...but I'd say it's getting put to good use. Scroll down the page for a classic Angry Pat moment...and a little further for a couple of Jerry's greatest hits...those crazy kids...and whatever you do, don't forget to check where the Rapture Index stands today!
Thursday, May 31, 2007
Don't know how this domain was still available...
And Thereby Fox News Is Explained
Several studies lately casting doubt on, well, the intelligence of conservative types. Here's another, with some more depth. Actually, while it affirms that "[p]olitical conservatism is associated with less openness to experience . . . , and highly positively correlated with fear of uncertainty," it's more about the average conservative's lack of creativity. The correlations between three measures of creativity and conservatism were between -.15 and -.21, not large but highly significant statistically in the study (meaning that the two variables were inversely related). What was especially interesting was that the gap between the two widened as aging was taken into account--the older conservatives were even less creative.
Now, for an organized system to balance on that creative edge of chaos, conservatives are needed to pull back on the levels of creativity that threaten to push the system over that edge. But the danger for that system comes when they have too much influence and pull the system toward inertia. The balance is the key, and we're clearing tipping too far the other way right now in a world of US economic precariousness, foreign adventures, and global warming (water, energy). Right now we need more creativity, not less, less conservatism, not more. This study helps to explain why, and, frankly, why conservatives produce such mindless crap (although the Gibsons, Limbaughs, and Stallones certainly haven't impoverished themselves selling to those folks). And it explains why Fox News and its copiers are so relentlessly one note and incapable of taking on Stewart, Colbert, and Mahers.
Sorry, have to go compose a few symphanies, finish that novel, and invent something now.
Weather, Water, Energy 5-31-07
On the same day that we get the “global warming and cutting forests for biofuels may wipe out the great apes” story, word that AK (Alaska, not Arkansas) alone is looking at $10b. in infrastructure loss from the warming, and the story that even Germany’s biggest power producer plans to cut its carbon emissions to half its 1990 amounts to slow the warming, we get this moron running NASA:
Michael Griffin NASA Administrator has told America's National Public Radio that while he has no doubt a trend of global warming exists "I am not sure that it is fair to say that it is a problem we must wrestle with."
Here's the relevant part of the entire interview:
INSKEEP: And I just wanted to make sure that I'm clear. Do you have any doubt that this is a problem that mankind has to wrestle with?
GRIFFIN: I have no doubt that global -- that a trend of global warming exists. I am not sure that it is fair to say that it is a problem we must wrestle with. To assume that it is a problem is to assume that the state of earth's climate today is the optimal climate, the best climate that we could have or ever have had and that we need to take steps to make sure that it doesn't change.
First of all, I don't think it's within the power of human beings to assure that the climate does not change, as millions of years of history have shown, and second of all, I guess I would ask which human beings - where and when - are to be accorded the privilege of deciding that this particular climate that we have right here today, right now is the best climate for all other human beings. I think that's a rather arrogant position for people to take.
INSKEEP: Is that thinking that informs you as you put together the budget? That something is happening, that it's worth studying, but you're not sure that you want to be battling it as an army might battle an enemy.
GRIFFIN: Nowhere in NASA's authorization, which of course governs what we do, is there anything at all telling us that we should take actions to affect climate change in either one way or another. We study global climate change, that is in our authorization, we think we do it rather well. I'm proud of that, but NASA is not an agency chartered to quote "battle climate change."
Like they always say, never argue with fools. They’ve been at that level longer and are much better at living in it. But how do we get to this nonsensical state wherein major gov’t scientists can be such idiots in public and not have to pay? Well, maybe it’s the press. Michael Tobis goes off over at Grist on the media for its failure to cover the recent statement on warming by the nat’l science academies of the G8 nations:
Let me be as polite as I can stand about this. Where in the @$#! is the press? A unanimous statement by what amounts to all the world's scientists is not some transient breeze in the to and fro of politics. These are the facts, according to almost all the extremely smart people whom we ask to figure out what the facts are. Everywhere.
I have friends in the press, and I hate to be confrontational, but this is beyond inexcusable. Can we please draw people's attention to this, at least a hundredth the attention directed at cheap Hollywood scandals?
I'd appreciate some bell clanging in the blogs about this. I am unhappily astonished by the deathly silence that has greeted this remarkable statement. Let's fix it. Thanks in advance.
But note that even Michael is part of the problem. You hate to be confrontational? It’s only our existence on the planet, but you hate to be confrontational? This country is where it is right now because we all hate to be confrontational more than confronting the evil that is playing out. So much bad is covered over by politeness and niceness (thank you so much again, Mister Rogers), and so much good has been done historically by confrontation, but we “hate to be confrontational.” Only when we wake up the dangers of “nice” will we have a chance. And if the Tobises of the world have to apologize for it even now, even in the middle of a worthy rant, you wonder if we have it in us to do so. Well, actually, no, there’s no reason to wonder.
Ad of the Week
I think changing the Photo of the Week to Ad of the Week is a little more up my alley. So this week's winner is for the Canadian Wheelchair Rugby Championships.
More info here
Wednesday, May 30, 2007
An SNL Note...
...I read Bill Simmons' day-long chats (so you don't have to), and I found a quote I wanted to pass along...
Davs (Washington, DC): Hey Bill, doesn't Kristen Wiig have to go down as the hottest female cast member in SNL history? i mean, seriously, who else is even in the running?I think I've actually made the "ultimate TiVo show" comment before...why yes, yes I have (I knew you read GN, Simmons!)...but beyond that, I want to echo that Hader and Samberg are finding their niche, Jason Sudeikis is a solid-never-spectacular guy who is always useful in a cast, Keenan Thompson isn't asked to do too much, and the 3-female cast has really come up huge. The season finale was a letdown (they tried to reprise every funny moment or character from the season, only they didn't bother doing much more with the characters than bringing them out and reminding you they're funny. If the season had ended with the Molly Shannon episode, it would have been a much nicer final note. Oh well. A second season with basically the same cast could be very nice...
Bill Simmons: Hmmmm... that's a great point. I always thought Victoria Jackson was kinda cute. Nancy Walls looked good during her one season. There was a British female cast member named Pamela Stephenson during the Crystal-Short-Guest season who was cute. It's not a long list.
Bill Simmons: PS: Not a bad SNL season this year. Every time they have a smaller cast, it's always a decent season. I continue to enjoy Bill Hader's work. And Samberg had some funny moments. It's really the ultimate TiVo show, you can blow through it in about 10 minutes.
And yes, Kristen Wiits not only has a lot of talent and potential, but she is indeed the hottest SNL cast member since...I dunno...ever? A young Julia Louis-Dreyfus? Chris Farley in the Gap Girls skit? I mean, Amy Poehler and Maya Rudolph are both attractive, and Tina Fey had the 'hot nerd' thing going on, but...Wiits has them beat.
Only 524 days to go...
...all I can say is, RUN, TOM, RUN. Holy crap, would this be awesome. We've already got a Law & Order actor who thought being Senator was too much work (though being President apparently wouldn't) jumping into the fray...the only thing we're missing is a low-IQ fanatic. And Newt, one of the most disliked politicians in decades. Then the field would be complete. I'm giddy.
Music Bullets, 5-30-07
- Well...the DRM-less iTunes files are ready for download...the price for the individual DRM-less songs are $1.29...which is a TON for a single song...however, entire albums are still $9.99. Considering I only buy full albums, that makes me very happy.
- A couple of interesting notes from Salon...if you’re not a subscriber, you’ll have to sit through an ad...but if I’m linking to it, it must be fantastically wonderful and worth it, right? First, whoever convinced 50 Cent to take 10% stake in the vitamin water company (and convinced them to give him 10%) instead of a set amount should, honestly, run the music industry. Good god, that’s a lot of money. Let's spell it out in all caps to see if it seems like even more. FOUR HUNDRED TEN MILLION DOLLARS. Yup, that makes it seem like even more.
- Next, an interview with Rufus Wainwright, one of the most interesting and unique (for better or worse) people in music. As good as Want One was, I’ll probably end up with this album at some point.
- And finally, not from Salon...looks like Amy Winehouse has officially made it big... we take all kind of pills to give us all kind of thrills, but the thrill we’ve never known...is the thrill that’ll getcha when you get your picture on the cover of the Rolling Stone...
Weather, Water, Energy 5-30-07
Too much for detail, just hit the links and learn:
From Terra Daily, days of snow melt rising in Greenland, Moscow recording record heat, circulations changing in Indian Ocean due to weakening winds caused by warming, China (knowing the US will jerk the world around, too) refusing to work with Europe on greenhouse gas emissions targets as usual, US and Australia refusing to work with Asia on carbon trading system, India making Gandhi proud by refusing to cut greenhouse emissions because they might hurt its economy, the CA Public Employees Retirement System (one of the biggest in the country) calls out Exxon-Mobil on their evil regarding global warming, and Pelosi proving Dem leadership just as worthless on global warming as on Iraq, economy, race relations, edu . . . well, everything.
From Grist, David Roberts noting the enormous subsidies already on the table for coal liquefication here and here (while demonstrating the superiority of conservation) and lauding CA for its recent crimping of coal-fired plants.
From Christian Science Monitor, more on the “tipping point” in our warming future and how that temp may be less than current models have been predicting, yet another indication that, yes, the models are wrong—reality will be worse, and a thoughtful review of Bill McKibben’s latest book on “deep economy.”
From the Environmental News Network, word from Oxfam that it will cost $50b. yearly to fight global warming and that the Oxfammers believe the wealthy nations should pick up the tab, including 44% of that coming from the US. I’m generally one who believes it’s better to confront problems rather than stay silent and hope they work out, but this is one time when these do-good groups would do the most good by shutting up and not generating these kinds of headlines. Just plays into the Busheviks and their “hurts our economy” crap.
And from state news sites, an interesting and hopefully precedent-setting partnership between the U of AK (Alaska, not Arkansas) and the gov’s subcabinet on climate change as the state probably most immediately affected by global warming takes it seriously while the rest of us vote multiple times on “American Idol,” other states “getting it” including several Western states which are seeing growing populations and dwindling water from rivers like the Colorado, a FL article encouraging people to start that hurricane protection planning NOW and another one on Lake Okeechobee’s lowest levels on record and the effect on south FL’s water supply (not good), and finally, going solar (at least partly) in all state buildings in OR.
See why I didn't do individual comments on each?
Tuesday, May 29, 2007
Waitress
Saw two movies over the weekend. One was "Waitress," a sweet, well-done story of a young wife with an abusive husband and a talent for making pies who discovers forlornly that she is pregnant but, by the end, she has reversed her life and welcomed her beloved daughter into the world. The other was "Waitress," an unforgettable love letter from a mother, who wrote, directed, and co-starred in the movie just before being murdered by a construction worker she argued with over his noise downstairs, to her just-born daughter, who is star Keri Russell's daughter in the final shots. The first might make you think of "Alice," with the acerbic cook and two loved girlfriends and the not-to-be romance with an off-limits guy, but "Alice" wishes she were "Waitress." The second is one of the saddest movies I've ever seen, knowing that Adrienne Shelly had written it while pregnant and intended it in part to show her daughter her thoughts and growing love but that, instead, it will stand as the most perfect, most tragic legacy of pure love that a mother can leave a daughter. As I watched the final scenes, I couldn't help but wonder at what age the girl's father will let her see this movie. Is he already? At what age will the girl shift from a vague understanding that this movie has her dead mother in it to a realization that she was the intended audience for this emphatic "I love you so much" from a woman she will never know? How will that girl respond? Being a man, of course, I didn't cry. But I didn't talk much during the walk from the theater to our car. It was truly a unique experience, watching one movie that was really two, enjoying them each, recommending the first, never forgetting the second.
Brain vs iPod: Wilco Edition
In addition to my ongoing Primer Series, I thought I’d look a bit into how the iPod has made its way into my life and how it has affected my tastes and habits. Being that Wilco just released a pretty strong album, I’ll use them as the guinea pig for this experiment.
Wilco has released six albums (not including the lovely Kicking Television live album or their Mermaid Avenue releases with Billy Bragg). Below are how I would rank them completely off the top of my head, with no regard to anything but the regard in which I hold each release:
1. A Ghost Is Born (2004). For reasons unbeknownst to me, this album brings out a lot of emotion in me. As I’ve said about other things before (“Desolation Row”, Huff), this is like listening to an anxiety attack. It’s tense, it’s technically proficient, it’s emotional, and “Spiders (Kidsmoke)” is my favorite Wilco song.
2. Summerteeth (1999). The fun songs are as fun as Wilco has gotten, and the dark songs are as dark as Wilco has gotten. Quite the roller coaster, but it works...and it was a giant leap up from Being There.
3. Sky Blue Sky (2007). Every album is more mature and technically sound than the last, and that trend has continued with the latest. I’ll have to expand on it later, but it’s good.
4. Yankee Hotel Foxtrot (2002). This was a sonic leap for the band, and they justifiably got a lot of attention for it (go pick up Greg Kot’s Learning How to Die for detailed information about the drama that was this album...seriously, do it now...great read...) there are plenty of fantastic songs (“I Am Trying to Break Your Heart”, “I’m the Man Who Loves You”), but it’s just not as enjoyable a listen.
5. Being There (1996). I love that this album has a Pekin, IL, reference (“I wanna be your kingpin, living in Pekin” from “Kingpin”)—it is my father-in-law’s hometown, and until a couple of decades ago, their school nickname was amazingly the Chinks, and writing about this song finally gives me the opportunity to mention that—plus, songs like “I Got You (At the End of the Century)” are fantastic live; however, it’s just not quite as enjoyable as any of the four albums above.
6. A.M. (1995). It's good--and extremely Uncle Tupelo-esque--but it has been surpassed (in my ears) five times in the twelve years since its release. Wilco has matured deeply with each album, but they had to start somewhere.
For the most part, I’m ranking these albums based on the fondness and feeling I have for them. In all, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot was far more of an achievement than Summerteeth, but I enjoy listening to Summerteeth more (same with a band like Pearl Jam—Ten and Vs were bigger achievements at the time, but gimme Yield any day of the week). I’m pretty sure everybody does basically the same thing.
But what does my iPod tell me about how I think?
A while back, I wrote about how the iPod has changed my tastes and listening habits, and I thought I’d revisit the issue by looking at how I rated the songs on each album. If you remember (and I’m sure you do), I give a song a star rating while listening to the iPod in the car or at work—I can pretty much do this without taking my eyes off the road at this point, so fear not, mid-Missouri drivers. Here are the Wilco albums ranked in order of the average rating I’ve given to each songs.
1. Summerteeth: 4.14. Five-star songs: “Can’t Stand It”, “A Shot in the Arm”, “I’m Always in Love”, “Nothing’severgonnastandinmywayagain”, “Via Chicago”
2. A Ghost Is Born: 4.09. Five-star songs: “Spiders (Kidsmoke)”, “The Late Greats”, “Hell Is Chrome”, “Company in My Back”
3. Sky Blue Sky: 4.00. Five-star songs: “Walken”, “What Light”, “On and On and On”
4. Being There: 3.95. Five-star songs: “Misunderstood”, “Monday”, “I Got You (At the End of the Century)”
5. Yankee Hotel Foxtrot: 3.91. Five-star songs: “I Am Trying to Break Your Heart”, “Heavy Metal Drummer”, “I’m the Man Who Loves You”
6. A.M.: 3.62. Five-star songs: none
Okay, it’s roughly the same. What does this mean exactly? Well, if you know Wilco, you realize that a majority of the 5-star songs are the rockin’ kind...Jeff Tweedy does navel-gazing and introspective as well as anybody, but when he and the band let their hair down, they rock as well as any band I know.
This probably also explains why I enjoy Summerteeth so much...while it has plenty of downbeat songs like “She’s a Jar” and “We’re Just Friends” and “Via Chicago”, it also has lots of good hard rock songs.
Unlike my last iPod post, when I realized that an album like Counting Crows’ Hard Candy had ‘ratings’ as good as Exile on Main Street*, my song ratings seem to be a pretty accurate and telling representation of the album as a whole, which is good, because I was wanting to use my song ratings in part to create a Best Albums of 2007 list soon. I also figure this is a fun way to discuss bands that people are more familiar with (and therefore really don’t need a ‘Primer’ type of write-up), so stay tuned. I’m sure you will.
* I should note that, after a little friendly mocking from Michael Atchison, I revisited Exile on Main Street, and it turned out that I must have been in a really pissy mood when I rated Exile songs...upon further review, I upgraded the ratings for about half the damn songs on the album, and it now rates higher than Hard Candy. Justice has prevailed.
Weather, Water, Energy 5-29-07
When Newsweek and U.S. News & World Report both run major stories in the same week on the water crisis we are in the early stages of right now, you know that we're not just blowing smoke here. And keep in mind how many of the "solutions" to the weather and energy problems you hear depend on the unlimited availability of water that we're used to.
Fix those leaks.
The Tree Is Rotten
You've probably already read that Cindy Sheehan has quit her protest of our Iraq policies but not before issuing the truest critique of not just the Busheviks or the Dems but of this entire country that anyone has put out in a while. The problem isn't Georgi or feckless, gutless Dems. It's us. Her words apply to all of us:
"I have tried ever since he died to make his sacrifice meaningful. Casey died for a country which cares more about who will be the next American Idol than how many people will be killed in the next few months while Democrats and Republicans play politics with human lives. It is so painful to me to know that I bought into this system for so many years, and Casey paid the price for that allegiance. I failed my boy and that hurts the most."
If the US were a tree, with all its dead parts (Repubs) and disease (Dems, media, us), every tree surgeon would advise cutting it down. We tool along thinking that, even with Iraq, global warming and its water and energy brothers, the declining economy, sharpening divides by race and class, and anything else you want to add, we only need to trim the status quo here and prop it up there. Meanwhile, the rot proceeds. Through a grief that made her look at this nation through the lens of reality, Cindy Sheehan discovered a painful truth, much as, say, Mark Twain did in another time. Yes, something called the United States may exist after the flood of the next few decades recedes.
But it won't be the "United States."
Monday, May 28, 2007
Weather, Water, Energy, Memorial Day Edition
Just links today, but follow them through. Lots of good stuff.
At Climate Progress, permafrost melt and crooked buildings in AK (Alaska, not Arkansas), turkey poop for fuel, Prisoner's Dilemma issues in getting climate action started (but also "first-mover" advantages), and James Hansen quotes and why linearity in warming events is bad enough but the future is likely to be nonlinear (and worse).
At RealClimate, why climate models are good globally but harder put locally and whether glacier melt will level off or go all the way to zero.
At Grist, praise for the latest National Geographic catching our glacial world before and as it disappears, proof that airlines (especially the odiously happy and self-impressed Southwest) are immoral, Schwarzenegger blowing smoke on warming as he promotes sprawl and cuts mass transit, Australia as a role model of what not to do and will we in the US pay attention (short answer: no), and the definition of "greenwash" (BS from corporations claiming now to be "green"--the dictionary actually has a more formal version).
Sunday, May 27, 2007
Mistakes Were Made (but not by me)
We’ve all been there. We did something wrong (incorrectly, evil, whatever, take your pick). But we’re capable, we’re good, so this can’t be true. There has to be another explanation. Somebody else’s fault. Not wrong, just not right yet. This is what I actually intended. This is even better. As I’ve said here before, Jeff Goldblum nailed it in “The Big Chill”—we can go a long time without sex but we can’t go a day without a rationalization.
Social psychologists have long had a term for it—cognitive dissonance, when two realities collide in our belief systems and force us to either make them fit (however bizarrely) or jettison or deform one or both of them. Cognitive dissonance is the theme of Carol Tavris and Elliot Aronson’s Mistakes Were Made (but not by me): Why We Justify Foolish Beliefs, Bad Decisions, and Hurtful Acts.Tavris and Aronson are two of the best known social psych folks, and this book should be required reading for anyone laying claim to intelligence. It’s extremely easy to read, except for all the dogearring, margin-writing, and quoting you’ll be doing to anyone close by. And it’s applicable to every reader and everyone they know. Except you and me. Here’s their thesis in a nutshell:As fallible human beings, all of us share the impulse to justify ourselves and avoid taking responsibility for any actions that turn out to be harmful, immoral, or stupid. . . . The higher the stakes—emotional, financial, moral—the greater the difficulty.
It goes further than that: Most people, when directly confronted by evidence that they are wrong, do not change their point of view or course of action but justify it even more tenaciously. Even irrefutable evidence is rarely enough to pierce the mental armor of self-justification. The authors then spend the rest of their book illustrating exactly how with examples from politics (which is built on cog diss), science, wealth, personal memories (which are readily and frequently unreliable), psychoanalysis (and false memory debacles), alien abductions, love and relationships, fixing the starting point of blame. And, importantly for our constitutional future, trials and sentencing.
The section on how government officials, in this case, judges, prosecutors, and cops, can explain away their many errors has obvious implications for what is going on with Iraq, global warming, virtually everything happening on most levels of government today. Picture this. You send the wrong guy to prison. Do you admit being wrong? Or do you deny it, claim the new evidence is wrong, the guy’s a “bad guy” who’s done other things. You’re still a “good guy,” you’re still possessed of truth and righteousness, God still personally makes you His spokesperson on justice. “The alternative, that you sent an innocent man to prison for fifteen years is so antithetical to your view of your competence that you will go through mental hoops to convince yourself that you couldn’t possibly have made such a blunder.” IOW, the “bad” prosecutors we highlight here when they make these ridiculous, self-protective, God’s representative statements, like the OR DA they take to town for his blowhard hubris over and over.
Once cops and DAs zero in on someone, their training and experience over and over bracket off any contradictory info, and you don’t need this book to know that, although far too many of them do deny it themselves. The authors’ detailing of deceptive interrogation techniques that allow no refutation is scary, as scary as DAs' active efforts to block mitigating evidence from freeing innocent people. (Scariest, and the best proof of where their heads really are and what they really believe in, is their apparent indifference to reopening the cases in which this happens and finding who really did do the crime.) They know what they know, and disagreers are just wrong, despite all those facts and evidence on their side.
You come away from this book with many feelings, none good. Foremost is the realization of just how little contact someone really has to have with reality to survive and even prosper on this planet. You’d think all the wake-up calls we’ve gotten from sweeties and those we wished were in our lives would alert us to our innate confusion and blindness, but apparently not. They were stupid, and, really, they weren’t that hot anyway.
The book also gives us a very good answer for why evidence and reason, despite Al Gore's fond recall of them from this country's good old days, find such tough sledding and will likely never be what its advocates want it to be, the answer to those questions about “why don’t people listen to reality???” Unless the costs of ignoring the evidence are just so high that all but the diehards recognize the need to change, the old guard will resist. The authors thankfully include the example of the doctor who figured out that washing hands before sticking them on patients would save lives made progress only funeral by funeral of the old guard doctors who refused to believe it. Why wouldn’t they, why won’t the current policymakers and practitioners? Because accepting the evidence would mean admitting they’ve been WRONG all these years, that they’ve put people away who shouldn’t have been, or for longer than they deserved. Who wants to own up to that? So it’s “you can prove anything with statistics” or “yeah, but I had a case once . . . .” La, la, la, can’t hear you.
Tavris and Aronson don’t promise us remedies to all these dilemmas and disasters that our cog diss can lead us to. What they do offer is a thorough and unforgettable overview of what it is and does so that we can try to overcome the problems. “Drivers cannot avoid having blind spots in their field of vision, but good drivers are aware of them . . . . We cannot avoid our psychological blind spots, but if we are unaware of them we may become unwittingly reckless, crossing ethical lines and making foolish decisions. . . .” Until we get that fact and reality are more important than our beliefs and egos, we will keep blundering along with dogma and illusion governing our society and, frankly, our personnel lives. We will keep being the unserious people who will make up such a large part of the future American history books. Tavris and Aronson should be required reading for anyone who claims to take reality seriously. And even more so for the vast majority in this country who don't.
Saturday, May 26, 2007
It's too bad...
...stem cell research is all, like, evil and stuff...it sure does seem to hold the most potential for Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, and now diabetes...but whaddo I know...
Stem cells taken from the umbilical cords of newborns can be engineered to produce insulin and may someday be used to treat diabetes, U.S. and British researchers reported on Friday.Snowflake babies! SNOWFLAKE BABIES!!!! MICHAEL J. FOX WAS FAKING IT!!!!!!
They said they were able to first grow large numbers of the stem cells and then direct them to resemble the insulin-producing cells of the pancreas that are damaged in diabetes.
“This discovery tells us that we have the potential to produce insulin from adult stem cells to help people with diabetes,” said Dr. Randall Urban of the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston, who directed the study.
Friday, May 25, 2007
Weather, Water, Energy 5-25-07
- Sorta losing any respect I had for Australia, not just because of its idiot PM. Now they've gotten a poor Aborginal tribe with some open land to give up land for nuclear waste for what sounds like $21 in beads. OTOH, it does set a precedent for the rest of the world to consider. As one opposing Senator said, "This is the first step to making Australia a global nuclear waste dump." I think I can go for that.
- Warm spring in Britain. Nature getting confused. Not funny. "We are concerned because the change seems to be so rapid. And we know there is a mismatch of timing, so, for example, when insects would pollinate flowers, the flowers are coming out earlier than the insects are available, and we know this is happening. It is very difficult to tell what that means, but certainly we know that wildlife is under pressure."
- Shape of things to come. Czechs don't like their emissions allotment, going to court. Politics sure to follow. Multiply this by every other country and every company and corporation that will protest their allotments under cap-and-trade systems and multiply again by the money and power the politics will involve and tell me again how cap-and-trade will be better than carbon taxes.
- Indonesia's hopping on board Japan's train toward 50% reduction of emissions by 2050. That's the good news. The bad? These are the same people cutting down forests for palm oil and claiming nothing bad is going on. The proper response? Yes, indeed, “stop p—sing on my leg and telling me it’s raining.”
- State news. AZ is letting rural counties set limits on development unless the developer shows adequate water supply. And MD has reversed the Repub gov's favors to utilities in the state (including naming some of their officials as his own regulators) and is starting to enforce regulations to get emissions down. Imagine that.
- Speaking of MD, my 6 years living there gave me great appreciation for mass transit, despite its status as poor stepchild in the whole "what do we do for energy?" debate. Well, with these improvements in efficiency, maybe it'll be back on the table. Learn these words: "Please step away from the doors."
Music Bullets, 5-25-07
- Here's an interview with Chali 2Na of Jurassic 5. Actually, I guess that would be solo artist Chali 2Na now. Still a little hard to accept. Hip hop is in dire need of every talented act it can get, so while it's great that Chali's releasing a solo album--he's so good at his craft that I imagine it'll be pretty good--J5 was a proven entity, and hip hop will miss them.
- Seriously, where's the good hip hop??? I think I've bought like one hip hop album (Brother Ali) this year. I'm desperate. Anybody out there know of anything new worth buying here? I know it won't come from The Fugees, who aren't together again after all. From Pras: "You know, unfortunately Miss Hill, she got some things she needs to deal with. I wish her the best, but life goes on." Lauryn Hill's Miseducation of Lauryn Hill was just an amazing album--as I've mentioned before, Fall 1998 was the high tide moment for hip hop with Lauryn Hill, Outkast, Jay-Z, and Black Star all putting out amazing albums, but it looks like a combination of her own head and the record industry has damaged Ms. Hill pretty significantly.
- Happy Belated Birthday, Bob!
Thursday, May 24, 2007
Random 10!
I’m slightly fine-tuning the “Talk about Song #1” process that I ripped off of Erik at Alter Destiny. So I don’t have to b.s. about a song I don’t want to b.s. about, I will talk about a song of my choice. It’s my blog, I can do what I want to!
1. Chonkyfire, Outkast
2. Stuck Between Station, The Hold Steady
3. Box #10, Jim Croce
If ever I do a Primer on Jim Croce (and trust me, the thought has crossed my mind), this song will probably make the list. As I said in a previous post:
On a side note, Jim Croce’s catalog works ... with almost every song fitting into one of three categories—bad relationships, bad guys, badass women.Well this is one song that doesn’t fit into one of those categories. Call it the exception that proves the rule. It’s Jim Croce at his simplistic best, telling a detailed, sad story in three verses and a simple chorus. Guy from Southern Illinois goes to the big city to make it as a musician, gets robbed, goes broke, ends up sleeping in a hotel doorway.
While there are lots of reasons for me to disagree with my musical upbringing (let’s just say that berlin niebuhr is a much bigger fan of Herman’s Hermits than the Beatles or Dylan), I was weaned on Jim Croce’s entire catalog, and I consider that a pretty good thing. While I enjoy the ballad-heavy rotation of Croce’s well known catalog (“Time in a Bottle”, “Photographs and Memories”, etc.), most of my favorites are rarities. “Box #10”, “Hey Tomorrow”, “Workin’ at the Car Wash Blues”, “Rapid Roy the Stockcar Boy”...just fantastic music. He did more with less than most musicians, especially in the period in which he thrived.
4. Rise Above, Black Flag
5. Colors and the Kids, Cat Power
6. Mathematics, Mos Def
7. Raunchy ’73, Incredible Bongo Band
8. Requiem, M. Ward
9. Tonight is the Night I Fell Asleep at the Wheel, Barenaked Ladies
10. Always on My Mind, Willie Nelson
Now THAT’s the variety I look for in a Random 10!
Only 530 Days to Go
Olbermann throws down the gauntlet.
And where are the Democratic presidential hopefuls this evening? See they not, that to which the Senate and House leadership has blinded itself?Luckily, all the serious (i.e. not Biden) candidates voted against this. It shouldn't have even required a second thought, but I guess beggars can't be choosers.
Judging these candidates based on how they voted on the original Iraq authorization, or waiting for apologies for those votes, is ancient history now.
The Democratic nomination is likely to be decided… tomorrow.
The talk of practical politics, the buying into of the President's dishonest construction "fund-the-troops-or-they-will-be-in-jeopardy," the promise of tougher action in September, is falling not on deaf ears, but rather falling on Americans who already told you what to do, and now perceive your ears as closed to practical politics.
Those who seek the Democratic nomination need to-for their own political futures and, with a thousand times more solemnity and importance, for the individual futures of our troops-denounce this betrayal, vote against it, and, if need be, unseat Majority Leader Reid and Speaker Pelosi if they continue down this path of guilty, fatal acquiescence to the tragically misguided will of a monomaniacal president.
…
With the exception of Senator Dodd and Senator Edwards, the Democratic presidential candidates have (so far at least) failed us.
They must now speak, and make plain how they view what has been given away to Mr. Bush, and what is yet to be given away tomorrow, and in the thousand tomorrows to come.
Because for the next fourteen months, the Democratic nominating process–indeed the whole of our political discourse until further notice–has, with the stroke of a cursed pen, become about one thing, and one thing alone.
The electorate figured this out, six months ago.
The President and the Republicans have not-doubtless will not.
The Moron Twins from OK
We give so much credit here to Jim Inhofe for being the biggest numbskull in a greatly brain-challenged Senate, but we can’t forget OK’s other nutjob contribution to that body, a man who, while in the House, condemned NBC for showing “Schindler’s List” because it had frontal nudity. Actually, his list of bad nonsense may be as long as Inhofe’s. His latest? Stopping a Senate resolution to honor Rachel Carson because, get this, she got DDT banned (uh, no, she didn't) so mosquitoes in poor nations went wild and killed so many babies with malaria that she's as bad as Hitler or something. But just remember the old saying, “if you think that elected official is bad, you should see his constituents.” These two are walking ads against any business or personal development in OK and the state is, by definition, too ignorant to see it. (And I did look it up. Incest is illegal in OK, . . . but if everyone's your relative, who's going to find you guilty?)
Weather, Water, Energy 5-24-07
- This is what global warming leadership looks like. Japan is calling for a Kyoto replacement that will halve greenhouse gas emissions worldwide by 2050, and German chancellor and EU head Merkel calls out the US and China to get on the right side of this.
- Meanwhile, speaking of China, reaping what they're sowing: Melting Tibetan glaciers could cause the worst flooding on the Yangtze since 1998, when more than 3,000 people were killed as China's longest river overflowed, state media said Thursday.
- More leadership. CA's energy commission stopped L.A.'s and other state municipal utilities from contracting new coal-fired power plants. And WA sounds like it's going to follow suit. See? Leadership.
- Finally, we’ve noted here that other nations have glommed onto the fact that retooling to fight global warming actually creates economic opportunities and entrepreneurship. Finally, a couple of US House types have figured that out formally, too. My candidate for econ growth is all the retrofitting of existing cars to whatever new fuel type we end up with. Of course, if I had the brains figure out what that fuel is going to be, I’d probably already be rich, wouldn’t I?
There’s unreal…
...and there’s UNFREAKINGREAL (via Avedon).
"Al Hurra television, the U.S. government's $63 million-a-year effort at public diplomacy broadcasting in the Middle East, is run by executives and officials who cannot speak Arabic, according to a senior official who oversees the program. That might explain why critics say the service has recently been caught broadcasting terrorist messages, including an hour-long tirade on the importance of anti-Jewish violence, among other questionable pieces."I’m too flustered to actually form a real sentence about this, so I’ll just repeat what Avedon says. These people are just too stupid for words. I mean...GOD...
Didn’t see THIS coming at all
...via C&L, the House Minority Leader is blaming Democrats for high gas prices. Yup. Uh huh. Sure. The Democrats, who have been in charge since January, are responsible for the fact that gas prices have been consistently rising for the last 3-4 years. Okie dokie.
Wednesday, May 23, 2007
Giant Poop Scooping
When you’re two of the stupidest people ever created, in public, your boss ends up having to clean up the streets behind you.
Weather, Water, Energy 5-23-07
- Proof that Britain's Labor Party is dumb to the bone, not just to the Blair. Taking scarce alternative energy funds and investing in more nuclear, which won't help homes at all, which are outfitted for gas, and which affects less than 4% of the nation's power. The Scots, OTOH, are telling the English where to stick it and investing in something that won't, uh, provide terrorists targets and weapons material, need tons of water that might not be as available with the warming for cooling the reactors, and require tens of millenia to store its byproducts. While we're whacking Brits, let's note Joseph Romm's nice takedown of the Labor Gov's now saying that it never thought Blair could get Bushnev to set emission targets at the next G8 meeting after, two weeks ago, saying that Blair was very confident that he could do so. Pat the good doggie on the head, Georgi, and send him away for his tea and biscuit.
- Speaking of water disasters, maybe as many as 10 hurricanes in the Atlantic this coming season, with 5 maybe getting really nasty, according to the National Hurricane Center. How long before no insurance company will offer policies to people with homes anywhere near the coasts?
- Everything you need to know to get you and/or your friends and relatives started on understanding global warming and all its desiderata, from the good folks at RealClimate.
- Okay, we get how global warming can move environments in which living things can best survive, causing their migration if they can move and fast enough. That includes diseases as well, especially malaria and flu, apparently. But here's the other way those diseases spread, from all the damage done to water and sewage systems when severe storms (or 10 hurricanes) hit. Just another little thing you probably hadn't thought about at all.
- “Canary in a coal mine” really does seem dead. Grist is asking for suggestions for new metaphors.
- While at Grist, note that David Roberts links to a sad defense of cap-and-trade systems that seems to think business and corporations will actually permit adequate caps to be instituted. Tinker Bell’s dying, clap louder.
- At Only In It For the Gold, Michael Tobis makes the argument we’ve made here, and backed up with recent reports of latest findings, that those who argue that the uncertainty of our future means only that things can turn out better are ignoring that things could also turn out worse. He says it in perhaps a more convincing way. Here are a couple of his points:
Those people who doubt the consensus in a rational way (e.g., Broecker, Lovelock) advocate for a very vigorous policy. We don't know how bad it can be, so we really ought to give considerable weight to it being very very bad. The asymmetry arises because we know how good it can be. Climate change can at best amount to a (relatively) very small net gain, if it is modest and slow enough. At worst it can quite conceivably be a threat to civilization. . . .
Most people stressing the uncertainty, though, seem to me to deliberately strive to confuse the policy process, or to echo others who do so. It is discouraging how effective this tactic continues to be, given that it is based on a completely irrational argument. The only remotely sensible way to argue for small or no policy response is not to argue for large uncertainty. A rational argument for policy inaction requires arguing that the consensus position is certainly wrong and oversensitive. A rational, conservative response to uncertainty would be to take more effort to avoid the risk. - As if meaning to prove him correct, a new report from Australia's chief scientific body: "Global warming is occurring faster than predicted because rapid economic growth has resulted in higher than expected greenhouse gas emissions since 2000, said an Australian report on Tuesday.
Emissions from burning fossil fuels have increased about 3 percent a year since 2000, up from 1 percent a year during the 1990s, said Australia's peak scientific body, the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO)." - Let's all welcome AL (Alabama, not Alaska) to those SE states getting whipped by drought and water problems. Tell me again what percentage of your vote went to the Busheviks??
- MIT type has an op-ed in the Boston Globe on the way our auto makers monkey with fuel efficiency standards and recommends some good stuff to change incentives toward buying more efficient cars, such as a 10-cent a gallon increase in the gas tax and a higher tax on guzzlers and rebates for gas sipping cars.
- And here’s why that tax increase needs to be many times higher if it’s going to have an impact since the increases in gas prices so far haven’t done much to discourage driving.
- You’d think rational, decent, and responsible companies wouldn’t have to be asked but . . . wait, we’re talking oil companies. Forecasters urged the oil industry this summer to stockpile supplies away from the U.S. Gulf Coast, which they predict will be hit by hurricane-force winds, potentially sending sky-high gas prices even higher, according to hazard models released on Wednesday.
"It is almost certain there is going to be significant production disruption in the Gulf of Mexico this year. That's not good," said storm tracker Chuck Watson.
"We're really urging the oil industry to keep the stocks outside the Southeast as high as you can because otherwise you risk disrupting the whole country if there is a storm impact." - Finally, the Smithsonian sells out its mission and us once again by downplaying global warming in its Arctic exhibit. You see, the way you teach science is to give in to morons and ideologues every chance you’re given. And we wonder why this nation is becoming second world in science and engineering, much less the important advanced technologies. God help us, folks.
Tuesday, May 22, 2007
Only 532 days to go...
So Giuliani's doing so well in Iowa that he's thinking about skipping it altogether. Repubs really seem to be catching onto the fact that their candidates are horribly flawed. I think last week's "I will torture better than you" fest turned off as many people as it turned on (then again, the party seems to be united in wanting to ban Ron Paul from future debates, so maybe it turned off no one), and even though guys like Newty and Fred Thompson aren't any better, the fact that they're not out revealing their horrid flaws on a daily basis is starting to be a good thing. All the parity helps Romney, I think, with his good standing in Iowa and his strong fundraising, but...if anybody other than Hillary gets the Dem nod, I'm thinking it might be a trouncing in the general election.
New Rep Odds:
Romney 28%
McCain 25%
Giuliani 23%
Newty 12%
Thompson 12%
New Dem Odds:
Obama 40%
Hillary 29%
Edwards 23%
Other 8%
Ladies and Gentlemen . . .
. . . two of the stupidest people ever created, and, magically, both play on the Redskins. Defending Michael Vick's right to dog fight. You really can't make this stuff up. "Haven't you seen Animal Planet?" Well, haven't you?
Weather, Water, Energy 5-22-07
- We deservedly get heat (pardon the pun) in the US from the rest of the planet for our profligate ways, but this new National Academy of Sciences report notes that the rate of growth that's a big part of endangering the globe is from the underdeveloped world. Only a quarter growth in CO2 emissions in N. Amer. from 1980 to 2004, declines in Europe and Eurasia. But doubling in C. and S. Amer. and in Africa, tripling in the Middle East and Asia/Australia. Yes, we're still bigger and it's unfair to those who came last in development, but letting them catch up before we do anything is not going to work. And the major culprit? "Fueled by rapid growth in coal-reliant China . . . ."
- China, of course, insists that it's the put-upon party and demands rich nations act before it will. Good plan. Britain really is trying to get its businesses and industries to buy into the reality that helping the Chinas do better will actually boost their own national competitiveness, despite the econ doomsayers, but it's a little hard to help a neighbor who insists on sending you tainted and dirty food, and not just for our pets. Especially when it's polluting itself into a sick bed in the name of economic development. If China were a person, you'd be reporting them to Human Services.
- On the other side of the scale of forward thought and rational action, the Netherlands is already working out how to deal with rising oceans in a land below sea level. Without that kid with his thumb in the dike.
- Joseph Romm at Climate Progress has more great stuff, taking down the Gore-bashers and other deniers and obstructionists, including a great demolishing of that giant-headed egotist, Michael Crichton. Really, Michael? Weathermen often mess up tomorrow's forecast so why listen to warnings of global warming? Really?
- All the changes happening so fast. Who ever thought we'd one day be talking about how farmers, if they are going to lease their land for carbon sequestration, would need to set up a system that would demonstrate how much extra carbon they are really socking away?
- Just when you thought we couldn't f--k up the earth and its water anymore, welcome the massive seafloor mining set to begin this decade.
- Speaking of water, let's end with a couple of heaping spoonfuls of your life in the near future. Lawyers in the West are already arguing that we need to be paying more attention to water compacts among the states to get disputes settled before drought push becomes conflict shove. And the King of Jordan is warning the other Middle Eastern nations that water, not oil, land, or religion, could very likely be what the next major war there is fought over. Good times. Might work out okay on a planet with beings with brains.
Oh, That This Headline Were True
and literal.
Howard warns of election drubbing
Australia's Prime Minister John Howard has warned his government that it risks "annihilation" by the opposition Labor Party in elections later this year.
Tuesday Pirates Rant™
This season just keeps getting weirder. The pitching is falling apart--to the point where Shawn Chacon being added to the rotation both upgrades the rotation and severely hurts the bullpen--just as the offense is figuring things out, and the Pirates just finished a 4-6 homestand against Milwaukee, Florida, and Arizona. However, the NL Central is so unbelievably terrible that this article found its way to print this morning:
Imagine this call over the PNC Park loudspeaker in early October:Well...it IS laughable--if the Brewers do indeed fade, it will be the Cubs or Astros who catch them--but the division is so bad that somebody who gets paid a lot more money than I do, thought this was credible. The Pirates' offense, defense, and pitching have rarely been worse, it seems, but .500 has never been more attainable. Forgive me if I don't get excited.
Ladies and gentleman, your 2007 Pittsburgh Pirates ... the National League's Central Division champions!
Ridiculous?
Laughable?
The punch line to some cruel, go-ahead-and-rub-it-in joke?
Yeah, probably. Truth is, if the Pirates keep performing as erratically as they have in the season's opening quarter, there is no chance.
At the same time ...
"We have 41/2 months of baseball left to play and, obviously, we're sitting in a division right now where clubs are not playing all that well," manager Jim Tracy said. "We're not in a division where a club is pulling away."
Good
* Ryan Doumit is STILL tearing the cover off the ball, even though he still doesn't really have a position. Through 76 at-bats, Doumit is batting .368, with a .435 on-base %, and .618 slugging %.
* Adam LaRoche has slowly begun to figure things out. Granted, he's still a smidge below the Mendoza line (.199), but his May numbers (.293 / .400 / .448) are much closer to what was expected of him all along.
* Freddy Sanchez' batting average is up to .276, which is terrible considering he's the defending NL batting champ, but it's great considering he was recently in the .220s.
* Ian Snell (4-2, 2.76 ERA) is still doing well, as is Tom Gorzelanny (5-2, 2.43 ERA).
* Closer Salomon Torres hasn't given up a run in his last 8 appearances.
Bad
* After Snell and Gorzelanny, the rotation has been putrid. Zach Duke (1-4, 5.19 ERA), Paul Maholm (2-6, 5.82), and Tony Armas Jr. (0-3, 8.46 ERA) have been rotten. Duke has improved recently, but Maholm has backslid, and Armas was bad enough that he lost his rotation spot to Chacon.
* You know how I complimented CF Chris Duffy for keeping his on-base % over .333? Yeah, it's now at .283 (with a .220 batting average). Not exactly what you're looking for in a leadoff hitter. But if you take him out of the lineup, your defense goes from bad to horrible. Have I mentioned how much this organization's depth sucks lately? Oh, and the guy the Pirates hoped would succeed Duffy if Duffy wasn't getting the job done? You know...Pirates' #1 prospect Andrew McCutchen? Batting .181, with a .245 on-base %. In AA Altoona. Fantastic.
* Jim Tracy is still a terrible manager:
It seemed a questionable choice, to be generous.And when Tracy was asked why he made the decision, he basically threw Marte (too wild) and Capps (sucked that night anyway) under the bus. Just like last year, Tracy leaps to take credit for anything that bounces their way, but when his decisions are questioned, he blames the first person who pops into his head. Strong leadership.
Arizona was slithering back into the game, down four runs in the seventh inning, and bases were loaded. A big hit was needed, and the Diamondbacks' pinch-hitter for light-hitting Robby Hammock surely would be switch-hitting slugger Tony Clark, owner of 232 career home runs and extraordinary power.
And Pirates manager Jim Tracy's signal to the bullpen was to summon ...
Marty McLeary?
The same Marty McLeary who had been hit hard in every outing since his recall from Class AAA Indianapolis two weeks ago?
The same Marty McLeary who had been used only in mopup duty?
Right.
Boom!
Clark's grand slam high into the center-field seats brought a tie that stunned and silenced the crowd of 30,677 at PNC Park, and Arizona's two-run eighth off Matt Capps would cap an astounding 9-8 victory for the Diamondbacks last night.
Tracy had all his relievers available except John Grabow, who had created the mess that inning, and Shawn Chacon, who had pitched five innings Thursday. He could have brought in Damaso Marte, Jonah Bayliss or Matt Capps, those he usually uses with the game on the line.
Or even Salomon Torres. Some managers in recent years have taken to calling on their closers in the game's most critical situations rather than just the ninth inning.
Instead, Tracy chose McLeary, whose first three appearances with the Pirates resulted in eight hits -- three of them home runs -- and a 7.36 ERA.
Blog
Pat from WHYGAVS, on the state of the NL Central:
Honestly, I'm a bit tired of the same old "The NL Central sucks" stuff. The truth is that while the division is not great, I think there are two tiers in the division that will emerge pretty clearly this year. The Brewers and Cubs and everyone else. The division was no good last year, but no more than three teams had any realistic shot at winning the thing and it was probably down to only the Astros and Cards. Just because no team is the Mets in the division doesn't mean the Pirates have a chance.Rowdy from Honest Wagner on Tony Armas:
And so we get two of the rejects in the division this year facing off tonight at 8 PM in St. Louis (the thread is going up a bit early because I'm going to a Greensboro Grasshoppers game tonight). The Pirates are a bit ahead in the standings, but the Cardinals have played much worse, scoring fewer runs than the Pirates and allowing more. Still, they're the Cardinals and we're the Pirates. It's hard to get that delineation out of my head at the moment.
The team was stubborn with Armas. When you make shitty personnel decisions, they have a ripple effect. If the team wants to win games, they have to win games now. Not later. No amount of losing today will increase the winning later. If they want to win games now, they have to play the most competent players. This means scrapping the "plan" when necessary. Armas, a $3M part of the offseason plan, was failing us well before this week. He had no business getting that last start.Have I mentioned this team still has a chance to win 80 games? So confusing. And yet, I find myself caring about this season less than most. Until they fire their GM and prove that they actually want to field a good team, I have the feeling that will continue.
Shelf life, heck it has a half-life
I ran across this list of surprising expiration dates at realsimple.com. Some I found interesting:
Brown sugar
Indefinite shelf life, stored in a moistureproof container in a cool, dry place.
Coffee, canned ground
Unopened: 2 years
Opened: 1 month refrigerated
Maraschino cherries
Unopened: 3 to 4 years
Opened: 2 weeks at room temperature; 6 months refrigerated
Rice, white
2 years from date on box or date of purchase
Monday, May 21, 2007
Sad When the World Is Passing You By
Big Tent Democrat takes apart yet another hopelessly clueless “hard” media type desperately trying to justify his increasingly failing hold on relevancy compared to bloggers by arguing against blogging because its participants don’t know what they’re talking about, which he proves about himself regarding blogging. If the whole thing doesn’t bring a smile to your face, you need to be doing some serious drinking.
Weather, Water, Energy 5-21-07
Really nice post at Grist on how the ag community getting nailed by the higher cost of corn has rebelled against ethanol production with the grain and how the opportunistic politicians have been caught off guard by that rebellion. A course on systems theory should be required of everyone considering holding public office. Connected, interacting things respond unpredictably when you focus on messing with just one part of the network. Meanwhile, as always the perfect example of the clueless, pontificating politician, Joe Biden (of course) still hasn’t gotten the new message. He, like all our “leaders,” would be much better off demonstrating some intelligence and guidance on energy efficiency, which still remains our most immediately effective way of having an impact on global warming, despite all the Bidens and Inhofes. . . . We’ve been perversely enjoying the climate disaster hitting Australia under its idiot PM’s watch, but it looks like they may be able to whack on our West under our idiot “President’s” watch, too. . . . When you hear of cap-and-trade systems, you’re usually hearing about a “grandfather” system in which existing polluters are given advantages, such as keeping their base pollution. Supposedly it’s the only way to get the polluting corporations to buy into the system. As it sounds, it’s also immoral and in the long run defeating. It’s not the only way to do it, though, as this Grist piece points out, and the other ways are fairer and don’t reward the people who, by fighting pollution controls for decades, have put us in this place. . . . Proof that not all economists are short-sighted dogmatists out of touch with the real world. A Harvard type with a good blueprint for action, including a carbon tax in the US and Europe that would go to pay underdeveloped nations not to develop in global warming-enhancing ways. . . . Want to have an impact on global warming? Garden. Just do it smartly and keep those invasive species out of the good stuff. . . . Finally, we wondered a while back how FOX would respond to Rupert Murdoch’s apparent decision to go “green.” Would it be just like its Soviet counterparts who could turn on a dime from advocacy to criticism and back again at the drop of a furry Premier hat? Well, the network just showed “The Day After Tomorrow.” What whores. It does look, though, like there are still plenty of “no problem” “researchers” out there for Exxon, despite its recent claims to be cleaning up its act, can fund. Leonid Brezhnev never did it better.
I'm your worst nightmare!
Sunday, May 20, 2007
From the “This Week’s Development That Scares the Everliving Hell Out of Me” Department...
...and I meant to post this way earlier, but the entire week just escaped me...I hate it when that happens...
Bushnev is getting Iran advice from James Dobson.
"I was invited to go to Washington DC to meet with President Bush in the White House along with 12 or 13 other leaders of the pro-family movement," Dobson disclosed on his radio program Monday. "And the topic of the discussion that day was Iraq, Iran and international terrorism. And we were together for 90 minutes and it was very enlightening and in some ways disturbing too."Never mind that this is proof of the uneven playing field between right and left--if the next Democratic President were to consult with the left's version of Dobson (Michael Moore, I guess?), there would be shock from the media, while this story of the president not only visiting with a religious crazy but talking about Iran with him didn't get even a hint of attention--this is scary on so many different levels. Other countries already think we're as religiously misguided as the 'freedom-hating' bad guys we have taken on (by ourselves)...what are they going to think now?
Then again, Dobson seems to have a, shall we say, tendency for exaggeration, so I guess it's possible that the dinner was just about something silly and frivolous, like, you know, abortion or something.
Only Fools
Vincent Bugliosi's latest self-promoting screed on criminal justice is out, this time making money off JFK's assassination rather than the tragedies of Sharon Tate and Nicole Brown. No, I'm not going to link to it. He's the prototype of the self-inflated, overzealous prosecutor put on earth specially by God to save Him from having to sort out the "bad guys" from the "good guys." This time, he's put together the classic DA case of "weak point, pound pulpit" with an over-thousand page recap of the equally massive and equally flawed Warren Report. Also in classic DA style, he attacks critics and their evidence and views as if that proves his case. It doesn't. Because there have truly been lunatics out there in the analysis of JFK's assassination, that doesn't mean all the critics are equally crazy or crazy at all. As I said, it's an old prosecutor trick to lump all together to discredit the valid. And unfortunately from the idiotic reviews I've read in the NY Times, Boston Globe, and LA Times, it's impressed the credulous and ahistorical once again. (No, I'm not linking to them either. Nonsense, bad nonsense, has no right to distribution.)
Let's remember a point I've made here in the past. The "educated" among us are taught early and often that "conspiracies don't exist" and that anyone who believes that people with or wanting power would do illegal things and try to cover them up is a (oooohhhh) "conspiratist." In the "educated" world, Watergate, Iran-Contra, Iraq, the US attorney scandal (well, actually, anything the Busheviks have done) could never have happened, and it's this "we're all good people who would never shaft people for power" BS that's gotten the Dems and the nation into the crappy position we're now in. In Bugliosi's world, any conspiracy that might happen only started with Watergate, apparently. Our government before then would never look on something that happened and decide to slant investigations and cover up evidence to protect the American people from knowledge, especially knowledge of bureaucratic failure to protect a president.
If you should choose to read this garbage, keep in mind that the evidence Bugliosi uses to support his position comes from a Warren Commission which never knew certain things. One, that Nicolas Katzenbach (who ran DOJ in RFK's breakdown after the killing) and Bill Moyers (LBJ's aide) virtually immediately had a memo specifically requiring that the American people be convinced of Oswald's guilt and that he was the only one responsible (ostensibly because they really thought Castro was behind it and it would start WWIII). It was from that that everything else derived. Two, that the FBI had been supervising Oswald (to the point that Oswald showed up at their offices prior to the assassination and left a note to the agent in charge to tell him to back off) and had nevertheless allowed a presidential motorcade pass directly by the place where this (suspectly) Castro supporter and defector to the USSR worked. Three, that Jack Ruby was a long-time bagman for the Mafia running their clubs in Dallas. Four, that the administration had partnered with the Mafia to rid Cuba of Castro and then backed off, pissing off both the Mafia and the CIA zealots who saw it as a betrayal of the highest order. Had any or all of these points been presented to the Warren Commission, it's doubtful that it would have relied on the evidence it did, disregarded the evidence not supportive of the Katzenbach-Moyers memo, and reached the conclusions that Bugliosi now sees as engraved in stone and worthy of this megaphone he published (once again with absolutely no word from the defendant who NEVER GOT TO DEFEND HIMSELF). Why am I so sure the Commission wouldn't have been so quick to the trigger? Because two of the people who did know most or all of these things--RFK and LBJ--both went to their graves convinced that there was more than just Oswald behind it.
No one who understands the history of power or of bureaucracies could accept that the Warren Report tells us what happened that day in Dallas. And no one who knows the ways and mindset of prosecutors could accept it or Bugliosi. We know well that once law enforcement zones in on a suspect, all evidence and investigation goes with the assumption and perspective of building the case, coloring all questioning and acceptance of evidence, not finding the truth. Look at all the guys who've been released from prison on DNA evidence lately. Not just that they were falsely convicted based on prosecutors' briefs that were likely not as prejudiced as the Warren Report, but that the prosecutors and law enforcers subsequently spend so little time going back and trying to find who really did it, if they even accept that they've made a mistake at all. Bugliosi has always been a glory-seeking prototype of the worst kind of DA, and it's clear he hasn't gotten over the fact that his "win" in a mock trial of Oswald decades ago didn't settle the case (again, because the defendant had no voice and the FBI stood behind the evidence against Oswald). What an ego.
Here's a classic example of how his "experience" and perspective color his analysis of the assassination. According to him, anyone who believes that Jack Ruby, the neurotic blowhard manager of Mafia clubs who killed Oswald simply because he was overwhelmed with grief about the killing of a president no one had ever heard him express anything good about before and his worry that the poor widow would have to come to Dallas to testify (good God, how naive do you have to be to believe a ridiculous story like this?), had anything to do with the grudge of the Mafia leaders who had been humiliated by the Kennedy brothers is a conspiracy nut. "Ruby, he writes, was 'close to law enforcement, emotionally volatile and erratic in his behavior, and someone who couldn't keep a secret, all of which would automatically disqualify him as a Mafia hit man.'" (From one of the idiot reviews.) Or maybe he wasn't close to law enforcement, just bagging cops to protect his strip clubs, was in debt to the Mafia bosses and reacting predictably when one is in such a situation, and maybe he CAN keep secrets if HE WAS ASSOCIATED WITH THE MAFIA FOR THREE DECADES AND NOT DEAD OR IN PRISON YET. If you've already decided your case, you come up with the Bugliosi and Warren Report picture of Ruby. If you haven't, there are multiple other interpretations of what he did, and none of them support the "Oswald acted alone" case. Yet the idiot reviewer from which this quote is pulled used it as an example of Bugliosi's "cogency." My ass. What an ego that reviewer has as well.
The truth about JFK's assassination right now is that we're never going to know the truth. It's all just guesses because the investigators and the Commission had agendas that paid for obscuring everything from the American people. What do I think happened? I think Oswald was part of the "rogue" culture of "America protectors" whose existence needed to be kept from the public after they went off the reservation with their Mafia partners and killed a president. I think Oswald was part of it (why else have him killed?) but was he a plant or a participant, I don't know. I do know that, once JFK was dead, the bureaucratic impulse was, as always, to ensure asses were covered and that the "expertise" and authority of officialdom had to be reinforced in every way. I don't believe the FBI or CIA "killed" him, but I do believe it was in their and others' interest to come up with "Oswald acted alone" as THE answer. I also know no other "assassin" or wannabe in our history took the worst possible shots at their targets, yet Oswald, never a marksman, used a clumsy rifle with a bad scope to fire at JFK not when he was right in front of him but at the farthest point and speeding up. The Warren Report came up with its famous theories, some folks have shown that those theories are theoretically possible, and Bugliosi claims that solves the case. How inconvenient for him (and the reviewers lauding his "cogency") that new evidence was presented this very week on the bullet fragments that raise even more questions about whether one or two or more guns were used. Can I prove anything I believe about this? Never in a million years. Not now. That chance was passed up when the Katzenbach-Moyers memo went out.
That won't stop the "educated" from using this doorstop as "proof" that those crazy conspiratists have gotten their comeuppance. You already see it in their triumphant hoo-yahs in these reviews. They're just as self-impressed and clueless as Bugliosi. The truth is that the Warren Report was fundamentally flawed not just in its "evidence" but in the entire context in which it was done. Anyone using it to bolster a case about the assassination is running games, although, in fairness, their own myopic and faith-based views that authorities never have any other fish to fry than truth in presenting reports to the public and that prosecutor briefs are always and everywhere the TRUTH may actually have them believing their own mirrors. But here's the final truth of the JFK assassination. ANYONE who tells you they "know" . . . is a fool.
Saturday, May 19, 2007
Betty La Fea (Ugly Betty) Mas Bella Final Update
Welcome to Good Nonsense! Be sure to check out the Telenovela archives here and on the left sidebar. And don't be afraid to leave comments!
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Now that "Ugly Betty" (ABC's far superior homage to the classic "Betty La Fea" compared to Univision's way-off-the-tracks "La Fea Mas Bella") has finished its first year and "La Fea" has reached its "ultimos capitulos," I'm going to put an end to these updates with this 38th. (It takes a special person to write 38 of these.) First, let's give you a few links to some recent "Ugly Betty" stories and hope they're still up if you click them. Then we'll have our own final thoughts about the two series.
USA Today had a nice piece with "Ugly" cast members relating their ups and downs of the season. More sad than funny, but interesting insights into each actor. . . . A more detailed article on the cast comes from U of S CA's campus paper, believe it or not. (America Ferrera is still a student there.) You get a pretty good taste of how each actor sees his/her character. . . . This interview with America was in a bunch of papers, and it's yet another impressive presentation of the young star. You do hope she can keep her head this straight for the rest of her career, especially in a time when Lindsey Lohan is every male's ideal apparently. . . . Entertainment Weekly had its own interview with Ferrera here. Not as much context but different questions and quotes. . . . Tired of America interviews? Well, here's one with her counterpart, Eric Mabius. . . . Finally, a touch of "La Fea" in all the "Ugly Betty" stuff. A quick interview with Angelica Vale (the "La Fea") who did a cameo in the "Ugly" finale. Seems to have a brain in her head as well. Maybe that's a requirement for this part. It's a nice thought, anyway.
Now for final deep thoughts. The "Ugly Betty" finale really should be considered the last two episodes, not just the last one. The prior episode set up next season well. It appears that someone with a grudge against Betty's father, probably in the family of the man he killed, will play a major role, and the young guy who massaged Hilda's foot for her will likely be there to help her get over her grief from losing Santos. The best revenge would be to take someone Ignacio loves away from him, so I'm betting Hilda gets a bigger and different role next year.
The penultimate (!) episode also featured several motifs from the usual telenovela, including seers and signs and prophecies and the reunion of the child (sorta) with the parent who did her wrong before the parent departs the planet. This is all good telenovela tradition. One thing did strike me wrong, although it was a funny line. If telenovelas are constantly on the Suarez tv, why didn't Betty know that her "embarrasada" when she tried to say she was embarrassed would sound exactly like the Spanish for "pregnant"? If there's one word you learn from telenovelas, it's pregnant.
But the final episode, of course, also set up so much for next year amid telenovela conventions. Amanda's got a new mom, Christina has an abusive husband who's likely to show up, Claire's on the loose and with a mission to bring down Milhelwina, as Daniel called her while drunk. The old "using pregnancy by one guy to get the hero" trick is fully in play, and so is the vengeance of the "losing" heroine. As for the car crash, in a telenovela we would have seen the car flying through air at least. Since they're not going to kill off Daniel, they couldn't have it bursting into flame on new impact, a favorite convention, but I see this as the way to get Rebecca Romjin off the payroll and introduce new emotions and tensions into the Meade family members. Finally, one of the most common telenovela elements is the sudden and unexpected violence and the killing of cast when you don't expect it, a la Santos. The guy did go out with some class, and I wonder, given the way the camera focused on the masked shooter, if that shooter isn't going to show up again. That's the most speculative I'll get. In any case, very good finale, well played and making us all ready for the next season to already be here.
In the case of "La Fea," as I've made clear, I wanted that finale about 3 months ago and, had it remained true to the wonderful original, it would been then. Now it's got two or three weeks to get the leads together and send Aldo off to be noble elsewhere. They've drained all the pathos out of the initial characters. Betty would never have been "Aurora," Nicolas NOT getting the girl was the right and most believable thing in "Betty," and the resolutions of the other cast members' problems have now either vanished or aren't even on a back burner. I realize the show has gotten the networks good ratings through all, and Angelica and the others have really done nice work. But the story and its message were what was important and lasting in "Betty La Fea," and this remake has betrayed both. "Betty" will still be a classic a decade from now. Univision will likely be doing another remake by then. But that's all "La Fea" will ever be. A remake.
Friday, May 18, 2007
Where's the beef?
Chet Ripley would be proud of this 6 lb burger, which consists of :
1 96oz burger
1 enormous bun
12 slices of American cheese
2 whole tomatoes
1/2 a head of lettuce
1 cup of peppers
2 whole onions
Lashings of ketchup, mayo and mustard.
It’s $23, but free of you can eat it all in under 3 hours. And so far the only person to eat it was a 100 pound woman from New Jersey. Looks like the garden state wins yet again. You can find the masterpiece of meat at Denny's Beer Barrel Pub in Clearfield, Pennsylvania. I’m getting in my car to head there right now (I wish).
"Ugly Betty" Finale Recaps
I'll finish up the "Ugly Betty" updates over the weekend, but for now here are some of the recaps of last night's finale from various sites with comments, a few not idiotic.
www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,20039428,00.html
http://nymag.com/daily/entertainment/2007/05/ugly_betty_why_well_be_wearing.html
www.dailypressandargus.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070518/ENTERTAINMENT/70518002
http://blogcritics.org/archives/2007/05/18/070922.php
www.tvsquad.com/2007/05/18/ugly-betty-east-side-story-season-finale/
One thing, folks. If Santos were just wounded, Hilda would have been running to the hospital, not on the floor crying into her sister's arms. Oh, one more. Could the person who cut the brake lines on Bradford's car be the person Alexis paid to kill him? I swear, sometimes I think I'm coaching 7-8 year olds soccer again.
Weather, Water, Energy 5-18-07
"Deadlock" is what they're calling the UN talks to get a global warming conference set up in Indonesia. Yes, the US is messing with them, but the underdeveloped nations are, too. They have some good points:
Some developing countries also wanted more progress on funds to adapt to climate change already happening, and on discounts on clean energy technologies.
"We've been talking about it for 10 years, where is it?" said the major developing nation delegate.
But then again they also have their share of dumbasses:
"Villages that don't have power will never get power and those that do will have power cuts," said the head of one influential developing country delegation, declining to be named. "Why should I cut? I didn't create the problem."
Uh, try extinction, jerkoff. China, of course, is trying to pass itself off as one of the underdeveloped needing help, unsuccessfully, but the oil-rich Middle East might be able to pull it off if they work it right. . . . Water around Japan warming more than rest of ocean. Some global warming, but not all. Study underway. . . . Great review of Bill Richardson's energy plan, best out there so far. Full details in the post, but here are the major recs:
Cut oil demand: 50% by 2020
Change to Renewable Sources for Electricity: 50% by 2040
Dramatically reduce greenhouse gas emissions: 80% by 2040
Lead by example and restore America as the world's leader
Get it all done without breaking the bank
I've made clear my preference for a carbon tax as the immediate policy option for conservation, but some come down on it because it would be a regressive tax. Turns out, not so much. . . . Folks in South FL may be getting permanent water use restrictions. . . . Fuel<---hydrogen<---aluminum??? Apparently. . . . Finally, the bold global warming legislation in VT that we've commented on occasionally? About to be vetoed by the state's gov. Would hurt state business. Republican, of course. Let's check how honored his name is in 10 years.
Eh, it’s probably not worth it
Here’s a mug that’s prefect for your Debbie Downer co-worker or in my case, my creative director. I love the disclaimer too:
"Product not compatible for use with plain milk or White Russians. Drinkers of either should consider adding chocolate syrup or Kahlua, respectively, to ensure compatibility."
FRIDAY CAT BLOGGING!!
I don't really know why we buy her toys or kittie houses or anything...she makes a home out of everything already.
Thursday, May 17, 2007
A few words about season finales...
...watched The Office and Smallville tonight. Gotta say, both were absolutely fantastic. About Smallville...this is turning into The Butterfly's favorite show, so I've taken the necessary steps to get into it too--turns out it actually is a very good show--and all I ask for from it is creativity and entertainment. All the rumors were saying that some major cast member was going to die. And in the commercials throughout the week, it was very obviously Lana (Kristin Kreuk) getting into a car, and the car blowing up. All I wanted was for something other than that to happen--I absolutely loathe the habit (started by NBC, I believe) of showing the giant surprise in the commercials. If a major cast member is going to die, I don't want to know who it's going to be beforehand. Surprise me.
Well, they surprised me.
(Warning: spoiler after the 'Read More')
They killed everybody.
Well, not exactly. It really was Lana in the car that blows up--halfway through the episode--and I was pretty pissed off about it. However, you don't actually see her dead body or anything...meaning, knowing this show, there's at least a 50/50 chance that she's not actually dead. But when the episode ended 30 minutes later, it was possible that any (or all) of Lana, Clark, Lois, Chloe, and Lionel (pretty much everybody but Lex...who was busy getting arrested) could be dead when the next season ends. Creativity? Check. Entertainment? Check. Nice cliffhanger, I must say.
I must also say, I enjoy this show more than The Butterfly's other major love, Buffy. But don't tell her I said that.
And I also don't want to give the impression that, by pulling off a strong cliffhanger, the CW's off the hook for this. There will still be hell to pay.
Only 537 days to go...
You mean actual military veterans might not feel the same way as guys like Rudy Guiliani and Mitt Romney?
But it is the duty of the commander in chief to lead the country away from the grip of fear, not into its grasp. Regrettably, at Tuesday night's presidential debate in South Carolina, several Republican candidates revealed a stunning failure to understand this most basic obligation. Indeed, among the candidates, only John McCain demonstrated that he understands the close connection between our security and our values as a nation...Meanwhile, Gore actually expands on his previous "I'm not planning on running, but who knows?" rationale: he hates politics, and he isn't really sure if that's going to change (via HuffPo).
These assertions that "torture works" may reassure a fearful public, but it is a false security. We don't know what's been gained through this fear-driven program. But we do know the consequences.
Then again (also via HuffPo), he shouldn't jump in...there's no point: it's game, set, match Hillary.
How to Tell if You Have a Bad Heart
Weather, Water, Energy 5-17-07
- Start with some promising news for a change. David Roberts at Grist highlights some analysis that indicates that the rate of growth of solar, if maintained, will make it the dominant energy source in a generation, and goes on to explain why. (They're already getting the idea even in the sun-challenged Pacific Northwest.) And here you'll read about "flying wind generators," which sound Harry Potterish but are real, might work, and be cool.
- Meanwhile, from our "leaders" in DC: "The Senate, after one of its first full debates on global warming, on Tuesday defeated a proposal requiring the Army Corps of Engineers to consider the impact of climate change in designing water resources projects. . . . The proposal would have directed the Army Corps, in drawing up future projects, to use the best available climate science to account for climate change on storms and floods." What's that, you ask? Why, yes, Jim Inhofe (OK-REPUB) was the leader of the charge to defeat this. There goes that "positive" stuff. And the head of the National Hurricane Center says the Busheviks are shafting the agency of operations funds while they PR themselves around. Imagine that.
- While the Senate fiddles, a report that the Southern Ocean has just about reached its satiation point in CO2 absorption. Wonder if that got built into the climate models. So they might be even more conservative than they've seemed to this point??
- Among people who see reality: "Top scientific bodies called Wednesday on world leaders gathering at a G8 summit next month to tackle the twin issues of energy security and climate change. 'The problem is not yet insoluble, but becomes more difficult with each passing day,' said the 13 national science academies of the Group of Eight industrialised nations and five developing countries in a joint statement." Mayors of some of the planet's largest cities are at least trying to fight back against the warming, glomming onto Bill Clinton's latest "carbon offset" variation. Better than nothing, even if it is an offset.
- Joseph Romm at Climate Progress is still doing his good work, especially a takedown of idiot Richard Lindzen.
- In Australia, they may be attaching their hopes to "wave energy" which could also get them moving even more into water desalinization, which they need big time right now.
- Repubs are starting to tizzy about the Russian lead into the energy resources of the Arctic Circle. Not that it's irrelevant, but finding more oil up there isn't exactly what should be front-burner right now. Of course, being Repubs, they'll play it for all the fear they can squeeze out of it and to divert us from important things, like they always do.
- What's the likely impact of all the dust, soot, and aerosols being belched out of Asia right now? Well, we don't really know, so a team of US, China, Japanese, and S Korean scientists are going to spend the next couple of months studying. I'm sure they'll all agree on the final report once their political overseers have vetted it, too.
- Finally, déjà vu all over again. Great article here on the tactics used by ozone hole deniers starting 30 years ago (h/t Only in It for the Gold). Exactly the same rhetorical strategies being pulled now on global warming (see "Lindzen" above). The sad part about this article is that it was obvious the repeat was going on 20 years ago as the first warming research hit the news. I know because I did a book review for a journal on Stephen Schneider’s first global warming book and made the same point there. The fact that the same people who were wrong about the ozone hole were the ones condemning the warming research and using the same arguments to do so actually was one of the first reasons why I bought into global warming as a strong possibility of being true. Had we understood and acted strategically on this two decades ago, we could be at the point where we were only arguing about solar or propelled wind. Historians with their “the present is too new and open to interpretation to talk about” BS have so ruined this country’s ability to think intelligently about things like this. In any case, this article lays it all out and, if you only have time for one thing to read today, this should be it. Won’t take long but it will stay with you.
"Friday Night Lights" or Friday Night Lights?
During a well-deserved rant against the TV network suits, Bob Sassone at TV Squad went off on NBC’s placement of Friday Night Lights on a bad tv night next season:
Yeah, and a new one begins. This is a show about community and family and football, right? So why put it on Friday nights at 10, which is probably the only time slot worse than Saturday nights? It's as if NBC said, "OK, it's not getting great ratings, but we're going to stick by it. Sort of." I've always wondered why NBC doesn't just dump Sunday's Football Night In America and put Friday Night Lights in there instead. Sure, it's up against 60 Minutes, but Sunday night has a built in audience for football, and there's a game on right after. And with dad, mom, and the kids all home on Sunday nights, I think they'd find an audience.
Uh, Bob, here’s why it’s even stupider. What’s going to be happening on Friday nights this fall in every town in America??? It’s called . . . high school football. NBC just took a show with a presumed audience of high school football fans and scheduled it when those people WILL ALL BE AT THEIR SCHOOL GAMES. That’s right up there with ABC scheduling “Ugly Betty” opposite “La Fea Mas Bella” on Univision, a class of idiocy that could only happen in TV and DC. And anywhere else Jim Inhofe lives.
"I Have No Mommies"
Wonder when the t-shirt with that title on it will come out. Don't think it's some time in the future. The future is here:
A baby conceived from an egg donated by one woman and implanted in another may have no mother at all under Maryland law, the state's highest court ruled yesterday.
Issued more than four years after the matter was brought to the Court of Appeals, the 4-3 opinion creates blank spaces under "mother" in the birth certificates of twins born in 2001 at Holy Cross Hospital in Silver Spring.
The man who arranged for the children to be born from his sperm and donated eggs, and the woman with whom he arranged to carry them, brought the case. The two wanted it made clear that she had no legal claims or responsibility for the children.
More details:
But in the Maryland case settled yesterday, lawyer Dorrance D. Dickens represented the man who wanted to be a biological father. Absent a female partner, he arranged to create a child of his own with donated eggs from one woman and gestation provided by another.
Holy Cross Hospital placed the surrogate on the birth certificate as the mother.
When the man and the surrogate sought a court order to remove her from the birth certificate - a process that Dickens said typically goes smoothly - the judge balked, saying even though other judges sign off, he didn't see any authority in the law to do that. The man, identified in court records as Roberto d.B. appealed.
The egg donor was not involved in the case.
Toto, we're not in Kansas anymore.
Photo of the Week
Via CNN, I give you
"A folk artist blows three suona horns while fire-breathing in Xian, China, as part of celebrations for "Golden Weeks," a weeklong holiday starting on May Day."
Wednesday, May 16, 2007
Music Bullets, 5-16-07
- First up, Trent Reznor slams the music industry! No, really!
In an angry message posted on the official NIN website, Reznor says that despite all his efforts to reimagine the album release in a post-Napster era, his label is conspiring against his fans. Reznor recently found out that Year Zero sells for $34.99 in Australian dollars, or $29.10 U.S. By comparison, Avril Lavigne’s new album sells for $21.99 AU ($18.21 US). The reason, as a label rep told Reznor: “We know you have a real core audience that will pay whatever it costs when you put something out - you know, true fans. It’s the pop stuff we have to discount to get people to buy.” And the record industry wonders why album sales are slumping?
This brand of intentionally screwing the fans is just one root of a big tree of problems plaguing major labels. In another attempt to prevent his fans’ wallets from being exploited, Reznor has banished a planned European maxi-single for the song “Capital G,” opting instead to release a Year Zero remix album in the future. This way, the fervent U.S. fans won’t have to spend $30+ to import a two-song single that includes one new remix. Who would have guessed that Trent Reznor would emerge as the Ralph Nader of the music industry? - Second up, Wilco’s Sky Blue Sky did indeed come out yesterday (where did yesterday go? I was going to post about it last night, and suddenly it was Wednesday). Wilco’s a band whose albums I need to listen to at least twice before I can totally digest what’s going on, so while I’ll be writing a review of it, it might not nearly as soon as I want it to be.
- Overshadowed by Wilco’s release was Rufus Wainwright, whose Release the Stars also came out yesterday. I’m sure I’ll end up with it at some point—I absolutely loved Want One, though Want Two did little to nothing for me—but I need time to digest Sky Blue Sky. Oh, and for those of you out there who are sick of gay people trying their hardest to appear not-gay, apparently Rufus will apparently “recreate Judy Garland’s famed performance at Los Angeles’ Hollywood Bowl on September 23, exactly 46 years after it took place.” Now THAT’s someone who’s open and comfortable with his sexuality.
Fantasy Congress!
Well, a) I got Hear No Evil into my Fantasy Congress league (all the kewl kidz are doing it), and b) the draft has taken place. I got Obama, baby! He’s a legislation wrecking crew! Through two days of competition, here is my roster (with point totals)...I don’t know if I got a bunch of D’s because I said I was liberal or because they’re in charge, so they’re the main point-getters...
- Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC, “Rookie”) – 69 points
- Janice Schakowsky (D-IL, “Supporting”) – 68 points
- James Moran (D-VA, “Allstar”) – 57 points
- Rose DeLauro (D-CT, “Allstar”) – 52 points
- Barack Obama (D-IL, “L. Senator”) – 40 points
- John Larson (D-CT, “Supporting”) – 37 points
- Mark Pryor (D-AR, “L. Senator”) – 32 points
- Pat Leahy (D-VT, “U. Senator”) – 31 points
- David Scott (D-GA, “Rookie”) – 31 points
- Tammy Baldwin (D-WI, “Supporting”) – 31 points
- Pete Domenici (R-NM, “U. Senator”) – 15 points
- John Salazar (D-CO, “Rookie”) – 13 points
A couple other thoughts:
1) I have absolutely no idea how you become an “Allstar” versus “Supporting”.
2) I have absolutely no idea how the points work yet (and how you can anticipate who’s going to be scoring).
3) I have absolutely no idea how my attention is supposed to be maintained over the course of a 583-day season (till this congress is officially done).
4) But I’m going to win, dammit.
Weather, Water, Energy 5-16-07
Big snow melt in Antarctica in 2005. More melting beneath surface, faster breaking and movement of ice sheets toward the ocean? Stay tuned. And on high ground. . . . Via Governing's blog, 13th Floor, we hear that Technology Review has a great two-part series up on the need for greater specificity and localization in ghe climate forecasts that are coming out as cities and states try to get ready for the predicted consequences of the warming that’s already growing. . . . But for those wanting to know their own individual carbon footprint, this will get you to Internet carbon calculators that will give you a bit more control. . . . Of course, this may be a little too individualized, Greenpeace's rebuilding of Noah's Ark on Mount Ararat as a PR move. I'm betting this ends up one of those "seemed like a good idea at the time" things. . . . No more lawn-watering at all in Australia's capital (quick, what's its name?). They're calling it "the big dry" now. But no fear. Their idiot PM has called on everyone to pray. Which they may be crazy enough to do down under, given they voted him into office AND they apparently have started drinking coffee from cat poop. (I'm not kidding.) . . . David Roberts at Grist has a good meditation on facts, fear, why the latter trumps the former in any political debate, and why scaring people with global warming plays to authoritarian power. . . . More on US business types recognizing that their futures are facing giant screwing by global warming. Long article, really worth reading. Here are some highlights:
. . . many business leaders are galvanized by two forces: the desire to have a seat at the table when policy is written, and the desire for certainty about the regulatory environment.
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Among companies on record as favoring action on climate change, many are nonetheless preparing to lobby against proposed solutions that they worry could harm the economy – or their particular business. This is a delicate question that will be central to the debate.
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Who will win and lose? Some policies involve choices that favor some companies over others within an industry. Under cap-and-trade, for example, utilities that operate coal-burning plants would want the industry's initial emissions allowances to be based on their current output of greenhouse gases, Holmstead says. Utilities with cleaner fuel sources, by contrast, would gain an edge if the allowances were based on current output of electricity, not carbon.
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A cap-and-trade system may be easier to impose, politically, than a new tax on carbon. But since the price of fossil fuels can fluctuate widely, some experts say that one form of carbon tax could serve a crucial purpose: setting a price floor, so that alternative energy can be nurtured by a predictable price environment.
Finally, a scary, scary report by a Swiss guy that actually projects the planet’s “carrying capacity” concept into the global warming future. Here are some key quotes:
In order to move towards a sustainable world, we all must become … not Berliners, but Cubans.
So, what is the carrying capacity of the planet? If we wish to live in a sustainable fashion like the Cubans, we’ll need to reduce our numbers by 20% to 5 billion people. If we wish to all live like Americans, we shall need to decrease our numbers to roughly 1 billion people. Finally, if we decide to live as poorly as the people of Madagascar, then we can triple our numbers to 20 billion and live unhappily ever after.
Using the “proven” energy sources only, Switzerland will have available only 1 kW of per capita energy by 2050, i.e., even the envisaged 2000 Watt Society is a pipe dream without additional sources of energy. The hidden message was that we cannot afford shutting down our nuclear power plants. In order to meet our goal of 2 kW per person, we would need to double our nuclear power and increase the efficiency of these power plants from currently 33% to 50% by using the excess heat for heating the houses in nearby villages rather than our rivers as we do now.
The system lives off the exponential growth and is designed to go broke once the exponential growth pattern comes to an end.
Yet, this is not only a problem with social security. It is one of the main driving forces behind our entire economical system. Our economy has been optimized to exploit exponential growth, and once exponential growth ends, it is designed to fail.
For this reason, we cannot rely on market forces to get us out of the exponential growth dilemma. Our business managers and politicians have every (short-term) interest in preserving the exponential growth for as long as they can. . . .
We can rely on our business managers and politicians to fix the exponential growth problem as much as we can rely on junkies to fix the drug abuse problem.
-----
There is an old proverb: when you are already in a hole, stop digging. We have documented that we are already consuming an ecological footprint larger than that provided by planet Earth in a sustainable fashion. Thus, increasing our population further can only hurt us.
In order to avoid the collapse, we need to get out of the exponential growth pattern as fast as we can. We ought to behave as if fossil fuels had already become essentially unavailable, using this precious commodity only for purposes where they are absolutely essential and to help us create a sustainable energy infrastructure for the future.
Such an approach will immediately make us poorer. It will be uncomfortable; but remember, this will happen sooner or later anyway, whether we like it or not, and the longer we continue in our current exponential growth pattern, the more painful the subsequent adjustment will be.
Submitted Without Comment . . .
. . . but with just a slight smile. From a USA Today blog:
Activists want the Hong Kong government to classify the Bible as "indecent" because of its graphic content, Reuters says.
The Television and Entertainment Licensing Authority has received 838 complaints about the holy book's violent and sexual content, according to the wire service.
The campaign comes after the agency declared "indecent" a student newspaper's sex columns on incest and bestiality.
"If the Bible is similarly classified as 'indecent' by authorities, only those over 18 could buy the holy book and it would need to be sealed in a wrapper with a statutory warning notice," Reuters reports.
The agency says it is "still undecided on whether the Bible had violated Hong Kong's obscene and indecent articles laws."
The Violent Path to Happines
I found this site due to it’s amazing design, but actually found the content pretty interesting – until I noticed it was a viral site for a video game. But still cool concept...
"The worldwide movement we all know as Kah Ra Shin started in 1900 in a small Tibetan village, when an angry peasant boy discovered the joy and release to be found in smashing things. Now his philosophy helps millions of enraged people find inner peace.
Once destroyed an object cannot be undestroyed. So before opening the door to destruction, the first action in any Kah Ra Shin session is to release as much anger as possible by performing a long guttural scream."
Tuesday, May 15, 2007
What does this say about us?
So The Butterfly and I got a new PS2 last week (they're the size of a small book now! insane!), and we put the old one in the exercise room. Since we put the PS2/DVD player in the exercise room, we've worked out religiously in front of the TV every night...at least 45 minutes on the elliptical tonight. Is this good or bad?
Good: woohoo, burning like 1,000 calories a night.
Bad: our exercise habits are completely and totally dictated by the proximity of the nearest DVD player. Something not quite right about that.
Discuss.
Tuesday Pirates Rant™
Yeah, no rant tonight. I have no idea what to say. This is probably the worst Pirate team in at least five years, yet they have their best chance of reaching .500 since Andy Van Slyke roamed centerfield. I don't get it.
Weather, Water, Energy 5-15-07
We have five years, five years, folks, to get rolling full steam or the worst cases are going to start happening. And since the next two are already known wastelands, we'll have three. It's not that we don't know what to do:
The report advocated six key solutions, including more efficient energy use, the reversal of deforestation, accelerated development of low emission technologies such as wind and solar power, as well as energy storage, replacing coal-fired power stations with gas, and carbon capture and sequestration.
Together they could cut carbon dioxide emissions by about 60 to 80 percent by 2050 provided they are implemented on time.
But we can't keep screwing around. . . . Some good news. Some forest-rich nations are organizing to get develop a plan to make preservation politically and economically attractive. The problem? "It will require political will and sound economic strategy to make the RED initiative work," explains Field. "But the initiative provides a big reduction in emissions at low cost. It is a good example of the kind of creative thinking that can help solve the climate problem." And notice how the US isn't included in the nations. . . . Another possible solution is to reinvest in parks in our cities to cut the cement and decrease the transpiring runoff. . . . Finally, more to cheer you. A great rant on the harmful and tax-avoiding effects of frequent flyer miles here and here.
The Soviets Win
Short of starting us on the path to the total surveillance society that we're now on, the Soviets probably screwed us the most by attaching "communism" to the same kind of health care system that has produced the best results in the world in Germany, Britain, Australia, and New Zealand. Even Canada's is better than ours. One of the strangest things to explain for future historians will be how the world's richest nation could invent such a horrible health care system for all its people. And notice how well we do on getting to see a doctor once you get to his/her office or to an emergency room. We have a lot to answer for when the final tote is done, but this is one of the biggest.
Another Powerful Skyscraper
Monday, May 14, 2007
Dave Matthews Band (live): A Primer
For a group of laid-back, genial musicians, Charlottesville, VA's Dave Matthews Band has been one of the more divisive groups (among music nerds, anyway) in recent memory. They’re everything that’s right with music; they’re Dead rip-offs. Dave’s lyrics are positive and charming; Dave’s voice is annoying. Their grass-roots approach has been the inspiration for, at this point, hundreds of bands; their fans suck. It goes back and forth, and to some degree, both sides are right. Here’s what I wrote in my Exchange with Michael Atchison, a firm member of the ‘anti-DMB’ camp.
As for DMB...when somebody tells me they're not a fan, I just say that I understand. While it's rewarding to delve deeply into their catalog, I've not been a fan of almost any of their singles (same goes for [Pearl Jam], actually), their music is a pretty acquired taste, and their fanbase--a unique amalgamation of frat dudes, stoners, and complete music nerds like me--is one of the most whiny, self-righteous fanbases out there (and I say that as a member of the fanbase!).
For the most part, I’ve been doing this “Primer” series on artists who aren’t well-known enough to have sold out Giants Stadium multiple times. However, as a decade-long member of the ‘pro-DMB’ camp, I figured the least I could do was try to illustrate why I do like DMB. So here we go.
(I should note that I’m using only songs from official DMB releases. I could have broken into my spindles and spindles of live “I’m a huge Music Dork” DMB recordings, but that wouldn’t help all of you GN readers who will most assuredly rush out to get your hands on as much live DMB music as possible after reading this...so I only went with stuff you can buy at your local music store or—more likely—order online.)
1. Ants Marching, Red Rocks (8-15-1995)
Full disclosure...and I’ve never admitted this to anybody, so you—the loyal Good Nonsense readers—should feel very honored and privileged: I am the lowest of the low among DMB fans—I am a Crashhead. That derotagory nickname is a way of saying I did not discover DMB the ‘correct’ way, the grassroots way. I discovered DMB in the most embarassing, commericalized, non-hardcore-fan-inducing way possible: watching Party of Five in early 1997 with my high school girlfriend and hearing “Crash Into Me” played during a romantic scene between Jennifer Love Hewitt and Scott Wolf. There. I’ve admitted it.
Uhh...okay, I take it back. None of that happened. I, uhh...okay, too late. Cat’s out of the bag. We were watching a painfully, cheesily romantic moment on a painfully, cheesily melodramatic show, and I was struck by the poetic wordplay of DMB’s most painfully, cheesily poppy song, so I went to the local Wal Mart (the only place to buy music in Western Oklahoma) and purchased Crash.
A week later, I owned Under the Table and Dreaming (1994), Remember Two Things (1993), and the Recently EP as well. I got hooked fast. The funny thing is, most hardcore DMB fans...the people who can no longer count just how many DMB shows they’ve attended (or how much money they’ve spent on live shows and live albums and blank discs to download and burn live bootlegs) didn’t usually come across the band in this way. They heard about the band through word-of-mouth or a live tape, or they got talked into seeing the band live or something, and they got hooked. Always one to be different, I became hooked before I even knew of their live prowess.
Of course, when I was posting on DMB message boards back in the day, I didn’t exactly admit this.
It turned out that I was jumping on the DMB bandwagon at the perfect time. I got hooked just before going to college, where, needless to say, I was no longer the only DMB fan I knew. I soon became aware of their live reputation because, the fall of my freshman year, they released their first official live album—Live at Red Rocks, 8.15.95. I came to grasp why DMB had so many hardcore followers, and I quickly became one of them. I attended my first official DMB show in Dallas on 8-13-98 (the infamous—among DMB nerds, anyway—“invasion of the crickets” show).
Any list of live DMB songs really has to include “Ants”, so I thought I’d get it out of the way early. This song has one of the the most recognizable quarter-note (or is that a half-note?) drum beats of all-time, and those simple beats are certain to be followed by the loudest cheers of the night. This song has aged well—it remains probably DMB’s most reliable, best set closer. This version is also notable for the way it segued from the previous song (“#36”, to be addressed later on) straight into the “Ants” beat. One of the best moments I’ve ever had at a DMB show came in Columbus in 1999 (6-19-1999, to be exact), when live staple “Warehouse” segued directly into “Ants”, catching much of the crowd—including myself—off-guard.
One aspect of the band’s music is the celebratory nature of so many of the songs. Well, this is one of the most celebratory, most loved songs in the catalog. And Live at Red Rocks is one of the most celebrated, most loved shows in DMB lore. Performing at the historic Colorado venue represented an early peak for the band, and the show itself was something of a peak as well. It’s interesting to hear how much so many of these songs have changed in the last twelve years. This is a performing band that consistently shakes songs (and setlists) up, which is one of the reason there is such a loyal group of show collectors, myself included.
(Okay, back to PO5 for a second. It really creeps me out to realize that whiny little Claudia—Lacey Chabert—is now old enough to have been in Maxim (or FHM or Stuff...one of them...I’m not looking it up) not once, but twice now. If realizing Empire Records was 12 years old made me feel old, this downright makes me feel downright creepy. I shouldn’t even be talking about this. Forget I brought it up.)
2. Seek Up, Dave Matthews & Tim Reynolds: Live at Luther College (2-6-1996)
Technically, this isn’t a Dave Matthews Band performance, but Dave & Tim shows are part of the DMB lore, so I’m counting it. Timmy is a fellow Charlottesvillian (Charlottesville-ite? Person from Charlottesville?) and has been a long-time DMB collaborator—or rather, he was a collaborator in the mid- and late-‘90s...not so much since then. For a different atmosphere and sound, Dave and Tim have occasionally gone on tour through mostly college venues, and right before the ’99 D&T tour, Live at Luther College was released to whet everybody’s appetite.
“Seek Up” has always been a treat at full-band shows, especially as a set opener—even at 10+ (or 15+) minutes, it’s a nice way to get things started. The musicians enter the song one-by-one, single file, and with each new component, the groove builds nicely. It’s one of my favorite full-band songs. However, I’m putting this D&T version on the list because of one single reason: it is the best thing on Live @ Luther College. You know a song is good when you can completely change the structure and instrumentation behind it and it stays wonderful.
For those who don’t like Dave Matthews’ music, one reason is probably his occasionally cheesy, save-the-world lyrics, and this song definitely skates a little close to the Indigo Girls line (“Look at me in my fancy car/And my bank account/Oh, how I wish I could take it all/Down to my grave/God knows I’d save and save”), but he gets away with it because...well, I’m not sure how he gets away with it. Must be his delivery. He gets away with it in “Seek Up” because of everything, really—the song’s just gorgeous.
And for those who don’t like DMB fans (I’ll address them further in a bit), well...don’t go to a D&T show. Dave has created a very familiar, open presence with his fans, and that backfires in a more intimate venue when people start shouting out song requests and yelling what they think are inside jokes (but are really just pathetic attempts at establishing a connection). You don’t really hear this too much on Live at Luther College, though you do hear him addressing requests a couple times. L@LC does manage to highlight the intimacy of many DMB songs, including “Say Goodbye” (lyrically, a pretty creepy song in which Dave begs a good female friend for sex, but musically, my absolute favorite DMB song...go figure), and “One Sweet World” (another ‘save the earth’ kind of song).
I should also mention that I met my future roommate—fellow GN poster Hear No Evil—while camping out on the Mizzou campus for D&T tickets. I thought I was a DMB nerd, but I had no idea. HNE introduced me to the world of DMB live downloads, and my bank account was never the same (blank discs were expensive back then!).
3. I’ll Back You Up, Worcester College (12-8-1998)
Another reason to dislike DMB (so I hear) is Dave’s voice—in particular, his trips to falsetto land. Well, if you don’t like Dave’s voice, you probably won’t like this song. But it’s one of the quietest, most touching songs in the DMB catalog. It quickly became my first official “favorite DMB song” and is still in the top 5. The lyrics, like most of my favorite Dave lyrics, don’t really translate well on paper (“I remember thinking/Sometimes we walk, sometimes we run away/But I know/No matter how fast we are running/Somehow we keep...somehow we keep up with each other” doesn’t sound nearly as good on paper), but his falsetto (shaky but not “You Are So Beautiful to Me” shaky) make it one of the most heartfelt songs I’ve heard. Plus there’s always been an added value of intrigue when considering it was written for a woman he proposed to—and was turned down by—three times.
This Worcester College version is a rare full-band (or at least half-full band) effort, and guest Tim Reynolds’ solo near the end is spare and unbelievable.
4. The Last Stop, United Center (12-19-1998)
The Winter 1998 tour marked an interesting time in the DMB chronology. Their 1998 release, Before These Crowded Streets, had debuted at #1. They had just finished their first expansive amphitheatre tour that summer. They were selling out every venue they played. They were getting ready to move from amphitheatres to stadiums. Through all this transition, their 1998 arena tour had a unique feel to it. Lots of guests, lots of jams. Less songs, longer shows. Two of these shows have been officially released by the band. The Chicago show, the last of the tour (the ‘last stop’, if you will...sorry) saw Tim Reynolds sitting in the entire show, former James Brown saxophonist Maceo Parker sitting in on “What Would You Say”, and Vic Wooten and Mitch Rutman sitting in on a cover of Daniel Lanois’ “The Maker”. In all, it was a wonderfully unique show, kicked off by a long-time DMB nerd favorite, “The Last Stop.”
“Last Stop” is unique in the DMB catalog—it’s got a distinct Middle Eastern twang and religious, spiritual lyrics (only one other DMB song—“Minarets”—fits these characteristics):Gracious even God
This song represents a strong musical accomplishment for the band. In all, Before These Crowded Streets is probably the most musically unique album in the DMB discography. While 2002’s Busted Stuff is lyrically darker, BTCS reaches a unique darkness and a musical foreboding. It’s good dark enough that I haven’t listened to it in about two years...ever since The Butterfly listened to it and liked it enough to steal it and keep it in her car. Not that I'm bitter.
Bloodied on the cross, your sins are washed enough
A mother’s cry
“Is hate so deep?
Must a baby’s bones this hungry fire feed?”
5. Two Step, East Rutherford (9-11-1999)
In the Summer of 1999, my DMB nerddom took quite a few steps up the ladder. After seeing DMB in Columbus with HNE (he lived in StL, and Columbus is almost exactly halfway between StL and DC, where I was living for the summer), I attended shows in Hershey and outside DC (in Bristow, VA, at Nissan Pavilion, possibly the hardest venue in the country to get in and out of—there is no way to avoid a 3-hour traffic jam getting in, and there’s no reason to even start your car for at least 2 hours after the show), and I started to truly get a feel for what was great about a DMB set and what was great and terrible about DMB fans.
DMB fans are an impressive lot, really. They’re diverse in their expectations of a show—some come to get drunk and high and listen to the music, some come to get drunk and high, talk (yell) on their cell phones (“WHAT? I’M AT THE DAVE SHOW! IT ROCKS!!! WHAT?”), and yell out their requests (likely either “Crash”, “All Along the Watchtower”, or the latest single), some come to get drunk and high and laid, and some (like me) come to enjoy the songs, bitch about the drunks in the crowd, memorize (and maybe bitch about) the setlist, and look for tapers. And it’s very much assured that members of each group of those fans (especially the group in which I reside) don’t really enjoy members of any of the other groups. But they attend a bazillion shows anyway.
The single best, most unified crowd moment of a typical DMB show is the moment the intro to “Two Step” ends and the song truly begins. Everybody knows it’s coming, everybody’s ready, and everybody just starts doing whatever their own personal version of dancing is (mine, for instance, is bobbing my head up and down and watching everybody else losing their minds). All the disparate groups coexist for a moment. It’s fun to watch. “Two Step” has been another live staple for well over a decade now, and while it’s changed shape a bit, it’s always a show highlight.
6. JTR, Folsom Field (7-11-2001)
The summers of 2000-01 represented a relatively active DMB-going period for me. Most DMB nerds compiled a much bigger list of shows than the nine I attended those two summers, but...well, I couldn’t afford it. I was content with attending a few and collecting just about every show of the tours via download. This period of 2000-01 probably represented DMB’s highest level of popularity—both summers, they played Giants Stadium, Foxboro Stadium, Veterans Stadium, RFK Stadium, Buffalo’s Ralph Wilson Stadium, Soldier Field, and others.
My only experience in one of these huge venues was at RFK Stadium in DC in 2000. Never has the weather been so poor at a concert I attended, yet rarely have I had a better time. By the time Ozomatli and Ben Harper had played and it was time for DMB to take the stage, the crowd was drenched and slap-happy. DMB opened with “JTR”, with its chorus of “Rain, rain, rain down on me,” and all 50,000+ in the stadium lost it. It was the perfect way to kick off what would be one of the better concerts I’ve seen. But a simple line from a chorus doesn’t describe what’s great about this song.
“JTR” started as a cover of the old standard, “John the Revelator”, which DMB performed with Santana when the latter opened during a few stadium shows in May 1999. However, when DMB went into the studio in the winter of ’99-’00, they turned it into their own song. In fact, it has become one of DMB’s greatest ‘original’ songs. The last 2-3 minutes of “JTR” are quite simply the best musical achievement of DMB’s first 15 years together. The song breaks down from its verse-chorus structure and almost disintegrates into chaotic sax and shrieking violin before pulling back together and rollicking on toward the end. I don’t think that came anywhere close to describing it correctly, but it’s to be heard, not read.
As a whole, Live from Folsom Field is one of the best in the ever-expanding official release catalog. Boulder’s Fox Theatre was one of the band’s favorite stops when they began country-wide touring, and playing at Folsom Field was a nod to that.
7. Everyday/#36, The Gorge (9-6-2002)
In 1999 and early 2000, DMB got together with Steve Lillywhite, producer of their three previous major-label releases, to record their next album. Their partnership had been quite fruitful to this point, and the material with which they were working was strong. However, something wasn’t quite right. Dave was drinking a lot, the content of the lyrics was quite dark, and in general the band was down about the recording process and its results. Here’s a quote from drummer Carter Beauford in a 2001 Rolling Stone article:"Bruce [Flohr, Senior VP of A&R and Artist Development at RCA Records] and I stepped outside one evening after doing some takes, and he said, 'Carter, how do you feel about this record?' I just had to come out and tell him I wasn't feeling it. The vibe wasn't there, you know? It was lacking everything the Dave Matthews Band was about. So I said, 'Look, I don't feel it, and I'm almost certain the other guys don't feel it. We need to make a move.' And Bruce said, 'That's all I needed to hear.' From that point he began working to find someone else to produce the record and working toward putting our heads into a forward and positive space."
That someone was producer Glen Ballard. After the summer 2000 tour, Dave met with Ballard to find a new energy and write some new songs. They quickly and unexpectedly created an entire album’s worth of material. It was released as Everyday in early 2001, and the reviews were, shall we say, underwhelming, particularly from the hardcore nerdbase. Everyday had some catchy songs—“So Right” is pretty fun, “The Space Between” isn’t just horrifyingly cheesy, and...uhh...the guitar lick in “I Did It” is pretty good. But the work as a whole was substandard. The lyrics were underdeveloped and, well, underwhelming. “Why must I beg like a child for your candy” (from “Angel”)? “Make a bomb of love and blow it up” (from “I Did It”)? Really, Dave? Departures from normalcy are fine (as Stand Up would prove a few years later) and even encouraged, but they still have to produce good work.
DMB nerds were further displeased when leaks of the Lillywhite recording sessions surfaced. The songs were fantastic. But I won’t go down this road. You can read about the whole ordeal here and here. The point is, The Lillywhite Sessions were great, and there was displeasure among the fanbase.
If there was a standout song on Everyday, it was the title track. It’s a simple song with positive, non-earth-shattering lyrics, and its structure was derived from “#36”, a song from the Live at Red Rocks days.
In April 2001, Hear No Evil and I drove from Missouri to Virginia for the opening show of the 2001 tour, a Charlottesville homecoming. The Everyday material was unsteady—some strong material, some weak—and there was an underlying tension surrounding the event. Two songs worked to break the tension: a mid-set “All Along the Watchtower” with Neil Young, who opened the show w/Crazy Horse and took the song hostage, giving Dave quite the guitar lesson—and a late-set “Everyday” that completely incorporated the words and chorus of “#36”. It’s hard to describe why this was cool, but it seemed like a nod to the old, conflicted fans...and it made a solid song infinitely better. This combination song continued to get better over the next couple of years.
Overlooking the Columbia River, the Gorge (in George, WA) has always been one of DMB’s favorite venues, and The Gorge 2002 showcases the best performances of their multi-night stay there. Maybe it’s just because I was there for the first performance of “Everyday”/”#36”, but I love this song, especially this version. The crowd joins in on the backing vocals, and you can close your eyes, picture the sun setting over the Columbia River gorge, picture the entire crowd singing the “Come and dance with me” refrain...yeah, this would be a nice experience.
Thanks to a friend of mine with a knack for getting great tickets (and the fact that I was in DC for one last summer), 2002 was my heaviest DMB-going summer. Looking at the show list from that year, I can’t actually remember how many shows I attended. Pretty sure it was 10. Either way, the vibe for the crowd and the band for most of the 2002 shows was more pleasant and satisfied than anything during 2001. The big reason for this was the release of Busted Stuff, a collection of most songs from the Lillywhite Sessions plus two new ones—“Where Are You Going” and “You Never Know” (which is one of their best, most emotional songs). It was a “make peace with the old fans before moving in a different direction” gesture that didn’t go unnoticed. In all, Busted Stuff is probably their best album, gesture or no gesture.
8. Bartender, Red Rocks (9-9-2005)
Shortly after DMB’s 2003 Central Park performance, it was released as a massive 3-disc show. It’s pretty good—their cover of Neil Young’s “Cortez the Killer” with Warren Haynes is among many highlights—but it just doesn’t hold a candle to future releases. The years of 2003-2004 featured plenty of good shows and new highlights, but it was a period of treading water. DMB wanted to move in a different direction and did so with Everyday, but it was something of a false start. After resituating with Busted Stuff, it was once again time to try something new. In Winter 2004-05, they hired producer Mark Batson, who was known mostly for working with acts like Eminem, and got to work.
As a whole, 2005’s Stand Up is everything Everyday was intended to be. There’s some electric guitar, some new instrumentation, some further steps in the area of R&B and funk, and—strangely—simultaneously more simplistic lyrics and melodies and more complex experimentation. It’s admirable, but it’s a mixed bag. Some songs (“Old Dirt Hill”, “American Baby”, “Everybody Wake Up") don’t at all work for me, but those that do (“Louisiana Bayou”, “Hello Again”, “Smooth Rider”) absolutely blow me away.
The process of creating Stand Up served another purpose—it reawakened DMB to the pleasures of their old songs as well. The setlists were more varied than ever, and the energy and quality of play was as high as it had ever been. I attended one show in 2005—my first since 2002 (it’s called “getting a full-time job and getting into a serious relationship”), and I loved it. And because of all this, two songs from 2005 shows make this list.
First up is “Bartender”, from Busted Stuff. This song obliterates me every time. Heartbreaking lyrics, Dave’s most passionate singing, and Carter Beauford’s strongest drumwork (which is saying something) make this something special. The Lillywhite Sessions version will always hold a special place with me because it came first (and because of Carter’s emotional drums), but the Busted Stuff version is solid as well. However, the live version is an experience in and of itself, especially this Red Rocks version—coming ten years after their celebrated first trip to Red Rocks.
Slight aside: in the extended version of Almost Famous, there’s a scene in which William Miller (played by Patrick Fugit) and Russell Hammond (Billy Crudup) are discussing how it’s the littlest things in music that people remember the most:Russell: It’s not what you put into the music. It’s what you leave out. Listen to Marvin Gaye...a song like “What’s Happening Brother”...there’s a single ‘woo’ at the end of the second verse. You know that woo? That single woo?
(I just spent about an hour looking for this quote...I somehow managed to skip over it about four separate times while searching. I could have almost watched the whole damn movie in the time it took me to find this silly quote. Needless to say, The Butterfly is not too happy with me at the moment. She just doesn’t get me sometimes.)
William: I know that woo! (Tries to sing it) Woo!
Russell: Yeah! That’s what you remember, man. It’s the little things...the silly things...the mistakes. There’s only one of ‘em, and it makes the song! That’s rock and roll, man!
Anyway, there’s a point near the end of this (and only this) version of “Bartender” where Dave lets out a slight yelp as his vocals end. It’s my “woo.” It comes at the end of Dave’s most passionate set of vocals—one of the best things about the song—and it completely overshadows everything that preceded it. It doesn’t matter that the piano solo that follows his vocals stretches on about four minutes too long, and the song avoids its own ending to its own detriment. Because of that small yelp, this is my favorite version of one of my favorite DMB songs. It’s the little things, man.
9. Louisiana Bayou, Red Rocks (9-12-2005)
There are certain recurring themes and subjects in Dave’s lyrics. There’s the “seize the day...you never know what tomorrow might bring” theme (found in “Tripping Billies”, “Pig”, “Lie in Our Graves”, “You Never Know”, and about 23 other songs), and then there’s a slight offshoot—the general “let’s sing about death” theme found in “Grace Is Gone” and, among others, the two best songs on Stand Up. There’s “Hello Again”, a super-delightful romp (seriously) with lyrics like “Sinnin' I've done my share of this/Still I hope the Lord forgive me my sins/Ten years ago down by the lake/I saw my sweet love in her watery grave.” And then there’s “Louisiana Bayou”.No no, momma now, devil don't do-si-do
The album version is pretty enjoyable—it’s always been one of my favorite songs from the album. However, the live version is, to use a word William Miller did in Almost Famous (since I just saw most of the movie and all), incendiary. It’s a powerhouse. Upon its 2005 introduction into the DMB catalog, “Bayou” almost immediately became a favored show closer. During portions of the 2005 tour, Robert Randolph & the Family Band opened for DMB, and Randolph—pretty incendiary himself—sat in on this song and brought the band to a rarely-achieved level.
Two young boys lyin' dead by the side of the road
The coins in their eyes represent the money they owe
No judge or jury ever gonna hear the story told
...
Sweet girl daddy done beat that girl like he's insane
Brother can't watch him beat that girl down again
So late one night cookin' up with a couple of friends
Swears his daddy never gonna see another day
...
Money on the bed but you ain't got to go
Sold your soul just trying to get over low
No empty pocket gonna keep you from getting yours
No judge or jury ever gonna hear the story told
Since the end of the 2005 tour, trumpeter Rashawn Ross has been sitting in with the band, and his presence, though subtle, is felt the strongest on “Bayou”. It both sounds like something DMB has never done before and sounds like something no other band could do. A major step forward. And even though much of Stand Up was average at best, moments like this make me excited about where DMB is going.
10. The Idea of You, Fenway Park (7-8-2006)
Last summer, DMB became one of only a few bands to have played Fenway Park. They played two nights on July 7-8, and the shows were released last fall. This set is further proof that there was something about the Stand Up sessions that significantly energized this band. With Ross and keyboardist Butch Taylor (who has been accompanying the band on stage since, I believe, late-1999), the band ripped through two diverse sets, playing old stuff, so-new-it’s-not-yet-been-recorded stuff, and an interesting selection of covers. When I was driving to work a few months ago after breaking this out, I almost ran off the road when the opening notes to “Sweet Caroline” began (It’s Fenway—you have to play “Sweet Caroline” at Fenway, I guess), and was even more taken aback by the absolute note-perfect rendition that followed. I almost chose that song to represent this release, and I almost chose “Say Goodbye” simply because it’s been a long-time favorite, but as purely an illustration of where the band mind and spirits were last summer, I’m choosing “The Idea of You”.
At this stage last July, “Idea” was still pretty rough. For songs like this—songs that get road-tested before the band has truly figured them out—you get some mumbling from Dave in places where he hasn’t totally decided on the lyrics. However, two things about this song make it Primer-worthy: a) the soaring chorus (the only part of the song that was truly set in place at this point), and b) the “Just so you know, I love that song” comment Dave makes afterward. I’ve never heard Dave say anything like that in a live show before (and I’ve heard easily over 200 of them), and I think that says more about the band’s state of mind than the feeling about this particular song. And that, in turn says a lot about the future of the band. To me, at least.
The Dave Matthews Band is getting ready to head to Australia for a series of shows. Bassist Stefan Lessard interviewed with the Brisbane Times recently and had this to say about recent recording sessions (via Nancies.org): “We’re on a bit of a creative break as far as working in the studio – we’ve been in pre-production for a long time, but we’ll get more serious later in the year.”
The original goal, as it was reported, was that these ‘pre-production’ sessions would result in an album to be released this summer, but it didn’t work out that way. The worrying type might fear that this could be another down time like the 2000-2001 Lillywhite Sessions/Everyday period, but considering how happy the band was on tour the last couple of years, and considering that they never seem to get things recorded in the hoped-for time period, I guess I won’t read into the news too much. But for any reader who has made it to this point, you don’t really need to worry about a new album—just enjoy the 10 songs I’ve mentioned here.
I mentioned in a previous Primer that Mos Def & Talib Kweli were my 'gateway drug' to a lot of other underground hip hop. If that's the case, Dave Matthews Band were my gateway drug to live music, the taper culture, bands with alternate instrumentation, the heaven that is Charlottesville, VA, and jam bands. Not bad. My appreciation of their music rises and sinks slightly depending on the latest album, but their impact on my taste is pretty well-proven at this point.
Only 540 days to go...
It's a Republican news day...
First up, great news!! A Newt '08 campaign is a "great possibility"!!! Woohoo!!!! Run, Newt, Run!!!!!
The more people saw him the less they liked him:Meanwhile, Greenwald points out that Fred Thompson is the perfect Republican candidate--he looks presidential like Reagan and he is completely, terribly hypocritical. IOKYAR!Gingrich proved more popular as a revolutionary than as a leader. Like Wright, he became entangled in an ethics imbroglio that eventually led to his reprimand by the House in 1997 and a $300,000 penalty.
After the Republicans in Congress shut down the government in 1995 in a showdown with President Bill Clinton, Gingrich's popularity plunged, never to return to the heights of 1994. By 1996, nearly six in 10 voters had an unfavorable opinion of him. Some of his top lieutenants even plotted a coup against him, but Gingrich, ever the survivor, managed to keep his job.
On Tuesday, election night, Gingrich pointed to the fact that Republicans had won House majorities in three successive elections for the first time in 70 years. But each majority was smaller than the last, and his troops became restless. Exit polls showed that 58 percent of the voters had an unfavorable view of him, while just 36 percent viewed him favorably.
...the only thing Libby did was commit perjury, obstruct justice and make false statements to the FBI and the Grand Jury. Everyone who reveres the Rule of Law and who laments its erosion knows that crimes like that are no big deal and that people who break those little laws should not be punished, but instead should be pardoned by their political comrades.
This marks an impressive evolution -- one could, if one were inclined to be negative, call it a complete reversal -- in Thompson's views on such lofty matters. Back in 1998, he foolishly thought that Obstruction of Justice was a Serious Crime, so serious in fact that a twice-elected President should be removed from office because of (never proven) allegations that he committed that crime. Back then, Thompson solemnly insisted that the lack of an underlying crime or even the lack of anything meaningful to be covered-up was irrelevant. That is because Our Respect for The Rule of Law demanded real punishment for such behavior
...The notion that anyone, no matter how powerless, can get equal justice will be seen by some as a farce. And our rule of law--the principle that many other countries still dream about--the principle that sets us apart, will have been severely damaged. If this does not constitute damage to our government and our society, I cannot imagine what does. And for that he should be convicted.That's the person who yesterday demanded that convicted felon Lewis Libby be pardoned. He's still parading around as the pious Protector of the Rule of Law, though he now does so as he protests the punishment of high government officials who are actually convicted -- rather than merely accused -- of obstructing justice.
Weather, Water, Energy 5-14-07
The biggest impediment to the latest G-8 meeting reaching an agreement on global warming action? Of course, it's US, striking fact after fact out of the proposed report, despite the British poodle's efforts to bring US, China, and India into line, buying time not just to stall until Bushnev is out of office but to institutionalize his BS even afterward. Want to know how bad WE are? Privately-funded technology [read Halliburton] will do more to curb dangerous global warming than the mandated capping of carbon emissions favored by the European Union, a senior US official said Monday. Want worse? About from our Sec of Energy: Bodman said that there was not scientific basis for linking atmospheric carbon dioxide levels and rising temperatures, and that emission targets were thus a bad idea. The Inhofe family obviously had more than one incestuous outcome. Top it all off? The feds are loaning out money for more coal-fired power plants for rural areas, which don't care if it's too warm to grow their usual crops. And surprise, a former OK congressidiot is the leader of that charge. What a state. What a country. . . . OTOH, the Poodle and President Gore appear to have talked Rupert Murdoch into greenness, as hard as that is to believe. You want to see a great example of the old Soviet days when the leadership's sudden reversals on policy would leave Pravda and tv news types' heads spinning, be watching for the whirling coming out of Fox if this is true. . . . Our mayors and others in the world, also, do seem to get what our corkheads at the fed level don't and are meeting to get collective acts together. . . . To cheer you up, Joseph Romm at Climate Progress has a lot of good stuff up now, including this contest to rename Glacier National Park. Okay, maybe didn't really cheer you up, but it's still a lot of good stuff. . . . Yahoo! is apparently getting competitive with Google for the "we're greener than you" title among techies. This is more important than it may sound: this is the latest in an escalating battle with Google to see who's greener. I've always thought that the real heroes of the environment in the coming few decades won't be activists or gov't officials but entrepreneurs from the tech biz. In that crowd, green has become a status symbol, and when you combine the quest for status, lots of money, and creative young people ... things happen quickly. Best case scenario, green innovation gets on the same exponential upward curve that internet tech innovation has been on for the last 20 years. . . . We need to get on the stick because it's pretty clear now we may be talking one billion plus people fleeing their homes because of natural disasters and resulting conflicts in the immediate future. . . . David Roberts at Grist has a couple of nice posts up on coal, the growing evidence that it too is peaking and six recs from the WWF (not the World Wrestling Federation) on how to reduce its impact on global warming. . . . Finally, the ultimate in biofuel. The Japanese are reportedly figuring out how to use sake byproducts to gas their cars. However, no word on whether you'll be able to keep the loaded cars on the road.
Quick "Ugly Betty"
Won't do another full update until after Thursday's season finale, but thought news that America Ferrera's "Ugly Betty" smile has been insured for $10m. was worth knowing about early. I could be wrong, though.
Are These Just Weird to Me?
Headlines at Science Daily today
DNA Reveals Hooded Seals Have Wanderlust
Scientists Develop Artificial Blood
Experts Set “Gold Standard” for Metagenomic Data Analysis
Professor Believes Safer Race Cars Result in More Accidents
Hepatitis E Takes a Piggyback
The Tower of Burj al-Taqa
Via MetaEfficient, this Dubai skyscraper will generate enough energy to be completely self sustainable. Powered by a wind turbine and solar panels, the behemoth might end up being the most environmentally friendly building constructed on this large a scale. Utilizing seawater to cool air sucked in at the base of the structure, even the air conditioning system has gone green. Treehuggers across Dubai are rejoicing.
Green Bay Prima Donna
One of the hardest things to take when I was living in WI was the worship of Brett Favre. He does the “good ole boy” shtick well but he’d already become the NFL version of Roger Clemens, a prima donna pampered and fawned over beyond far beyond the proper concept of “team.” "Oh, no, Brett, pleeaassseee don't retire, come throw more interceptions this year." Recently he’s been bitching about how his Packers didn’t get Randy Moss from Oakland when everybody and his dog knows what a dog Moss is.
Walsh described a play in a loss to the Cleveland Browns in which a play-action pass was called and Moss was asked to run a square-in on the weak side. The linebacker was sucked up inside by the fake, according to Walsh, and Moss was expected to run the in-route behind him into the open area. As Walsh recalled it, "He runs a 9 [deep go] route.
"Andrew Walter was at quarterback. He makes the play-fake and a huge hole opens up for Randy in the middle of the field but he's running down the sideline. Walter nearly threw his arm out pulling the ball back. When Randy gets to the sidelines, [wide receivers coach] Freddie Biletnikoff says, 'What were you doing?'
"Randy told Fred, 'I didn't feel like running the 6 route on the dirt part of the infield.' That's the Randy I coached. There were some games where out of 28 plays he'd have 13 or 14 busts. Wrong routes, wrong reads. Dogging it. Whatever."
Perhaps this is why we don’t let Brett do surgery.
Meanwhile, here’s the QB any sensible NFL fan should be admiring.
"This city cannot be forgotten,'' [Drew] Brees told me last week from a Habitat jobsite, Musicians Village, in the Upper Ninth Ward, where he'd summoned some of his Sigma Chi brothers currently in school around North America to work for a week. "We need to make sure people keep coming here and seeing the progress this city's making and coming here to support the rebuilding.''
My problem, quite frankly, is the rebuilding is too slow. This country should be mobilized by the federal government, like yesterday, to attack the reconstruction of a tattered city.
"It's great to see all these Americans getting together to help rebuild New Orleans,'' Purdue student A.J. Alley said, "but I definitely thought we'd see the area further along after Katrina. There's a skyscraper downtown that still has windows blown out. There's a level of destruction here that you'd expect to see a few days after a hurricane, not almost two years.''
Good for Brees, who housed and fed about 105 volunteer students, and good for the hotels who made deals with Brees to put the kids up, and good for the kids, who worked through Saturday afternoon.
Saturday, May 12, 2007
Mannion discovers Huff...
I love it when he writes about stuff I watch. Well, watched...
Here’s a guy with a great job he’s very good at. He has a beautiful, loving, sexy wife who looks great in a blue teddy and even better after she wriggles out of it, a condition she enjoys attaining for his sake and more importantly and more erotically exciting for her own; who misses him when she wakes up in the middle of the night and finds he’s not in bed with her; who worries about him; who puts up with his bizarre mother and the rival demands from his clients for his time and attention; who still manages to be an intelligent, talented, successful person in her own right and have a life apart from being his wife. He has a preciously wise and compassionate teenage son who worries about him and tries to be there to take care of him.I always said about Dylan's "Desolation Row" that it's an anxiety attack set to music. Well...this is an anxiety attack on digital film. Your chest is tight the entire episode as Huff's life falls apart a little bit more each episode, but in some strange way you still end up jealous of him. It's like, if you could take over his life, you could put it back together and get to enjoy the great house...Paget Brewster* in bed...etc.
Ok. His mother is nuts. And his beloved younger brother is schizophrenic. And his best friend has a self-destructive streak and apparently thinks that the best thing for him to do about it is try to drag Huff along for the downward ride.
But on the whole Huff has it pretty good.
* As we continue to enjoy reruns of Andy Richter Controls the Universe on one of the HD channels, I am constantly reminded of just how wonderfully underrated Paget Brewster is. She plays 'stressed out' as well as anybody, she plays the bitchy boss as well as anybody, she's got phenomenal comic timing, she's smoking hot...we'll just say she has a lot going for her. I'm sure it was a relief for her to end up on one of those CBS crime dramas (I don't even know which one)...even though it probably doesn't maximize her talents, it's not constantly under threat to get cancelled...there's gotta be some comfort in that.
Friday, May 11, 2007
Good News and Evil
On the one hand, the Motion Picture Association of America is finally getting serious about whacking at the gratuitous smoking in movies (the films, not the theaters) by adding warnings to the ratings system. "Good Night, and Good Luck" was the only movie I've seen in years in which there was any justification for smoking. So good news there. But then there's this, yet another "professional" telling his potential clients that he will not serve them despite his profession's obligation to do so and his willing joing of that profession. An idiot doctor in OK is p--ssed that policymakers won't pass a law to lower his insurance payments so he can "buy a nice big boat" so he says, unless they're dying, just go on to TX because he won't treat them, just like those pharmacists who don't like women having sex and refuse to provide legal birth control. Where does this end? Teachers who won't teach those A-Rab kids? Lawyers who won't defend idiot doctors? The moron is getting bad pub from the tirade, so others aren't likely to be as public, but we've slipped even worse than we've thought if this line of thinking advances in what are supposed to be United States.
Weather, Water, Energy 5-11-07
- "This discussion is behind us. It's over," she told reporters. "The diagnosis is clear, the science is unequivocal -- it's completely immoral, even, to question now, on the basis of what we know, the reports that are out, to question the issue and to question whether we need to move forward at a much stronger pace as humankind to address the issues." So says the former prime minister of Norway and chief of the UN World Health Organization. It's time to just put the deniers and obstructionists off on their island and get on with our work.
- Cutting deforestation in half in tropical climates can prevent 500b. tons of CO2, if we can come up with ways to help and convince the folks who live in them.
- Some nations are already doing their part. Japan is hosting a climate change conference next year and has extended measures to control vehicle emissions.
- Silicon Valley is also getting greener, turning to more clean energy like solar, fuel cell, and biofuel and getting into things like better building materials. If they can do for better energy what they did for dot coms . . . wait.
- Here are some folks who are doing serious things, radically redesigning engines to reduce pollution and oil consumption. If we could hook them up with those brainiacs in Silicon Valley, might be worth investing in. Like Honda, with its hydrogen fuel-cell sedan and new hybrid that it's bringing to market over the next two years.
- In France, an effort to customize weather risk for businesses affected substantially by major changes in temp and rainfall, like soft drink and ice cream folks. Guess beer sales are pretty much the same whatever.
- An apologia for rising gas prices from the Christian Science Monitor. For a while I thought this paper was actually going to do good work on our topics but they've been letting me down big time lately.
- Finally, what leadership looks like on weather, water, energy, and what it doesn't. Here, we find out that NY has actually shut down a coal-fired plant that failed to get its emissions limited as told. Here, Obama says he won't support liquefying coal into fuel unless sequestration of emissions is guaranteed . . . while co-sponsoring a bill to subsidize coal companies without sequestration. (Well, Oprah, who helped Schwarzenegger pull off his CA coup, supports Obama, so that's all we need to know, right?)
FRIDAY CAT BLOGGING!! Extreme Close-up!!
Thursday, May 10, 2007
It really does seem pretty easy...
...to make pointed, realistic, not-overly-shrill political commercials like this. Don't know why more people can't get it right.
Weather, Water, Energy 5-10-07
- I keep forgetting to link to the great overviews and analyses of the last IPCC report done by Joseph Romm at Climate Progress and to the great takedown of shoddy correlation analysis (did you know ice cream consumption and commitment to mental institutions are correlated?!) at RealClimate. I should do something about that sometime.
- Another thing I haven't paid enough attention to--the growing rebel movement in Nigeria, which just might take its oil fields offline. Might move us to alternatives faster, but the short-term wouldn't likely be fun.
- CA's got so many problems right now, but when the folks there hear about the likelihood of the icepack in the Sierra Nevadas (the one that provides drinking water?) melting away before the century is over, they might get downright upset.
- Hate to keep whacking on China . . . oh, okay, no, I don't . . . but some folks there are actually cluing into the weather disasters staring at them right now, not at the end of the century. That country is a giant mess and nothing is slowing them or keeping the maniacs running the nation from putting more coal on their fire . . . literally.
- More on the national security threats posed to the US by global warming, despite the Tinker Bell clapping from the wingnuts, here.
- The EU is our best national actor right now, but some of the worst coal-fired plants are in Greece, Germany, Poland, and Spain, according to the WWF (not World Wrestling Federation) International.
- OTOH, Denmark seems bent on putting all the rest of us to shame. Not only has it built the world's largest offshore wind park in the North Sea, it intends to get 75% of its electricity from it by 2025. (Of course, having the world's largest wind turbine manufacturer in your country might have a little to do with it.) And some little Danish island has managed to get itself completely powered solely by renewable energies. I hate show-offs.
- A new analysis finds that "Enhanced government support, power deficits, and advanced customer requirements are encouraging greater developments in the small fuel cells market. Recent inclement weather and government laws mandating the installation of environment-friendly systems are bolstering sales of small fuel cells." The market is expected to hit $1.7b. by 2013, just in case you're looking for investment opportunities.
- Along the same line, a guy at Carnegie-Mellon may be finding new materials that will make hydrogen more stable and cost-efficient than the stuff we're using now, allowing better storage and use in vehicles than the compressed gas tanks that have sort of inhibited development. Let's just make sure they stop explosions.
- You might not think warming waters shooing away walleye in lakes is that big a deal, but to the tourist and recreation industries in northern MN and WI, it is. That's why this story is also a big deal.
- You might also think, particularly from reading this blog, that the big disputes in our states over water use are BETWEEN states, but this story from NV shows you that there will likely be just as contentious fights WITHIN states.
- I've been trying to ignore this idiot bill in the US Senate raising mpg requirements on US cars by 10 mpg . . . in 13 years!!! Plus, they don’t have to start until 2011!! And the Christian Science Monitor sees nothing wrong with headlining the story “Fuel Economy Back on US Agenda.” Do you really need any more explanation why things are sliding so far so fast?
- Finally, better get that trip back East done pretty soon. NASA is predicting that summer temps that way may be as much as 10 degrees higher in 2080 than at present. 100-110 degrees in DC, Chicago, and Atlanta. Good lord. I used to walk the mile from the Metro to my house in MD and have to wring out my shirt first thing after getting through the door in the summer. If this happens, I'd have to wring out my undies. And, since nobody wants that, let's get moving, people.
How to Save Higher Education
One of several reasons I left academe was the game-playing that students, faculty, and administrators played with grading. The school was funded on full-time equivalent students, which meant that, while lip service was paid to quality, it was only coincidental and randomly associated with the real task--making sure students didn't drop out of school or classes. The students understood and the administration made sure the faculty did. So anyone daring to be "hard" would lose students and pud classes became the norm. "Pud" meant either average grades for no work or A's for everyone. Grades, GPAs, and education became meaningless.
Well, finally someone has not only glommed onto the problem but has figured out a way to deal with it. Instead of grading the traditional way, where no one can tell how hard a class was or how the students mixed talent-wise, do it this way: statistically account for the level of students in the class (entering standardized test scores, school and/or major GPA) and the grades given in it so that getting an A in a class filled with dullards (and yes, this is elitist, and yes, these classes exist) who also get As won't count as much on the GPA as an A in a class that demands something and has good students in it. Getting a B in such a class might even count more than an A in the too-close-to-the-truth basketweaving class. Students just there to party on parents' dimes (and yes, they exist in large numbers) might not care one way or the other, but on the margin you would discourage the sluffing off of brighter kids afraid to challenge themselves or learn important things for fear of a later grade point that might keep them out of grad school or a great job. Of course, some of them at U of NC where this is being considered are griping already but tough. College is there for the purpose of serving this society and our communities, not students, and the decline of higher ed began when we forgot that a few decades back.
But more important than anything else in this, and not mentioned in the article: how do you get employers to actually start basing decisions on that GPA? Grad schools aren't enough, although they would be a good start. In any case, this brightened my mood more than anything I've read in a long time. Which means I need to do a "Weather, Water, Energy" post and get back to normal.
Good news and bad news...
Well, the good news is, it appears that Veronica Mars might be coming back in some form next year. The bad news is, it appears that the entire supporting cast will be changed as “Another reason for the turn-around is that network executives seem to be responding favorably to a new trailer by Veronica Mars series creator Rob Thomas which would place the young detective as an agent for the FBI. What would this mean for Veronica Mars the show? Well, there's a good chance that the title of the show would change, and there would probably be a major cast shake-up, which would leave star Kristen Bell as the only carryover.”
Okay, first of all...Kristen Bell is unbelievable as Veronica Mars. The show wouldn’t have been as stellar over the first three seasons with anybody else in that role. However...the supporting cast is almost as good. I could see this ‘new’ show working possibly, but can we at least make sure that Enrico Colantoni, who plays Veronica’s dad, has a role? He’s every bit as great as Bell, and their chemistry has always been one of the things that make the show tick. Without him, this might as well be a new pilot for a new show.
And speaking of which, I must say...as this season limps to a close with the interesting combination of a) enjoyable episodes, b) no semblance of a running plot to close out the season, and c) no worry about having to tie things together for next season, I fear that it’s going to end with something shocking, like Keith Mars dying or something. I really don’t want that to happen, but if we’re just going to fast-forward five years after the finale, it’s the perfect time to pull something like that without the fear of having next season be one giant bout with post-traumatic stress. Cross your fingers that they don’t kill off such a fantastic character.
Wednesday, May 09, 2007
Music Bullets, 5-9-07
- A Prairie Home Wilco (via RS...who also tells us that the Spice Girls might be reuniting at the request of both Princes, and Toni Collette has a band...who knew?)
- And speaking of Wilco (have I mentioned they have an album coming out Tuesday?)...via largehearted boy, an interview with Jeff Tweedy. Bonus points for the Television reference.
- From the “We might need to reassess our priorities” department, "In Florida, Utah, and soon in Rhode Island and Wisconsin, selling your used CDs to the local record joint will be more scrutinized than then getting a driver's license in those states. For retailers in Florida, for instance, there's a "waiting period" statue that prohibits them from selling used CDs that they've acquired until 30 days have passed. Furthermore, the Florida law disallows stores from providing anything but store credit for used CDs." (Via Avedon)
- One more reason to go to Lollapalooza...seriously, there aren't many ways to make the current lineup any better.
- And this is a couple weeks old, but life without Jurassic 5 begins...
The greatest idea ever...
...what would get the segment that wants to care about politics and legislation but can't because it's just too darn depressing?
FANTASY CONGRESS, that's what!! There's a draft, you get points for co-sponsored bills and membership on committees...I'm so winning this league.
Weather, Water, Energy 5-9-07
Didn't have Internet service yesterday so you're going to get two, two, two days in one. Had I been able to post Tuesday, you would have seen this:
A 2-week meeting of 166 countries and orgs to get a new agreement on greenhouse gas emissions to replace the oh-so-successful Kyoto accord. Everyone's talking the talk. Don't see many footsteps yet. . . . The land of the idiot PM, Australia, fortunately does have a few brain-enhanced officials getting global warming efforts budgeted. Too little, too late, says the opposition party leader, but anything from that cork-headed government is better than nothing, especially now that it's clear the warming is behind the Great Barrier Reef decline. . . . Maybe the Aussies just don't want to be upstaged by their more intelligent and proactive neighbors in New Zealand, which will have an emission trading system up by the middle of 2008 if things go to plan. And maybe the Zealies(????) can help their far neighbors to the north, the Chinese, who are seeing the earliest summer in over 30 years . . . while they continue to bring coal-fired power plants online daily. . . . Back here at home, the Dem candidates are finally, warily, grasping the global warming issue that should have been their centerpiece in 2000. Obama told our carmakers to stop screwing around. Bet that took. Edwards also has a plank on warming in his platform, it appears. . . . Historical evidence from past climate shifts that it may not take the giant ice sheets slipping off into the ocean to bring on major current and weather changes. Looks like littler ones did before. Put that in your climate models and smoke it. . . . More cheery evidence indicates that tropical plants may be more adaptable and survivable in differing rain regimes than previously thought. But other plants and trees, the Swedish spruce, are getting hammered by the bugs brought in or not killed off by the warmer winters. Really sad stuff for the folks who earn their livings off those forests. . . . Get ready for the next perfect crop for ethanol--jatropha, "grown in wastelands, needs relatively little care or refinement, and is inedible – meaning it will not take food from the poor for the gas tanks of the rich." The economics and logistics aren't really there yet, though, so don't let all the cash being invested sway you yet. . . . Finally, a nice tirade by Ken Ward at Grist on the futility and pointlessness at this stage of continuing to argue with the deniers and obstructionists. Reality is happening and has to be dealt with. There’s no time anymore to mess with these determined morons. Give up being MisterRogers. Global warming isn’t going to change based on some never-to-be-achieved “compromise” through discussion with naysayers. They’re fools and they’re better at that than we will ever be. Cede the low ground to them and move on. We have work to do. (While you're at Grist, check out Ward's multi-part series, now finished, on what can and should be done to deal with the climate problems facing us. Too sensible to make much headway, but at least you'll feel smart while you read it.)
But, since today is Wednesday, this is what you get to hear about:
A UN agency is warning against all the possible long-term disadvantages to short-term hysteria over ethanol, especially that made with edible products, but the possible human hunger isn't the only thing. . . . You know those "intelligent" cars, the ones with sensors that predict traffic flows? Folks are hyping them as just as efficient as hybrid cars. . . uh, and why is it that we can't have both together??? . . . USA Today has a long but actually informative and provocative piece up on natural gas as a vehicle fuel, with a technology already here, just not widespread, as a supplement for the dirtier, more emitting, much more expensive gasoline. As usual, the Japanese come away looking best, but US carmakers do have some things going for a change, and hydrogen backers wonder why waste your time on natural gas when the world's just clamoring for what they have to offer. Uh-huh. . . . Speaking of alternatives with problems, looks like the solar farm planned in DE may screw up radar systems on important military aircraft. The mills may take out some birds, but don't let them mess with bombers. . . . The EU talks the best talk and actually does some walking, but this accounting of their actual meager emissions reductions in 2005 show starkly exactly how hard it's going to be even when you agree something should be done. . . . CA's getting the most credit for the agreement announced yesterday to measure and jointly track emissions by major industries, but remember that 30 other states signed on. The question is, where are those other 19, and what's their problem? "Al Gore" is the best they can do? . . . And speaking of cooperation and partnerships to combat global warming, the corporations forming the US Climate Action Partnership just doubled in size and managed to even get GM on board (is this really a good thing?). . . . Here, a good discussion of what should actually be counted as “water savings” in determining impact of water use on power generation, farming, etc. . . . The Northeast can talk all it wants to about regionalizing cooperation to reduce greenhouse gases, but it’s action that actually speaks. This news about plans to expand power capacity by linking to cheaper coal-fired plants in the Midwest says all you need to know about how serious they are there. And they’re the ones supposedly showing the leadership we’ll need. . . . Michael Tobis at Only In It for the Gold has been raising some valuable and entertaining questions about the relevancy of economics as a discipline to the problems posed by global warming and getting some predictable (aka irrelevant, dogmatic, and clueless) responses. . . . When historians try to figure out why we didn’t respond as quickly or comprehensively to the obvious dangers presented by global warming, one of the first places to look will be the media and oh-so-reasonable, oh-so-moderate op-eds like this idiot piece out of the Christian Science Monitor. By all means, let’s not jump the gun and do something that might hurt us and certainly we can put up monitoring systems that will warn us well in advance that bad things are about to happen so we can act, unlike the IPCC reports and their more accurate rebuttals that are only screaming signals at us right now. Humans just don’t seem to have the collective capacity to pull their heads out of their asses until the danger is right on them, and, facing nonlinear dangers with real tipping points, having the time to react will not likely happen the way we want. But by all means, don’t go getting yourself ready or upset. . . . Finally, Subtropical Storm Andrea formed Wednesday off the Southeastern U.S. coast, more than three weeks before the official start of the Atlantic hurricane season, forecasters said. Three weeks before. . . uh-oh.
Sucks to Be Him
You go to the doctor. He tells you you have less than a year to live. Do you brood, cry, give up? No, you hock everything, quit your job, and party. But then, uh-oh, little error in the readings. You're basically healthy, and all you have left is the suit you planned to be buried in. So, just like Abe's in-laws below, you sue. The hospital claims he has no case. Like in "Animal House," "hey, you f--ked up, you trusted us." But I think they teach cases like this in law school (or they will be soon). I'm betting the movie rights will get him back on his feet even if that hospital turns out to be right . . . for a change.
A. Lincoln
So you're a writer and you've got a box of old legal documents and you come across one from May 1853 signed "A. Lincoln." After you clean out your panties, would you think this was cool or what? Turns out Lincoln did some legal work for his, um, difficult wife's family and they, in turn, tried to sue him. Average American family. Anyway, everything looks really authentic so this guy just added a paragraph or two to the most important American biography. Pretty cool.
Men Are from Mars, Women Are from
The BBC did an Internet survey of males and females about sex and their different perceptions of it. You can get the details here, but here are the major findings, only some of which do I choose to believe are true:
- Mental abilities decline with age more in men than in women. All mental abilities decline with age, but the decline is steeper in men than in women. Furthermore, this effect is independent of sexual orientation.
- Sex differences and cultural variations in mate preferences. Across all participants, the traits ranked most important in a relationship partner are intelligence, humor, honesty, kindness, overall good looks, face attractiveness, values, communication skills and dependability. However, on average, men rank good looks and facial attractiveness more important than women do, whereas women rank honesty, humor, kindness, and dependability more important than men do.
- Associations among birth order, handedness and sexual orientation. The strongest handedness (left- or right-handedness) finding for both sexes is a marked tendency for participants who describe themselves as bisexual also to describe themselves as ambidextrous.
- Sex differences and sexual orientation differences in mental abilities. Across nations, men score higher than women on tests of mental rotation and the ability to judge line angles, whereas women score higher than men on tests of object location memory and word fluency. On average, gay men’s visual-spatial abilities differ from those of heterosexual men—shifted in the direction of women’s abilities. Similarly, lesbian women’s visual-spatial abilities differ from those of heterosexual women—shifted in the direction of men’s abilities.
- The link between sex drive and attractions to men and women. For women, high sex drive is associated with increased sexual attraction to both women and men. For men, however, high sex drive is associated with increased attraction to one sex or the other, but not both, depending on their sexual orientation.
Maybe we should do a sex survey of Good Nonsense readers. . . . maybe not.
Tuesday, May 08, 2007
What part of cruel and unusual don’t you understand?
If you get caught stealing from Wal-Mart in Alabama, be prepared to be publicly outted. An Attalla City judge is sentencing convicted shoplifters to wear a sign that reads “I am a thief; I stole from Wal-Mart." and stand outside said Wal-Mart in lieu of jail time.
"The only comments we've heard so far have been positive," said store manager Neil Hawkins. "Most of them thought it was a good thing."
Headline of the Day
Man takes driving test drunk, fails
Really? Really? This is newsworthy? I do like how the driving examiner handled it though.
And just so everybody knows...
...I'm celebrating Harry Truman Day in a way I know Harry would appreciate: by re-watching to music documentaries (miss the connection? don't worry...there is none).
First up is I Am Trying to Break Your Heart, about the recording of Wilco's Yankee Hotel Foxtrot (an album I like, but not nearly as much as Summer Teeth or A Ghost is Born). I figure this is the best way to get prepped for their release of Sky Blue Sky next Tuesday...I have it on good authority that the album is pretty damn good...and that guitarist Nels Cline should run for president.
Next up is Fearless Freaks, the wonderful 2005 Flaming Lips documentary. Do I know how to live, or do I know how to live?
Tuesday Pirates Rant™
A quick one today.
Good
* Ryan Doumit is still hitting the ball. Recently called up from AAA, he's gotten 15 hits in 34 at-bats, good for a .441 batting average, .500 on-base %, and .765 slugging %. Good stuff.
* Adam LaRoche is hitting over .300 so far in May! Granted, they're basically all singles, but hey...gotta start somewhere.
* Ian Snell (2-2, 2.31 ERA) and Tom Gorzelanny (4-1, 2.97) are still looking good, though Snell imploded in his last start against the Cubs.
* That's it.
Bad
* The offense is beyond wretched. The Pirates haven't had a winning record in almost 15 years, but never in that time had they made it to the second week of May without scoring more than 7 runs in a game. Not one offensive explosion in 30 games.
* Such a long period of ineptitude is wearing down the pitching staff. The bullpen, a strength over the first few weeks, is imploding. A couple weeks ago, I mentioned how great Matt Capps and Jonah Bayliss were doing. Well, Capps has gone from a 0.87 ERA to a 2.25. Bayliss? From 2.24 to 7.36. But guys under this much stress this early, and they'll start to falter.
* Have I mentioned that the Pirates are 1-5 so far in May, having been outscored 39-18 in that time. They have fallen to 13-17 overall (7-17 against teams not named the Astros), and the scary part is that they've overachieved--they're 5-2 in 1-run games. They're second-worst in the terrible NL Central in both runs scored and runs allowed. The only good news is, the Cardinals are actually worse in both categories.
* The Brewers, who have been down almost as long as Pittsburgh, has actually built a real organization with real prospects and real executives and real owners, and they're 22-10 right now, best record in the majors. Just to rub it in a bit.
Blog
Pat from Where Have You Gone, Andy Van Slyke talks about AAA prospect Bryan Bullington, who is undefeated with a miniscule ERA in Indianapolis. Sounds like a great pitcher? Not so much.Yes, his 5-0 record is impressive, but record is virtually meaningless when trying to figure out how good a pitcher is (remember Roger Clemens in 2005... he probably had one of the best seasons in modern history and only finished 13-8). His ERA is 0.96 and his WHIP is 1.14. Again, both are impressive, but again we've got a small sample size and those numbers don't tell the hole story. In 37 and 2/3 innings, Bullington only has 19 strikeouts and 15 walks. That isn't going to fly in the bigs, plain and simple. Zach Duke's biggest problem has always been not enough strikeouts. This is at least partially because our defense sucks. He pitches the worst when he walks a ton of batters. Bullington isn't striking anyone out and is walking a lot of people, in AAA. He's getting lucky. THE EMPEROR HAS NO CLOTHES! THE EMPEROR HAS NO CLOTHES!
If you can't strike people out, you can only do as well as your defense will allow. Pirates' defense? Not so hot.
Also, Charlie at Bucs Dugout looks at the myth that college pitchers are the safest bet in the MLB draft.
Spend small. Live large.
Wise Bread is yet another good blog about living within your means. I’ve been checking out WB for a few weeks now. I’ve got to say, it still amazes me how much money I can save on little things – and how much it all adds up. For example, I’ve been keeping track of how much I’ve been spending on lunch at work. Since April 24 (eight work days), I’ve spent almost $100 on eating out. Not good. I need to go to the grocery store and once I do, it’s time to bring back the brown bag. Anywho, check out Wise Bread for some solid budgeting advice.
Tuesday Blogroll!!
I’m off work today (Happy Harry Truman Day!), so it’s time to see what our impeccable (and growing) blogroll is coming up with...let’s get to it!
Being that it is Harry Truman’s birthday, I guess we should mention that not everybody agrees on, shall we say, the level of his greatness (Existentialist Cowboy).
For a second or two, I actually thought this was real (Skippy)...that’s a bit of an indictment of myself, but that’s an even bigger (I hope) indictment of how much I think of my president’s decision-making abilities.
Garance Franke-Ruta’s horrid “You can’t lift up your shirt till you’re 21!” proposal is getting justifiably slaughtered. Roy at Alicublog is happily up to the task of addressing this stupidity, as is Avedon, and Mannion (for that matter, so is non-blogroller Jon Swift). Echidne takes a more measured tone. So does Scott at LG&M. Me? I’m just glad that the country has started to realize that electing people who would create laws based on what makes them feel all icky inside might not be a good idea. Still a ways to go, of course, but...yeah. How about we enforce the laws we have (i.e. underage drinking) and see what that does first? Just a thought.
I knew I was going to link to somebody’s post about how the Kansas National Guard (and equipment needed to help repair the Kansas town that was 95% wiped off the map this weekend) is in Iraq and unable to help with the full force they normally would...I just couldn’t decide who would get the honors. We’ll give the honor to Steve Soto at Left Coaster</