eNo Smoking

This ain't no party. This ain't no disco...

in reference to:

"This ain't no nature show. This ain't no zoo shot. This is my backyard!"
- Guess who's coming to dinner? on Flickr - Photo Sharing! (view on Google Sidewiki)

A Term of Art

I think this is generally referred to as deliberately building error into the case. Or at least I would hope that the DOJ couldn't be that dumb.

If I were a gambling man, I would bet that this decision will not set well with Iraqi citizens. Perception is everything.

in reference to:

"The disputed evidence concerned statements the guards gave to state department investigators, which they were told would not be used to bring a criminal case. This limited immunity deal meant that prosecutors should have built their case against the men without using the statements. But Judge Urbina said prosecutors had failed to do so, and that the US government's explanation for this was "contradictory, unbelievable and lacking in credibility"."
- BBC News - US judge dismisses charges in Blackwater Iraq killings (view on Google Sidewiki)

Ah,

We see here the twin harlots of performative speech acts and wishful happythink.

And the line above it is even better:

Prosecutors find themselves faced with a difficult question: Where does delusion end and dishonesty begin?

Why can't we simply have simultaneously both?

in reference to:

""Statements of optimism about the future . . . that turn out to be wrong are simply not actionable," the company wrote. "Even in times of market turmoil, the company need not presume the worst about its market prospects.""
- E-mails inside AIG reveal executives struggling with growing crisis - washingtonpost.com (view on Google Sidewiki)

More Bailout Money For GMAC "Bank": 3.5 Billion

Protip: Don't do business with allybank. They're simply a storefront for GMAC.

I used to run land title back in the early and middle '00s. On some of the foreclosure titles I did, I was astounded to see ditech.com dba GAMC Mortgage Corp give a second mortgage on a property. This second mortgage was generally for 80% of the property's assessed value. The first mortgage was generally one of two things 1) either for at least 125% of the home's value or 2) a legitimate Grade A mortgage that had been paid down to less than 80% of the value.

Either scenario demonstrates that GMAC mortgage brokers were idiots. There was no way in heck they were going to get all their money back on that second note, even when property valuations were still going up. I guess they simply wanted to take the promissory note/mortgage so they could go out and sell it as a mortgage backed security. I don't know.

I was even more astounded to hear in the Fall of '08 that the federal government was going to allow our not-yet-ready-for-retail-lending players to become an FDIC-insured institution. I remember thinking back then, Well, this mess is far from over if we're not going to honestly address GMAC's issues head on.

It's just absolutely mind-boggling what the bankers and the people on Wall Street have gotten away with and what they're continuing to get away with.

in reference to: The Coming Economic Depression: More Bailout Money For GMAC "Bank":3.5 Billion (view on Google Sidewiki)

The same warmed-over happytalk

These people will embrace anything that gives them a rationalization to shove their do-gooder horsecrap down an unwilling participant's throat.

As one of their former victims, I have to say society would be much better served if this malignant cancer known as the mental health movement were completely excised.

If you need help, visit your local sex worker. He'll cheer you up far better than these people, with far less financial and emotional cost.

in reference to:

"Personality Disorder: “Untreatable” Myth Is Challenged"
- Personality Disorder: “Untreatable” Myth Is Challenged - Psychiatric Times (view on Google Sidewiki)

Or a better way to put it

It's a solvency problem, not a liquidity problem.

in reference to:

"4) Banks are capital constrained not reserve constrained."
- Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis: The Most Redeeming Feature of Capitalism is Failure (view on Google Sidewiki)

Whoa

That's not very efficient. And yet we in the West have far more calories of food than we know what to do with-- they make us fat.

in reference to:

"Some forms of modern industrial agriculture, combined with the transportation necessary to ship food produced, use more than 10 calories of fossil fuel to deliver one calorie of food to the market (Younquist 1997)."
- The Oil Drum | Long term agricultural overshoot (view on Google Sidewiki)

No, this is not the Democrats' problem at all

They must demonstrate to their fellow citizens that their perspective differs from the Republican perspective.

This is why the commentators to this article are so angry. Obama and Congress have become indistinguishable from Republicans in the matters of war, economics and now health care policy.

in reference to:

"Rather, let them take it as a sign that they must continue the hard work of slowly and steadily persuading their fellow citizens to embrace their perspective."
- William M. Daley - Keep the Big Tent big (view on Google Sidewiki)

Top 10 Reasons to Kill Senate Health Care Bill

And as if these reasons aren't bad enough, Yves also manages to lay out some other, really ugly points.

in reference to:

". Forces you to pay up to 8% of your income to private insurance corporations — whether you want to or not. 2. If you refuse to buy the insurance, you’ll have to pay penalties of up to 2% of your annual income to the IRS. 3. Many will be forced to buy poor-quality insurance they can’t afford to use, with $11,900 in annual out-of-pocket expenses over and above their annual premiums. 4. Massive restriction on a woman’s right to choose, designed to trigger a challenge to Roe v. Wade in the Supreme Court. 5. Paid for by taxes on the middle class insurance plan you have right now through your employer, causing them to cut back benefits and increase co-pays. 6. Many of the taxes to pay for the bill start now, but most Americans won’t see any benefits — like an end to discrimination against those with preexisting conditions — until 2014 when the program begins. 7. Allows insurance companies to charge people who are older 300% more than others. 8. Grants monopolies to drug companies that will keep generic versions of expensive biotech drugs from ever coming to market. 9. No re-importation of prescription drugs, which would save consumers $100 billion over 10 years. 10. The cost of medical care will continue to rise, and insurance premiums for a family of four will rise an average of $1,000 a year — meaning in 10 years, your family’s insurance premium will be $10,000 more annually than it is right now."
- “Top Ten Reasons to Kill the Senate Health Care Bill” « naked capitalism (view on Google Sidewiki)

Very mixed blessings

Full-time permanent employment by paternalistic corporations has also bred attitudes of trust and loyalty to their brands and their ides.

If our owners no longer wish to employ us, then why should they expect our continued loyalty to their products and viewpoints?

in reference to:

"In many ways, full-time "permanent" employment by paternalistic corporations has been a very mixed blessing. It has tended to breed attitudes of dependency and entitlement in us that are quite counter to the American spirit of ingenuity and self-reliance. And when this comfort and security are taken away, we don't do well because we've been somewhat disabled."
- Here's the real story on America's unemployment | Washington Examiner (view on Google Sidewiki)

Always a conspiracy

Yes, climactic changes have happened ever since this planet has been here. These changes are measured in geological time, in periods that last thousands if not millions of years. This is the problem. Our climate is beginning to change so abruptly and dramatically. To argue that the behavior of man does not play a significant role in this upheaval and to refuse to evaluate his consumption patterns as a variable in this matrix is absolutely absurd.

That being said, I am just as disgusted as a great many people about the proposed solutions to this problem. It's more of the same-- all talk and little action.

If I may put on my tinfoil hat, it would appear that the privileged understand that our resources cannot support all our population and they simply want cataclysm to occur so that in the end a select few can enjoy life afterward while the many perish. That's my conspiracy theory.

in reference to:

"Cyclical climate change is not in dispute: it is nothing more than the repackaging of the global warming agenda. Watch the action surrounding this topic if you want to see the biggest conspiracy of the century unfolding before your very eyes."
- Climate Change: A Cycle Made Into An Agenda (view on Google Sidewiki)

Government Health Insurance

This is exactly what I complain to my friends about, but they just don't get it. The dear government cannot force me to enter into a contract with a private party simply because I breathe.

I am galled enough that I am forced to buy car insurance from the blood-sucking insurance industry. This situation can only be excused by saying that driving is a privilege.

However, insuring for a privilege can in no way be compared to forcing some one to pay for the right to live and breathe.

in reference to:

"This "personal responsibility" provision of the legislation, more accurately known as the "individual mandate" because it commands all individuals to enter into a contractual relationship with a private insurance company, takes congressional power and control to a striking new level. Its defenders have struggled to justify the mandate by analogizing it to existing federal laws and court decisions, but their efforts do not withstand serious scrutiny. An individual mandate to enter into a contract with or buy a particular product from a private party, with tax penalties to enforce it, is unprecedented-- not just in scope but in kind--and unconstitutional as a matter of first principles and under any reasonable reading of judicial precedents."
- The True Intent of Health ‘Reform’ | FedUpUSA (view on Google Sidewiki)

From around 3:25 in the video

"You have to teach your men Afghan nationalism..."

This is so wrong. These men are from disparate clans and tribes. Their affiliations are tribal, not national.

The instructor seems to have even less of a clue about the situation than the hash heads.

in reference to: LiveLeak.com - The Sorry State of the Afghan National Army (view on Google Sidewiki)

Balloon Boy's Parents

They got lucky. A public caning would be to lenient for these fameballs.

in reference to:

"A US man who triggered a major alert by falsely claiming his son was adrift in a helium balloon has been sentenced to 90 days in jail - and his wife to 20."
- BBC News - US balloon boy parents are given jail sentences (view on Google Sidewiki)

BRIC has spoken. You will obey.

And I wonder where they picked up this attitude? Bravo, China. Those Mandarin lessons are going to come in handy.

in reference to:

"This is fast becoming China's century, yet its leadership has displayed that multilateral environmental governance is not only not a priority, but is viewed as a hindrance to the new superpower's freedom of action"
- How do I know China wrecked the Copenhagen deal? I was in the room | Mark Lynas | Environment | The Guardian (view on Google Sidewiki)

Seroquel

I think this drug will turn out to be the Quaalude of our generation.

in reference to: AstraZeneca details position on Comparative Effectiveness policy (view on Google Sidewiki)

Bad Business

It's like OPEC are dope dealers who are smoking up all their profits.

in reference to:

"Massively underpricing — hence massively overconsuming — your own resource isn’t unique to the oil industry or to OPEC."
- Why you won't want to rely on OPEC down the road - The Globe and Mail (view on Google Sidewiki)

My people

Yah, the APA has always been on uneasy ground with the gay folk. Back in the 50s psychiatrists used to treat the mental illness of homosexuality with electroshock, insulin shock and lobotomies. When they changed their tune in 1973, there was absolutely no attempt at making reparations. We were all supposed to forget about such things.

From my experience with mental health professionals in the 80s and 90s, their attitude towards gay people really hasn't changed. They may say it's not a problem, but they still get testy when they discover that you take no interest in identifying with the institutions of the heterosexual monoculture. And then they find fault with things that are cultural norms for some groups in our subculture.

They just seem to want to talk out of both sides of their mouths, the way they do with most everything else.

in reference to:

"The APA has a legacy of uneasy relations with the lesbian, gay and transgender community, having included homosexuality in the DSM's list of psychiatric disorders until 1973."
- Is Something Not Quite Right With Stan - A Mental Health Blog: The DSM-V - Psychiatry at War with Psychiatry (view on Google Sidewiki)

Vive La Revolution!

I saw this comment on iranian.com:

Majid Tavakolli is one of the many students who were arrested during the National Student Day protest. While we must campaign for the freedom of Majid Tavakolli we cannot forget all the other students who were also arrested on that day and probably facing the same faith as Mr. Tavakolli.

I hope that we can campaign for as many students as possible rathern than making a hero out of one and forgetting about the rest.

I had to reply:

I certainly respect your wish to empathize with other protesters, but I don't think you're looking at this situation correctly. In fact, I think you're falling into the trap of your rulers. Let me explain why.

It was a powerful ruler that once said, The death of a single individual is a great tragedy, the deaths of millions, merely a statistic. He was a very smart but evil man. He understood that the narrative of an individual martyr can resonate with all people, A single individual puts a face on the struggle of the group and gives all members of that group a common reference point to interpret and fight for. As a member of that group, a single person experiences the sea of humanity as a very abstract, distant concept but seeing another individual just like him (or her) puts the struggle at a very concrete, tangible level. This man understood that individual heroes were very dangerous, destabilizing creatures.

We saw this phenomenon in the protests after the rigged election in the summer. Scores upon scores of protesters were shot on the streets, but it was the video of a single beautiful girl gasping her last breaths that riveted the world's attention. Your struggle had been distilled into a single face, a single tragedy, which everyone could identify with. Her public mourning and her image are still with us to this day.

Or if I can be more blunt and cynical and think like your political leaders, the deaths of hundreds of protesters in the streets were merely a sewage problem, but with the death of this single girl your leaders knew they had something far worse-- they had an image problem.

I mean in no way to denigrate all the other sacrifices made by all the other protesters and I mean to show you no disrespect, but sometimes when people stage a revolution, individuals are necessary for the cause because no matter how advanced man becomes, he still longs for an hero.

My prayers are with you all.

Saddam was the least of our threats

As the US was banging the war drums, I was aghast that we were going after this guy. Come on, sheeple, this guy was a bureaucratic leader of a secular state. He was a ray of sunshine in the region. He had less use for Islamic fundamentalism than the Western powers did. The American people couldn't understand that this was the reason why Shrub II's Daddy left him in power. His only mistake was that his retained service helped Daddy loose the election.

in reference to:

"it was the "notion" of Saddam as a threat to the region"
- BBC News - Tony Blair attacked over Iraq war 'justification' (view on Google Sidewiki)

Machiabelli is not for rank amateurs and pikers

Mr Blair is now, in effect, claiming that the means justifies the ends. There's just a slight problem here. We have yet to see the end of this foray. We are not victors. We cannot yet write the history on this excursion. If the people who claim that the means justifies the ends become the losers, the victors generally mete out some very harsh judgment for their hubris.

in reference to:

"And Carol Turner of the Stop the War Coalition said it was "extraordinary" that Mr Blair was admitting that he was prepared to tailor his arguments to fit the circumstances."
- BBC News - Tony Blair attacked over Iraq war 'justification' (view on Google Sidewiki)

It's the GIGO principle, stupid

We put a lot of garbage in and we're still getting a lot of garbage out.

in reference to:

"and that people would be "dismayed" that what was the "most significant foreign affairs initiative since World War II had been debated on a false premise"."
- BBC News - Tony Blair attacked over Iraq war 'justification' (view on Google Sidewiki)

The Real Affront

The real affront was the US support of Saddam throughout the 1980s during his war with Iran. This affront to the international consciousness was surpassed only by our arms dealing with the other side, with Iran, during this time period.

in reference to:

"I believe Saddam Hussein's regime was an affront to the international community, to the international consciousness because of the atrocities, the crimes, he has committed."
- BBC News - Tony Blair attacked over Iraq war 'justification' (view on Google Sidewiki)

He may have been an SOB, but he was our SOB

You need to ask the 1,000,000+ Iraqi civilians who are no longer with us if this situation is now better.

in reference to:

""I can't really think we'd be better with him and his two sons still in charge, but it's incredibly difficult."
- BBC News - Tony Blair attacked over Iraq war 'justification' (view on Google Sidewiki)

That's strange

Why didn't the Kurdish pogrom concern us when we launched the First Gulf War? And why does Turkey's ongoing brutality of its indigenous Kurdish population also not concern us?

in reference to:

"In 1988 Saddam attacked the Kurds in northern Iraq using chemical weapons."
- BBC News - Tony Blair attacked over Iraq war 'justification' (view on Google Sidewiki)

Green Tree Financial Services

Green Tree didn't exactly do Grade A commercial paper. It was more like bottom o' the barrel subprime suck. Perhaps these people should have gone with a more reputable lender. And if they could not have used a better lender, perhaps they needed to rent.

I'm not being harsh, just economically rational.

in reference to:

"Green Tree"
- Woman sues debt collector over husband's death - CNN.com (view on Google Sidewiki)

Hippies vs. Activists

I totally empathize with Ms. Maldonado when she argues, ""I don't like any of this new age thing, that we need to be in touch with the earth and that."

I see this as an argument between the haves--that is, the privileged, pampered people from the cities and the industrialized West, the ones who want to return to nature-- and the have-nots, that is, the inhabitants of the Third World, many of whom are poor and who already are quite brutally in touch with the earth because their very subsistence depends on it. And I have to say the argument of the poor carries the day. They have every right to be righteously pissed. The spectre of climate change affects their lives with such immediacy.

The hearts of the hippies are in the right place, but they have to realize that for people like Ms. Maldonado, climate change is not a political abstraction but a tangible, day-to-day thing that profoundly affects their ability to eat, drink and breathe. It makes them incredibly fearful.

in reference to: Meanwhile, At the Other Climate Summit... | Mother Jones (view on Google Sidewiki)

I like these

Yank here. I quite like the self-service lines because:

1) I know my items will be bagged properly. The cold sweaty stuff won't be in with the dry things. Amazingly, very few baggers in the US understand this.

2) Any more a lot of our check out people have very bad attitudes, as though they're the ones being imposed upon. I don't get that attitude with a machine.

3) I'm personally fascinated with touch screen interfaces. They are far more difficult to design than some people might think. Any time I pass a touch screen I have to stop and play around with the escape sequences and all the other stuff inherent in these interfaces.

in reference to: BBC News - The problem with self-service checkouts (view on Google Sidewiki)

Criminal Investigation

I guess when he says "criminal investigation," he's not talking about the clown circus that was the Valerie Plame investigation. That was also a "criminal investigation" into a leaked CIA identity.

in reference to:

"For somebody to leak his identity as a CIA asset clearly merits a criminal investigation," Sloan said."
- Is Erik Prince 'Graymailing' the US Government? (view on Google Sidewiki)

That is so insane

The climate is changing due to use of fossil fuels. And this climate change will make extracting more fossil fuels more easy. Full speed ahead.

The same problem exists in Greenland. The melting ice, caused by consumption of fossil fuels, is making more fossil fuel available. It's the Danish that are salivating over this prospect.

in reference to:

"It is this, goes the theory, that underlies the Kremlin's ambivalent attitudes towards global warming; they remain lukewarm on the science underpinning climate change, knowing full well that if global warming does change the world's climate, billions of dollars of natural resources will become accessible."
- Was Russian secret service behind leak of climate-change emails? - Europe, World - The Independent (view on Google Sidewiki)

Jung

...Why would you be interested in reading about someone else’s psychosis?...

And why would you let a nut run the nuthouse?

...Is there comfort in viewing the craziness of another person?...

No, but some people certainly seem to get their kicks shoving their do-gooder horsecrap down the throats of unwilling participants whom they deem crazy.

I've never been a fan of Jung. He was never willing to break from the past, i.e. he embraced the God Delusion. I had always assumed that he had plagiarized his theories from his hapless mental patients, but we see now that he had his own autochthonous sources.

His mentor Freud was a much kinder, smarter man. Freud didn't lock people up. He broke entirely from the past and finally allowed people to discuss sex in polite company. The evolutionary psychologists are beginning to point out how correct he was in obsessing about sex. Reproductive privileges seem to be the be-all, end-all controlling component in man's evolution.

in reference to: Health Panda: Diary of A Mad Man? Carl Jung's "Red Book" Finally Published (view on Google Sidewiki)

This is what I like to see

Fair and balanced reporting with no value laden terms. Sadly, there's really no other source for such information from these remote regions. And it takes days after the fact for these people to post it!

in reference to:

"a fierce fire fighting between the Kadyrov's apostates supported by Russian infidels on the one side and the Mujahideen on the other"
- A gun battle took place in district of village Aktash-Aul of Dagestan - Kavkazcenter.com (view on Google Sidewiki)

Blago

I live on the Indiana-Illinois border. Last year I was going to steal one of those "Welcome to Illinois" signs with Blago's name on it. I knew they were destined to become collectors' items.

in reference to: Rod Blagojevich: A strange trip for Illinois -- chicagotribune.com (view on Google Sidewiki)

Flaming

Good Lord. I didn't know people needed an instruction manual to do this effectively.

in reference to: Guide to Flaming - flayme.com (view on Google Sidewiki)

Long live the Cyborgs

This is a wonderfully pithy comment about what's going on these days:

The market is currently driven on a daily basis by algos that are doing essentially that; notice a tick, drive into it, stir up the other algos and draw in a few retail traders, calculate the asymptotic peak, sell early into the peak, dump on the down side as any humans jump in with late bids. Then tie up the lose ends, update a database table with another row of winnings, reset, resume search.

The entire process probably typically takes about 180 seconds, and with multiple threads running across the cloud then you could have -- Hell I don't know -- say a hundred of these events running concurrently, each generating -- let's see -- say $100-1000 profit on exchanges per event depending on who jumps on and how dumb they are. Representing maybe $10K cleared profit every 3 minutes across the whole cloud.

And on a good day with plenty of random volatility you could double that.

It's just like printing money. But it is a type of theft born of our lust for speculation over real investment.

And while the same technology could be used as you suggest, to notice unfair ramps, why would anyone use it that way when instead they could clear $10K a minute?

Hey, kids. It's Friday and you know what that means, IT'S BANK FAILURE FRIDAY

Only six today. According to people who pore over the numbers, at least one of them had a really nasty diff.

in reference to: FDIC: Failed Bank List (view on Google Sidewiki)

My 2 cents'

I love heroic couplets. If I remember right, one of the things that Pope was complaining about in The Dunciade was the admixture between the high and the low, the merging of the sacred and the profane. We have quite a bit of that today. Indeed, a synthesis between the two is considered healthy.

One of the things that leaves people screaming, I think, is that we have become so successful in mastering our environment, so successful in abstracting out the minutiaea of our physical world and manipulating them, but our bodies and consciousness haven't evolved as fast as our problem solving skills. We're still apes, but we now possess thermonuclear weapons. This leaves anyone with a lick of sense crawling out his skin.

in reference to: Harry Magnet's Blog: The Triumph of Dullness (view on Google Sidewiki)

<a href="http://ditech.com">ditech.com</a>

In my days of title searching, I found this lender was fond of giving a second mortgage for 80% of the home's value. The first mortgage, which was generally for 125% to 150% of the appraised value, seemed to be irrelevant.

in reference to:

"But often all it takes is a decline of 20% in a home's value to wipe out a second mortgage, which is typically piled on top of an 80% first mortgage."
- The deal: Junk mortgage story just gets worse - Dec. 1, 2009 (view on Google Sidewiki)

Social Media

Right here's a bit of social media that's capable of expressing people's frustrations.

From what I read of this story, the authorities fear open, public criticism of their actions. They realize that if one person criticizes, there could be a lot more people out there with the same experience. And goodness forbid that these malcontents could get organized to change the system as they see fit.

in reference to: BBC News - Social media 'could transform public services' (view on Google Sidewiki)

I love this quote. It's so Orwellian.

The large unintended consequences of stricter regulations might be that some of your bankster thugs might move out of the country and you would no longer have to bail them out of their billion pound boondoggles. It sounds like a win-win to me. Just don't send them here to the States'.

in reference to:

"The UK is a small place in a very big world and if we hobble our banks with obligations that are totally different from those that are put in place elsewhere there are large unintended consequences that could do us harm.”"
- Former RBS chairman has £55k new job - Herald Scotland | News | Home News (view on Google Sidewiki)

Sir Tom

Isn't this guy old enough and rich enough to retire comfortably and spare the world of his handiwork?

in reference to: Former RBS chairman has £55k new job - Herald Scotland | News | Home News (view on Google Sidewiki)

Snake Oil

Using homeopathic remedies seem to be about the same as the pharma industry pushing its drugs-- if you just take this pill, all of your ills will be magically cured. It's a quick fix for a lot of problems that really call for discipline and work and personal responsibility.

Granted, it can be quite dangerous when a person has a condition like cancer.

However, as long as people want to buy snake oil, there will always be people around to separate them from their money.

in reference to: PharmaGossip: More on Boots The Chemist selling homeopathy (view on Google Sidewiki)

Friends and Followers

I wish sidewiki allowed us to have friends and followers. I also wish that it allowed us to reply directly to other users' sidewiki entries instead of just voting on them.

in reference to: Rank Sidewiki entries : Sidewiki - Toolbar Help (view on Google Sidewiki)

Pop-up Ads?

Who sees these in this day and age? If you have to use MS, at least have FF or Opera as your browser!

in reference to: Sydney Morning Herald - Business & World News Australia | smh.com.au (view on Google Sidewiki)

Dude,

You're getting a Sun!

in reference to: Navis automates Saudi port operations (view on Google Sidewiki)

Hah!

Limbuagh and Olbermann have their own Urdu franchises. Who would have known?

in reference to:

"The explosion in TV channels in Urdu, English and regional languages has bought to the fore large numbers of largely untrained, semi-educated and unworldly TV talk show hosts and journalists who deem it necessary to win viewership at a time of an acute advertising crunch, by being more outrageous and sensational than the next channel."
- BBC News - Ahmed Rashid: Pakistan conspiracy theories stifle debate (view on Google Sidewiki)

Parallel Universe

The Pakistani populace seems to be treated to the same sort of crap that we Americans receive here in the United States-- everything but the actual news and issues.

in reference to:

"Viewers may well ask where is the passionate debate about the real issues that people face - the crumbling economy, joblessness, the rising cost"
- BBC News - Ahmed Rashid: Pakistan conspiracy theories stifle debate (view on Google Sidewiki)

Slashdot

One of the internet's great legacy sites that still remains relevant. Commander Taco be praised!

in reference to: Slashdot Stories (10) (view on Google Sidewiki)

"Rebuilding Trust"

They're not interested in "rebuilding trust" at all, but simply want to put a new spin on all their old problems.

in reference to:

"Pfizer boss Jeffrey Kindler says companies need to rebuild trust or face regulation"
- Pfizer boss Jeffrey Kindler says companies need to rebuild trust or face regulation - Telegraph (view on Google Sidewiki)

Stoners

It takes forever for this page to load, which is fine if you're sampling some of the product. But as I don't do it any more, the load time is just kind of a pain in the butt.

in reference to: Woodstock Universe (view on Google Sidewiki)

Stoners

It takes forever for this page to load, which is fine if you're sampling some of the product. But as I don't do it any more, the load time is just kind of a pain in the butt.

in reference to: Woodstock Universe (view on Google Sidewiki)

Bummer

...as treatment-emergent side effects lead again and again to medication nonadherence...

and lack of profits for the pharmaceutical industry

in reference to:

"as treatment-emergent side effects lead again and again to medication nonadherence."
- Help ‘sensitive’ patients tolerate medication — Current Psychiatry Online (view on Google Sidewiki)

Effective Governance

The chaos and lawlessness of the internet do not lend themselves well to governance.

in reference to:

"Establishing effective governance for social media"
- Social Media Strategies | Advanced Human Technologies (view on Google Sidewiki)

BioPsychiatry

Psychiatrists still haven't discovered a neurobiological basis for good, old-fashioned evil.

in reference to: Biopsychiatry: a critique « Beyond Meds (view on Google Sidewiki)

It's called a master stroke:

...The national government is headed, of course, by Hamid Karzai. He held on to his job after his main challenger, Abdullah Abdullah, said on November 1 he was dropping out of the presidential election runoff, because he expected more of the widespread cheating which took place during the first round...

That was an absolutely brilliant political move by Abdullah Abdullah. He used Karzai's fraudulent behavior to advance his cause so perfectly.

Now we are supporting an illegitimate government in what was already a tenuous and difficult situation.

in reference to: Al Jazeera English - Focus - Is Karzai losing US support? (view on Google Sidewiki)

Ah, the old doublethink

The defense ministry says,

"Allegations of this nature are taken very seriously, but must not be taken as fact. Formal investigations must be allowed to take their course."

and then,

But Bill Rammell, the armed forces minister, told the BBC that the latest allegations do not warrant a public inquiry.

Up is down. Back is forward. Front is rear.

in reference to: Al Jazeera English - Europe - UK probes new Iraq abuse claims (view on Google Sidewiki)

I will give Dave credit

He knows how to dress. He looks very good with the spread collar and the four-in-hand knot.

in reference to: The IN VIVO Blog: AZ's Dave Brennan: Personalization & Partnership... & Business Implications (view on Google Sidewiki)

I think this gets the LOL stamp:

...he will call on the US Government to increase funding for the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) “so that it is recognised as a watchdog with a full set of teeth”.

The last thing that pharma wants is for the FDA to have a full set of teeth. If the FDA were fully independent and fully functional, then a lot of very bad drugs backed by some very questionable studies would have never come to market. A lot fewer people would have been harmed and pharma could have saved some of its pocket change that it uses for settlements.

in reference to: AstraZeneca chief executive will call on the US Government to give the Food and Drug Administration ‘a full set of teeth’ at Kerentech (view on Google Sidewiki)

I find this disingenuous

It's disingenuous to refer to inconvenient truths about one's product as misconceptions and because they are inconvenient they won't be mentioned.

I also find it hilarious that PR people are unable to participate in or otherwise put their spin on conversations about what are some really lousy and/or deadly products.

in reference to:

"The question is: How exactly do you correct misconceptions about a product if they can’t be mentioned?"
- AZ’s First Corporate Blog Falls Flat (view on Google Sidewiki)

Hating on the cops

I can't understand all this hating on the cops. I realize there may be a few bad apples out there and I feel for people who've had bad encounters with them, but reading about stuff like this is just beyond my experience.

I've had my fair share of run-ins with the police and for some of these I was very mouthy and belligerently drunk. But every single time I have been treated with nothing but courtesy, deference and respect, which is far more than I can say about my dealings with people who call themselves mental health professionals.

in reference to: 00:49 « Spit. Bristle. Fury. (view on Google Sidewiki)

Hating on the cops

I've had my fair share of run-ins with the police and for some of these I was very mouthy and belligerently drunk. But every single time I have been treated with nothing but courtesy, deference and respect, which is far more than I can say about my dealings with people who call themselves mental health professionals.

in reference to: 00:49 « Spit. Bristle. Fury. (view on Google Sidewiki)

Ms Nowak: Bunny Cooker from Space

I am oddly impressed with this woman because she acted like such a man in staking out her territory and pursuing a rival.

This case has lingered for quite some time. She could have faced life in prison and the previous post from the Beeb said she was going to plead temporary insanity. Sorry, girl, you methodically planned the attack with malice aforethought. Psychotic people simply aren't capable of this.

Sadly, if a man had been accused and convicted of such behavior, he would have gotten more than just his hands slapped, no matter what position and expertise he had.

in reference to: BBC NEWS | Americas | Plea deal for ex-Nasa astronaut (view on Google Sidewiki)

Going back to my old school

CNN recently published a list of the 10 Most Expensive Undergraduate Colleges in the US. When I got to the very end of it, I was absolutely startled that my old school, Vassar, had tied for tenth position. I didn't know whether to be proud or concerned. Tuition for my freshman year there was $8200, a princely sum for the early '80s. And now for '09-'10 it's almost sixfold.

I went to Vassar because it was my safety school. I cursed that I didn't get into Princeton. But ultimately I was relieved that I would not be one of Brooke Shields' classmates and I learned to embrace Vassar wholeheartedly.

While at Vassar, I encountered a great many people like myself. There were a lot of Ivy League rejects there. And we were rejects not because we didn't have the ability to handle the academic requirements of an Ivy, but because we simply had not applied ourselves during our high school years.

We were misfits, freaks, malcontents and assorted other iconoclasts who heard the beat of a different drummer-- somehow the Admissions Office could pick us out from the applicant pool. When we passed through Taylor Gate, we were amazed that Vassar simply didn't encourage us to follow to follow this beat if we heard it; she REQUIRED us to. She articulated something that we had perhaps already discovered, that the life of a troublemaker was not an easy path, but she codified in us that it was the only path worth following and it was our duty to pursue it.

These days I now hear opinions like this-- articles that decry the managerial elite that our nation's finest schools are now producing, their students' lack of intellectual curiosity and hard questions, their desire to march lockstep with the group, to not rock the boat and to get along for material gain. When I read this essay, I was both ashamed that it specifically trashes our traditional brother school, Yale, and I was also quite proud because it describes exactly what Vassar is NOT.

I suppose that there are many other reasons that Vassar is among the costliest of things. We don't have the massive endowment of Harvard and Stanford and yet our portfolio has been hit just like everyone else's. Less than 10% of our operating budget comes from corporate donations and 60% of students receive some sort of financial aid. At least, those were the last figures that I saw.

However, in the final analysis, I have to say that I am very proud of my old school and want to tell any prospective student that her future value to you is beyond any estimation and her current price is worth every damn penny.

Just when you think the party couldn't get any shittier...

Bummer, kids.

Important Decisions and the Crack Pipe

This is exactly what the Nobel Committee had to be passing around when they made their decision on this year's Nobel Prize for Peace.

As a card-carrying liberal, I can only scratch my head and go, WTF?

This man has done nothing but continue the failed foreign policies of his predecessor. And because they have failed so miserably, we might have to invade a couple of other countries in the next few months.

And this guy receives a prize for peace-making?

I can only repeat softly to myself, War is Peace, War is Peace, War is Peace, in order to wrap my head around what's been done here.

And I love Jesse's musings:

Is the award taxable?

Not if his Treasury Secretary does his tax returns.

Meet the New Boss, Same as the Old Boss

I had never heard of this year's Nobel Prize Winner in Literature, Herta Mueller. She defected from Romania to West Germany in the 1980s and writes in German.

In her essay Securitate in all but name, she describes the difficulty in obtaining the security dossier on her after the fall of Communism and her behavior that created the thick file.

The description of her harassment in Romania is a chilling flashback from an earlier time of life behind the Iron Curtain. She describes how Ceausescu's secret police, the Securitate, tried to recruit her to spy and how she refused. After her refusal, they made her life a living hell, including a brief detainment and constant surveillance by both strangers and acquaintances. She published her first work, Nadirs, largely as a protest against the situation.

The book was well received in West Germany, where she eventually obtained asylum. She details how the Securitate tried to smear her as a spy in the Romanian immigrant community in Germany, while denouncing her as a traitor at home.

In one of the most chilling personal details in the essay, Mueller writes about a friend, who came to visit her in Germany. This woman had shown her much kindness when she first began to get into trouble with the Secret Police in Romania. During the German visit, Mueller discovered that this friend had been sent to spy on her and she confronted her about it. The friend admitted that, yes, that's what she was doing, but only because she needed cancer treatment. Mueller accepted her explanation and forgave her, but then a few days later she caught the friend with a duplicate key to her apartment. She ordered the woman to get out and was left wondering if the woman's earlier kindness and friendship in Romania simply hadn't been staged.

But perhaps what is most chilling in this essay is the difficult time Mueller encountered in trying to obtain her dossier. When she finally does get it, she discovers that most of it has either been redacted or forged. And she points out what has occurred all over Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union-- the Old Secret Intelligence agencies never really disbanded, but just continued to function under new names. The people who still work there have no interest in being identified or prosecuted. And so, her files were heavily edited to protect the still-employed guilty.

Congratulations to Ms. Mueller. In a life that no one could envy, she has produced great art and managed to induce Cold War flashbacks of ghosts that never really go away.

Physicians for Human Rights calls for Justice

Recently the CIA Inspector General's Report of 2004 was released by court order. It detailed various enhanced interrogation techniques approved for detainees and other unlawful combatants in the War on Terror and further corroborated an International Committee of the Red Cross Report on detainee abuse.

The Physicians for Human Rights read the report and were shocked by what they found. They concluded that psychiatrists and psychologists designed and implemented torture programs and then engaged in human experimentation and data collection of the results. They are demanding a full investigation and feel that if psychiatrists and psychologists are found guilty of participating in human experimentation, then charges of war crimes need to be brought against them and their licenses and certifications revoked.

However, in the true APA style of talking the talk but never walking the walk, the American Psychological Association has merely expressed its concern and dismay that some of its members might have engaged in such practices, but it has never formally repudiated the behavior or demanded an investigation into the alleged activities. In fact, some members have tried at times to present themselves as angels of mercy.

Wishful thinking might want to dismiss Physicians for Human Rights as a fringe group. But, as Nobel Peace Prize recipients in 1997, they are not. Sadly, however, no one in the current administration seems to want an investigation of any practices pursued in the last administration, saying that we need to put the past behind us and move forward. I am very concerned when people and governments refuse to take responsibility for their actions and fail to learn from past mistakes. It only lays the groundwork for further atrocities.

US economic power 'is declining'

That is, according to the President of the World Bank.

BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India and China) grows apace and most members of the G-7 languish.

Zoellick fails to point out that although our economic power is declining, our means of production still allows us to manufacture better and more bombs than anyone else.

A Gore Vidal Sighting

I love this guy. Ever since I discovered him when I was 14, he has provided me with hours of side-splitting laughter. His novels center around either one of two themes: the deconstruction of the national myths or an apocalyptic variation on the Schreber case.

However, it's his essays that I enjoy most. I remember in one of them from the early '70s, he discussed a psychological study that had something to do with the relationship between rich kids and their parents. As a kid who had grown up around some very privileged people, he noted that the focus of the study was absolutely wrong and observed quite wryly. "Psychotherapists seem to know all of the questions, but none of the answers."

In the same essay, he argued that Americans should be encouraged to think more rather than to feel or emote. This is a point he's made in countless other places and he raises it again in this interview:

“Does anyone care what Americans think? They’re the worst-educated people in the First World. They don’t have any thoughts, they have emotional responses, which good advertisers know how to provoke.”

He should have added all we have in America are advertisers and consumers of advertised products. Madison Avenue peddles soap and cars and gadgets, with the same gusto and elan it uses to market political leaders and wars.

Different Voices vs. Conventional Wisdom

I've discovered two different tumblogs, STFU Gays and HomoShame.

Conventional wisdom says that I, as a gay man, should be outraged by these blogs, but actually I'm kind of amused and sympathetic.

I'm amused because I have so little use for what passes as conventional wisdom in the gay community these days. It pushes a political correctness that trumpets diversity so long as this diversity doesn't diverge from its beliefs and thinking.

And I'm sympathetic because conventional wisdom encourages a great many of the flagrant violations of good taste that are so easily lampooned in these blogs. I mean, come on, gay community, if you're going to be sitting ducks, you're going to get shot at.

In other feats of twisted logic, conventional wisdom holds that as a gay person, you're exhibiting self-hatred if you don't want to identify with the heterosexual institutions of marriage and children. Conventional wisdom also seems to maintain that it is good to promulgate hackneyed stereotypes in the public domain because it keeps the heterosexuals comfortable.

I have never subscribed to Conventional Wisdom's newsletter and it's something that I just have no desire to understand. If I were concerned about it, however, maybe I'd be worried that I wasn't straight.

I could leave you with that quote from Voltaire about disagreeing with what you say, etc. But to the owners of these two tumblogs, I just want to say, Rock on.

Why I don't watch TV

I watched the first 25 minutes or so of SNL tonight and gave up.

The show's writing was like everything else on TV. The commercials are far more cleverly written and entertaining, with better looking performers, than the writing and actors in the actual entertainment. Sad.

And this guy working on the internets had a far better and more accurate spoof of Khadafi at the UN:



I didn't watch it long enough to catch Jenny Slate's F-bomb, but still that's just a big yawn. Who the fuck cares? We hear it every day and in almost any situation. Our ears were deflowered a long time ago. George Carlin's "Seven Little Words" is ancient history. Get with the times, FCC.

From the WTF!? Dept.

Harvard's finances and endowment are in the tank. Google for this if you don't believe me. And yet Harvard's blowing perfectly good money it really doesn't have on this paragon of vacuousness.

Admittedly, I stayed quite stoned throughout the '80s and into the '90s. When I came to, I thought, What's gone on all these years? So I started reading books written by some of the players of the time period.

Perhaps the most repulsive book I encountered was Dame Peggy's What I Saw at the Revolution. She was so condescending when she wrote about the 1984 election and stated that a first time voter could only remember the foibles and impotence of President Carter.

As a first time voter in 1984, I remembered President Carter as the most decent, honest man who had ever sat in the Oval Office in anyone's memory. I also remembered the treachery of the Viet Nam War and the arrogance of Richard Nixon. I had no use for people who wanted to rehabilitate either a pointless war or an obvious crook as good, but misunderstood.

I was also galled how she wanted to simply dismiss the 18th Century Enlightenment as immaterial to our present day country. I couldn't believe a person who would call herself conservative would want to occlude the past so completely.

I was just absolutely amazed at her vapidity and sloppiness. And at the time, I had kind of wished I'd stayed stoned.

I'm still left thinking that when she freaked out over the McGovern Campaign and thought she saw the light, those McGovern supporters should have done Harvard and the rest of us a favor and thrown her underneath the bus.

This was interesting. Actually, the comments were the interesting part. I have no use for Updike and I do like some of the essays I've read by David Foster Wallace. But various twentysomething guys defending their hero by whining like 15 year old girls is not attractive.

Going to the Big City

Today I rode with my uncle as he took my Dad up to the doctor in Indianapolis, about 2 hours from where I live.

For the most part, my uncle is a real straight arrow, but sometime he frightens me. He enjoys driving for long stretches by steering the wheel with his knees. No hands involved.

I've known a few old hippies, who could drive with their knees. They could take a sip off their beer, puff on a cigarette AND simultaneously roll a joint. They were even more frightening than my uncle, but at least they were going to get me stoned.

Climate change also causes earthquakes

Last week the Benfield Hazard Research Centre made a presentation, Climate Forcing of Geological and Geomorphological Hazards.

This presentation discusses a whole range of possible seismic and geological events due to climate change. However, I want to focus on one working hypothesis. It holds that glaciers and polar ice caps hold tectonic plates into place. As the ice melts, these plates begin to move around more freely, causing more and more earthquakes.

I first saw this suggestion making the rounds of the environmental websites after the May 2008 earthquake in China. The epicenter was located just over the mountains from the glaciers of the Tibetan Plateau, glaciers that are rapidly disappearing.

What's interesting is that this presentation is not made by a bunch of treehugging hippies or conspiracy theorists. The Benfield Hazard Research Centre is an academic consortium that examines possible risks and income losses for the insurance industry. Chicken Littles and bleeding hearts they are not.

Test Post

I'm bummed.

In the last real job I had for seven years, I drove an average of 100,000 miles a year. I always liked point out to HR that this was the equivalent of circumnavigating the globe at the equator almost 3 1/3 times a year.

I absolutely loved it. I have always loved getting behind the wheel of a car and simply GOING. For me, the need for motion is as elemental and basic as the need to breathe. There's something positively primitive and vital about it, almost the way a hunter-gatherer needs to wonder the landscape simply to stay alive.

But I have not had access to a car since February and I have not been able to drive, so you'll have to understand that I am very bummed.