wants the problem addressed acknowledges this. I am afraid that if we make too rigid a case, and turn this into a single question over which a debate must be won or lost by the end of the next election cycle, we won't succeed in dealing with the problem.

One good example: How many times have you heard "so much for global warming" in the past couple of winter weeks?

Here's Achenbach again, from his article:

And Then There's Hitler

Let us be honest about the intellectual culture of America in general: It has become almost impossible to have an intelligent discussion about anything.

Everything is a war now. This is the age of lethal verbal combat, where even scientific issues involving measurements and molecules are somehow supernaturally polarizing. The controversy about global warming resides all too perfectly at the collision point of environmentalism and free market capitalism. It's bound to be not only politicized but twisted, mangled and beaten senseless in the process. The divisive nature of global warming isn't helped by the fact that the most powerful global-warming skeptic (at least by reputation) is President Bush, and the loudest warnings come from Al Gore.

Human beings may be large of brain, but they are social animals, too, like wolves, and are prone to behave in packs. So when something like climate change comes up, the first thing people want to know is, whose side are you on? All those climatic variables and uncertainties and probabilities and "forcings" and "feedback loops," those cans of worms that Bill Gray talks about, get boiled down to their essence. Are you with us or against us?

I want to be clear. I am not suddenly on the payroll of ExxonMobil. I think the data, as I understand them, indicate something very worrisome. But I am pleading for us all to recognize that this is a long-term problem. You don't really understand global warming. Nor do I. No one does, yet. And we're not going to fix things with a magic bullet. So I think it's worth trying to understand all points of view. As cliché as it is, we're all in this together.

• Read Achenbach's article
  
• Watch the Wright/Achenbach diavlog
  

Attack of the Puritans

Brian Krebs, who runs the WaPo blog Security Fix, has an interesting post up today. It concerns the case of a substitute teacher from Connecticut, who was recently found guilty of "endangering students by exposing them to pornographic material displayed on a classroom computer."

Oh, the children.

As has been said elsewhere, when politicians start talking about protecting the children, you are well-advised to keep one eye on your wallet and the other on the Constitution.

Krebs interviewed the accused, and makes a very plausible case that justice was not at all served on this occasion. Apparently, the woman was using a computer that she didn't have an account on, so she was given another teacher's username and password to log on. She says that when she visited what she thought was an innocuous site, with kids watching, pop-ups started appearing, and new ones appeared every time she tried to close them. She says she had been told by the teacher who gave her the username and password not to logout or shut down the machine, so she went to get help. Some of the kids told their parents about it, and it sounds like witchhunt city was the next stop.

The defense had a computer expert testify, and he said that the machine was riddled with spyware. Further, the machine had an outdated version of Internet Explorer installed and the school's firewall software was four years out of date. The court did not allow the expert to present his full testimony. He has since summarized what he wanted to say and posted it on the Web.

Granted, I'm reacting here after hearing only one side of the story. But it's a pretty powerful side.

Further reading:

• Krebs's post
  
  
• Herb Horner's summary of his blocked testimony
  
  

---

Update

Lindsay Beyerstein has a longer analysis of the computer forensics in this case, along with some valuable commentary on how ill-equipped the legal system is to handle technical matters. Beyerstein makes it clear that the teacher was not the one to visit the site from which the pop-ups emanated -- someone else had visited the site using that computer before the class started -- and that the spyware had clearly been loaded onto the machine weeks before the substitute teacher ever used it.

Update

Alex Eckelberry has a good post on this, filled with links, and wrote a column for the local paper about the matter. Among other things, it indicates the kids were the ones to start surfing. See also the top of his blog for the latest updates.

"Most Emailed" Watch: Vegan Cooking

Sometimes, the entries on the NYT's "Most Emailed" list mystify me. Not this time, though.

Today's #1 article is on vegan cooking, and it's delightfully Birkenstock-free. It centers on two women who are more punk than tediously hippie, who evidently have come up with a way to make vegan cupcakes actually taste good. One of the two even goes so far as to diss the vegan movement for its self-righteousness.

And yes, there are links to recipes.

In what is my favorite use of a modifier this year, reporter Julia Moskin refers to the results of previous vegan baking efforts as "penitential scones and muffins."

Quick: Time to Patch

A security hole has been discovered in QuickTime. This affects versions running on both Macs and PCs.

Mac users: Get the patch by running Software Update.

PC users: If you recently installed or upgraded iTunes/QuickTime on your PC, you probably also have a program installed called "Apple Software Update." (Do Start -> Programs or Start -> All Programs to see if you have it.) If you do, run that program.

If you don't have "Apple Software Update" installed, you may want to look into this -- it's being portrayed as a serious bug.

Further reading:

• Apple's page
• SANS advisory page
• Google News results for "quicktime bug"

Lemme know if you want more details.

Are You a Seppo?

Courtesy of a funny diss of music emanating from these United States, I just learned a new derogatory term for people like me: seppo.

I thought it might have been a shortening of "separators," since I was reading a blog hosted in the UK, and you know how some of those people still feel about our little breakaway. However, according to Convict Creations, it's an example of Australian rhyming slang:

Seppo - Yank. (From Septic Tank)

Who even knew the Australians had rhyming slang?

Bzzzt!

Given the tendency of military hardware to find its way out of the armory, we can only ask: What could possibly go wrong with this?

Headline:

Military Develops Non-Lethal Ray Gun
New Weapon Makes Human Targets
Feel Like They're About To Catch Fire

Story.

Chumby

I keep hearing about the Chumby, which is a clock radio replacement sort of thing that can connect to the Web over your existing wireless connection. If this were the mid-'90s, we'd call it a Web appliance, but I'm pretty sure that term has since become eternally taboo.

Anyway, this thing isn't available yet, but they have a web site! but it seems to have moved past the vaporware stage. It's supposed to be released in spring of this year, and will sell for about $150, according to one source.

One of the coolest things about it is its "anti-iPod" stance -- both the hardware and software will be fully hackable.

Naturally, I've been to their site a few times. I went back today, and found out that they are offering prototypes to a very select few.

You gotta love the screening process:

No, you can't actually do it from here. The above image is just a screen grab. Go make your convincing argument at chumby.com.

I can't believe …

… I clicked on this link: "Paris Hilton's Private Items on Internet."

I can't believe you did, either.

Okay, now I'm interested

I haven't been paying too much attention to this week's trial of the century. Having heard that prospective jurors were being screened by being asked whether they trusted the Bush Administration, I figured the whole thing was going to devolve into a marathon whitewash.

But then came this lede:

I. Lewis Libby Jr., the vice president's former chief of staff, was made a scapegoat by White House officials to protect the president's longtime political adviser, Karl Rove, Mr. Libby's lawyer asserted in his opening statement on Tuesday. (source)

Cat fight!

Creepy Line of the Day: 2007-01-24

I've blogged once before, but it was in the privacy of my home.

--Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Illinois), quoted in The Caucus

Okay, I took this a little out of context. But it was still pretty creepy.

Another problem solved

I saw somewhere on imdb.com that there's a movie coming out with the title Synecdoche, New York. If you live in Ithaca, Rochacha, or some other fine city up around here, you immediately get this.

For my part, I'll never have to worry about saying "SIN-ek-dosh" again. It's embarrassing when your kid sister has to correct your pronunciation.

New worry: speeping croonerisms.

Random Nugget

I came across something, published in October 2005, that begins:

The following are excerpts from actual one-star Amazon.com reviews of books from Time's list of the 100 best novels from 1923 to the present. Some entries have been edited.

Depending on your mood, your reaction will be either to bang your head on your desk and mutter, "Oh, the humanity …" or to scream with laughter at the morons out there. As I tend to oscillate between these two states, the article definitely worked for me.

Read Lone Star Statements.

Sad Cliché

From today's NYT newsletter:

Two powerful car bombs ripped through a market in central Baghdad on Monday in one of the worst scenes of carnage since the war began.

I have read "one of the worst scenes of carnage since the war began" so many times in the past couple years that I'm now convinced reporters have this phrase defined as a keyboard macro.

Which is hardly to blame them.

I wish, too

Lisa Margonelli has an excellent post up on her NYT blog, titled The State of Our Energy Policy. [T$]

It's the speech that she wishes President Bush would give tonight -- a realistic assessment of our situation, with plenty of proposals that might actually work. Out with the hydrogen-powered cars and drilling our way to independence, in with practical plans for increased efficiency and conservation. Margonelli gives a number of useful links, as well.

Highly recommended.

22 January

I just heard about "Blog for Choice Day," thanks to Brian. I am happy and proud to post the above graphic. I fully support a woman's right to choose, and I am against any and all restrictions on that right.

The site that provides the above image, Bush v. Choice, challenges bloggers to "tell us, and your readers, why you're pro-choice."

I did notice, when reading the NY Times newsletter this morning, that today is the 34th anniversary of Roe v. Wade. I thought about mentioning this then, but I couldn't think of anything new to say. Reflecting upon the BvC challenge, I have decided that writer's block, and my egotistical desire to coin a pithy new phrase, will have to be set aside. This is an issue where it is of paramount importance to stand up and be counted. I will therefore explain my thinking for being pro-choice, and ask your indulgence for the lack of originality.

When I was back in college for the second time, I was hanging out in a bar with my roommate, his friend, and his friend's fiancée. We were all older students who had returned to school in our late 20s, and we were finally nearing completion of our undergraduate degrees. The woman, whom I'll call Phyllis, was telling us about her roommate, whom I'll call Jane. Phyllis told us that Jane had been aware that Phyllis was going to the drugstore.

"And then Jane asked me to pick up her birth control pills! Can you imagine?"

I was puzzled. "So you didn't do it?"

"Of course not!"

"Why? Didn't she have the money? Or didn't you?"

"No, no! I didn't care about the money! But, I mean, these were her birth control pills!" She leaned back as thought she had just played the ace of trumps.

I still didn't get it. "Why wouldn't you do this, if you were already going?"

Phyllis went on at some length, saying that it wasn't her job to cover for her roommate's irresponsible and immoral behavior. I guess, being engaged, she felt she had some exclusive right to have sex. She finished by clapping her hands and said, in a mocking tone of voice, "Oh, look! It's a baby!"

I said, "So, you think it would be better if she had to get an abortion?"

She looked aghast at me. "Of course not! That would be a sin!"

The conversation quickly devolved. My roommate's friend began featuring a pained look. I read it as agreement with my point of view, and a wish to be anywhere but caught in the middle of this. His fiancée was looking to him for support. I was on the verge of asking him how he could be planning to marry such a wingnut. My roommate, recognizing the wisps of steam, went proactively diplomatic and dragged me out of the bar.

I don't mean to equate birth control with abortion. I don't think they're the same thing at all. But this was the first time that I had encountered the intolerance of the vehemently religious in anyone my own age. Every time I hear the rantings of some anti-choice loudmouth, I am reminded of Phyllis's smug self-appointedness.

I do not view a fetus as a human being. I view it as a potentiality. Until the fetus exits the womb, I see it as part of the woman's body. As such, she is the only one who is entitled to make decisions about it.

I recognize that others may view this dividing line as arbitrary, or as drawn at the wrong place in time. I can occasionally summon up some abstract appreciation for those who are morally convinced that a late-term fetus is already a distinct life. I suppose I could be more charitable to these people, were so many of them not also in favor of the death penalty and invading other countries.

At the moment, there is no clear answer about when a sperm cell and an egg become a baby. Maybe my split point will ultimately be proven wrong. For now, I am comfortable with my own definition. Until I hear a distinction that is based on something more substantial than religious leanings, especially when they are not shared by everyone, I believe that the best policy as a society is to leave it to the individual to decide.

PC-speak of the Day: 2007-01-22

The tendency over the last decade or two for the Painfully Correct to refer to every granfalloon as a "community" usually makes me don my waffle-stompers and look menacingly at puppies.

Not today, though:

… zombies (aka the "non-living community") … (source [S$])

---

Update:
2007-01-23 09:27

This just in, from Natalie Angier's entertaining article on time in today's NYT:

Far more action is going on below the surface, in the subatomic community.

OIC. No ic.

Apparently, panties are getting bunched by the spread in usage of the Mangler-in-Chief's way of referring to his opposing party.

Bush has, for a while now, spoken of the "Democrat Party." This grates on the ears of the Democratic Party faithful, and they haven't been quiet about it.

Unsurprisingly, as soon as the rightwingnuts saw how well this worked, they gleefully adopted the tactic. But now the "liberal" media is starting to say it, too. And … well … This. Can. Not. Stand.

Or so say some.

Michelle Pilecki makes a pretty good case about why it matters so much, over on The Huffington Post. She refers to it as a "slur."

But you know what? I'm not buying it. I've noticed Bush & Co. saying it, but it would never have occurred to me to take it as a slur. In fact, I can't think of anything dumber to worry about. We're beset by about nine hundred dreadful problems, and the Democrats are once again letting themselves become distracted by something so inane that it doesn't even merit the term "issue."

My advice to the Democrats: Chill. Do your job. Be icy, not icky.

Reading Recommendations: 2007-01-22

Some darker ones to start:

• Smearing Barack Obama

  And so it begins …
  
  Christopher Hayes documents the first trickles of what will undoubtedly be a tsunami of right-wing poison. I don't know how we'll all be able to stand the next two years.
  
  

• Beyond Sophistry

  Kevin Drum describes Attorney-General Alberto Gonzales's recent dismissal before the Senate Judiciary Committee of the right of habeas corpus.
  
  

• The Iraq Gamble: At the pundits' table, the losing bet still takes the pot

  Jebediah Reed profiles "the four pundits who were in our judgment the most influentially and disturbingly misguided in their pro-war arguments and the four who were most prescient and forceful in their opposition."
  
  You'll note a trend: the boneheads continue to make the big bucks, the others, not so much. This is a topic that's getting a fair amount of buzz lately, and rightfully so. Reed's effort is one of the best I've seen.
  
  This is a multi-page article. Note the "next page" links at the bottom of each.
  
  

• Closing the 'Collapse Gap': the USSR was better prepared for peak oil than the US

  Dmitry Orlov predicts the eventual collapse of the United States, and argues that it is even less prepared for this than was the USSR. Unlike most slide shows that get posted on the Web, this one has the nice touch of including the transcript of his talk, weaved among the slides.
  
  The premise may sound a little over the top, but Orlov makes many points that bear serious consideration. Trust me, you're not an America-hater if you read this one.
  
  

And now, on the lighter side:

• The BEAST 50 Most Loathsome People in America, 2006

  Snark at its finest.
  
  

• Zeitgeist Checklist [for Jan. 20, 2007]

  This weekly feature on Slate is always a howl.
  
  

• Doonesbury [2007-01-14 edition]

  Introducing "the White House Situational Science Adviser."
  
  

Jargon Watch: Escalation Surge

There's a new way to characterize the throwing of good troops after dead. At least, according to Condoleezza Rice:

In a heated exchange with [Sen. Chuck] Hagel, a potential presidential candidate in 2008, Rice disputed his characterization of Bush's buildup as an "escalation."

"Putting in 22,000 more troops is not an escalation?" Hagel, a Vietnam veteran and longtime critic of Bush's Iraq policy, asked. "Would you call it a decrease?"

"I would call it, senator, an augmentation …"

(source)

Thanks to Frank Rich [T$], for pointing this out.

Krugman on Purges

Paul Krugman's op-ed in yesterday's NY Times is a must read. Even if you don't usually read Krugman, read this one.

In his column, Krugman summarizes the Bush Administration's latest trick for heading off anticipated investigations: firing U.S. Attorneys viewed as potentially hostile, and replacing them from an apparently limitless stock of toadies.

Krugman also calls attention to an unnoticed clause, slipped into the Patriot Act during the last Congressional session by Arlen Spector. This clause does away with the erstwhile requirement that Congress approve interim appointees to these positions.

Krugman refers to TPMmuckraker: "… which has done yeoman investigative reporting on this story." For your convenience, here are some links:

• The post Krugman quotes
  
  
• More TPMmuckraker articles on this matter

As Krugman says:

The broader context is this: defeat in the midterm elections hasn't led the Bush administration to scale back its imperial view of presidential power.

On the contrary, now that President Bush can no longer count on Congress to do his bidding, he's more determined than ever to claim essentially unlimited authority -- whether it's the authority to send more troops into Iraq or the authority to stonewall investigations into his own administration's conduct.

The next two years, in other words, are going to be a rolling constitutional crisis.