I came across this via slacktivist, and it makes for interesting reading. Much of it is laughable, including some dubious capitalization and article use. Perhaps surprisingly, I agree with significant portions of it—although this might be due to my and their meaning different things when using the same words…
For example, the final line (and the one that slacktivist discusses) is “Repeal and prohibit any participation in efforts to create a one world government.” I’m all for it. But when I look at the world, the most likely candidate for “OWG” is the nation with military bases in at least 63 countries, which I somehow doubt is what the Maine Republicans are talking about. [more...]
The primary narrative I see represented is that the Greeks spend “too much” on their social programs (and to pay their civil servants) and that they’ve been profligate generally and need to cut back, where this means slashing social spending. There may be a little truth to this tale, but there’s a lot more going on, which Michael Hudson exposes. [more...]
Was there a conspiracy to build doomed-to-fail speculative bubbles on dubious mortgages? Very likely, but not necessarily in the classic meetings-in-smoky-rooms fashion. Mike Whitney’s article “The Subprime Conspiracy” summarizes what was going on, and who knew about it. It also provides a good description of how the common idea of “conspiracy” can be quite naive, and that matching incentives are all that’s really required.
“Debt: The first five thousand years” is a fascinating long-term overview of how debt has evolved and been managed through its history. The perspective granted by the long view is quite different from how I’d been looking at recent debt-related events, in particular regarding the “virtual versus real” money debate. [more...]
You may remember the antrax mailings of late 2001. From 2002 to 2006, the FBI seems to have spent much of its time focusing on Steven Hatfill, who was later dropped as a suspect. However, while investigating Hatfill, they also apparently waged a campaign of harassment against him, as detailed in “The Wrong Man”. [more...]
It should be clear that having better access to information than others will make it pretty easy to make money in market trading. And:
While markets are supposed to ensure transparency by showing orders to everyone simultaneously, a loophole in regulations allows marketplaces like Nasdaq to show traders some orders ahead of everyone else in exchange for a fee.
I haven’t watched much of either the British or American versions of the show, but am nevertheless going to recommend three posts by Venkatesh Rao which use the American version to illuminate interesting aspects of office life:
In November, a ballot measure that would legalize[1] growth and possession of up to an ounce of marijuana will be put before California voters. I’d love to see this pass for a bunch of reasons—none of which affect me personally. [more...]
No, not by accident. Not as part of a war effort. Not as part of a biological weapons test. Rather, on purpose, as part of Prohibition enforcement efforts:
Frustrated that people continued to consume so much alcohol even after it was banned, federal officials had decided to try a different kind of enforcement. They ordered the poisoning of industrial alcohols manufactured in the United States, products regularly stolen by bootleggers and resold as drinkable spirits. The idea was to scare people into giving up illicit drinking. Instead, by the time Prohibition ended in 1933, the federal poisoning program, by some estimates, had killed at least 10,000 people.
This is probably old news to people who follow German politics closely, but I just found out about it (via MetaFilter).
Karl Heinz Kurras was the West German police officer who killed student demonstrator Benno Ohnesborg in June 1967 during a protest against the Shah of Iran’s visit to Germany. This was one of the major radicalizing events of the period for the German left, and hugely influential. [more...]
Recently Clay Shirky wrote “A Rant About Women”, a piece essentially claiming that women needed to act more confidently, even or especially in situations where confidence would be unwarranted, in order to be more successful. There’s more to it than that, but that was what I took as the core message. I think there are some valid points in there, but I also think that Shirky radically underestimates the ways in which women are frequently punished for acting confident, and that he appears to assume that a system which promotes self-aggrandizers is something that we all (not just women) should accept as the natural way of things.
I might write up a longer response to “A Rant About Women” at some point, but right now I want to bring some attention to a piece that’s probably more important than my response. [more...]
I was loving this article from The Economist until the final paragraph, and specifically the final line.
The article reports on a series of psychological experiments which strongly support the idea that power corrupts. The interesting wrinkle is that some people are corrupted less—and these are apparently the people who don’t feel deserving of their powerful position. [more...]
This post at Yes Means Yes! is an excellent overview of how the profoundly unhealthy culture of American high schools socializes boys to have negative and domineering attitudes towards women. The post is a review of Dude, You’re a Fag, an academic study of student ethnography and behavior at a Northern California high school. While the degree to which the behavior in the school is typical can be debated, it certainly seems to me that it’s certainly not a total aberration. I think a key paragraph is this one:
[Male sexual aggression in this context] has little to do with sexual orientation or desire and everything to do with a gender performance that positions the boys in relation to other boys.
Her response to the recent attempted underwear bombing:
Senate Intelligence Chairman Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., said a "very comprehensive no-fly list" would be "the greatest protection our country has." In an interview, she said the definition of who can be included should be expanded to include anyone about whom there is "a reasonable suspicion."
“The greatest protection our country has” is to be able to stop people from flying arbitrarily, even though a major problem with the current system is a lack of accountability around how one gets on the list. Also, of course, Abdulmutallab was on the FBI’s “Terrorist Screening Database” and it was some kind of bureaucratic error that prevented his name being added to the no-fly list—not any legal concerns over reasonable suspicion; it is concerns of this sort that Feinstein is attempting eliminate entirely.
One could accuse me of a similar but oppositely-directed bias. However, I don’t hide my views on the subject, whereas Feinstein doesn’t acknowledge her political views as being authoritarian and/or fascistic; in addition, I generally propose limitations on state power on the basis of principles and long-term benefits—not claiming that their abrupt removal will magically solve some current dilemma instantly.
I’ve come across what feels like another wave of articles related to bullying recently. I previously wrote about my thoughts on institutional responses, but this time my focus is on some of the causes, as well as how technical rules are unlikely to eliminate the problem. [more...]
A recent University of Philadelphia study apparently shows that people in possession of guns were significantly more likely (4.46 times as likely) to be shot in an assault than people without guns. I’m particularly curious about some things that the study can’t really address—namely whether it’s causation or correlation. Is it the presence of the gun that increases the danger of confrontation? Is it that the presence of the gun makes the gun possessor more belligerent? Or is it that the kinds of people more likely to be belligerent are the kinds of people more likely to be carrying guns?
Another question is one of morality—if (as is strongly suggested by the study) resisting robbery or borderline situations leads to a higher likelihood of injury or death (on either side), does this imply that offering no resistance is the more moral act?
There’s a campaign at the moment, “Think B4 You Speak”, that’s attempting to get teens to not use homophobic slurs in their interactions. The aim is a good one, but I have my doubts about its efficacy—doubts that are expressed rather well by this Penny Arcade strip. [more...]
I occasionally read Consumerist, and a trope on that site (and perhaps in the larger culture) concerns company spokespeople stating that they take (insert some egregious abuse or screwup here) “very seriously”. This line is used so often, and is folowed by meaningful action so rarely, that it has become more or less synonymous with empty posturing. This is why the last paragraph of this article in the San Francisco Chronicle today made me laugh out loud:
CIA spokesman George Little offered a brief response to the case, saying the agency takes its obligation to the U.S. courts seriously.
[The City of Bozeman]‘s background check policy … states that to be considered for a job applicants must provide log-in information and passwords for social network sites in which they participate
(emphasis mine)
—“Bozeman City job requirement raises privacy concerns”, Dan Boyce, montanasnewsstation.com, 18 Jun 2009
