So, the lefties took one of their pet problems to the UN. Result?
barely productive wrangling among thousands of negotiators, and the threat of a complete breakdown in talks
It's hard to find anything that 193 countries agree on, and it's downright impossible to negotiate when all those parties must have their say.
the United Nations climate negotiations will never quite work
Indeed, the logo for the Copenhagen conference shows circle of 192 crisscrossing lines. This pattern is meant to symbolize how interconnected we are. Instead, it looks like a ball of tangled string.
As if any of this is new. As if this hasn't been obvious for the past, oh, 40-50 years.
Monday, December 21, 2009
Thursday, December 17, 2009
Tam Got Me Thinking about Auto Racing
repost from my comment on her blog:
My favorite auto racing story is the 1935 German Grand Prix. Nine Nazi-funded state-of-the-art Goliaths versus one Italian Tazio Nuvolari in the David role, driving an obsolete, underpowered Alfa Romeo for Enzo Ferrari. Hitler was there, and eager to see one of the German cars to win. He'd heavily bankrolled Mercedes and Porsche. The German cars were technically superior in every way, and their teams were professionally organized in a way that would be recognizable to a racing team manager today (not so the disorganized French, British, and Italians). The track was the legendary Nurburgring, a 14 mile suicide circuit through forested mountains. Manfred Von Brauchitsch, nephew of the Generalfeldmarschall, held an apparently insurmountable lead going in to the the last few laps. Nuvolari drove brilliantly the entire race, just to keep his hopelessly outclassed car in the hunt, but going into the last few laps he began performing miracles, gaining on Brauchitsch, maintaining the pressure, and forcing Brauchitsch to out drive his tires. Nuvolari nipped him at the wire and stole the German GP from under Hitler's nose.
I can't believe this thing hasn't been made into a movie.
Here is a highlight reel of the race on YouTube:
The white (silver) cars are the Germans. The dark (red) one is Nuvolari.
Watch Nuvolari dirt track sideways at about the 43 second mark. Dude had some serious stones.
My favorite auto racing story is the 1935 German Grand Prix. Nine Nazi-funded state-of-the-art Goliaths versus one Italian Tazio Nuvolari in the David role, driving an obsolete, underpowered Alfa Romeo for Enzo Ferrari. Hitler was there, and eager to see one of the German cars to win. He'd heavily bankrolled Mercedes and Porsche. The German cars were technically superior in every way, and their teams were professionally organized in a way that would be recognizable to a racing team manager today (not so the disorganized French, British, and Italians). The track was the legendary Nurburgring, a 14 mile suicide circuit through forested mountains. Manfred Von Brauchitsch, nephew of the Generalfeldmarschall, held an apparently insurmountable lead going in to the the last few laps. Nuvolari drove brilliantly the entire race, just to keep his hopelessly outclassed car in the hunt, but going into the last few laps he began performing miracles, gaining on Brauchitsch, maintaining the pressure, and forcing Brauchitsch to out drive his tires. Nuvolari nipped him at the wire and stole the German GP from under Hitler's nose.
I can't believe this thing hasn't been made into a movie.
Here is a highlight reel of the race on YouTube:
The white (silver) cars are the Germans. The dark (red) one is Nuvolari.
Watch Nuvolari dirt track sideways at about the 43 second mark. Dude had some serious stones.
Three Health Reform Constituencies
It's pretty clear that something will be passed through Congress and signed by the President, and that something will be labelled "health reform." How each person reacts to the passage of this bill will be a strong predictor of their membership in one of the following groups.
Serious Students of Health Policy
These folks generally recognize that the legislation being proposed does not even begin to address the daunting structural and fiscal problems in our health care system. People in this group do argue about exactly what should be done, but they're pretty much agreed that this mess isn't it. These people recognize that this legislation is, for the most part, a mega-$ handout of taxpayer money to insurance companies.
If you went in believing that reform was needed, but you're utterly demoralized by what's emerging from the process, you're in this group.
Paranoid Big Brother Conspiracy Theorists
These folks look at the proposed legislation as yet another example of Big Government encroachment into private life, and despite their often loony antics, they do have a point. The most substantive element of this legislation is the government holding a gun to everyone's head and saying "buy health insurance... or else." Throw in the fact that the people with guns held to their heads will mostly be the uninsured poor for whose benefit this reform was supposed to be in the first place, and that the main beneficiaries are the insurance companies who were originally made out to be the villains, and you've got to admit, there is a serious Orwellian vibe going on here.
If the impending passage of this bill makes you want to go scream your lungs out at a Tea Party Rally, or stock up on ammo and surgical gauze, you're in this group.
Big Obama Fans and Democratic Party Loyalists
These people are mostly focused on Scoring a Win. Who cares about the details? If we can get this thing through Congress, we can claim victory over the vile, hated Republicans. Hooray!
If you are enthusiastic about the passage of this bill, and ready to hail its passage as Unprecedented and Historic, you're in this group.
To you I would say congratulations on winning the Big Game, but please do not pretend that you have accomplished anything meaningful here.
Serious Students of Health Policy
These folks generally recognize that the legislation being proposed does not even begin to address the daunting structural and fiscal problems in our health care system. People in this group do argue about exactly what should be done, but they're pretty much agreed that this mess isn't it. These people recognize that this legislation is, for the most part, a mega-$ handout of taxpayer money to insurance companies.
If you went in believing that reform was needed, but you're utterly demoralized by what's emerging from the process, you're in this group.
Paranoid Big Brother Conspiracy Theorists
These folks look at the proposed legislation as yet another example of Big Government encroachment into private life, and despite their often loony antics, they do have a point. The most substantive element of this legislation is the government holding a gun to everyone's head and saying "buy health insurance... or else." Throw in the fact that the people with guns held to their heads will mostly be the uninsured poor for whose benefit this reform was supposed to be in the first place, and that the main beneficiaries are the insurance companies who were originally made out to be the villains, and you've got to admit, there is a serious Orwellian vibe going on here.
If the impending passage of this bill makes you want to go scream your lungs out at a Tea Party Rally, or stock up on ammo and surgical gauze, you're in this group.
Big Obama Fans and Democratic Party Loyalists
These people are mostly focused on Scoring a Win. Who cares about the details? If we can get this thing through Congress, we can claim victory over the vile, hated Republicans. Hooray!
If you are enthusiastic about the passage of this bill, and ready to hail its passage as Unprecedented and Historic, you're in this group.
To you I would say congratulations on winning the Big Game, but please do not pretend that you have accomplished anything meaningful here.
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
Needle in a Haystack
This is one of the very few thoughtful, ideology-neutral things I have read about health care reform in the past... um... forever.
The new compromise
To me, the far more disturbing trend here is the nature of the "compromise" that was ultimately reached. It wasn't a compromise between Democrats and Republicans, or "big" government and "small" government, or "liberal" and "conservative", but rather it was a pretty clear compromise between what the party in power wanted to do and what the relevant corporations wanted. The bill is not more friendly to Republicans, but rather more friendly (if not downright subservient) to the pharmaceutical and insurance lobbies.
What should terrify everyone is that this exact same compromise was continuously played out during the Bush years as well. Outside of his failure to pass Social Security Reform -- a move which was staggeringly unpopular with the people -- all of his major policy changes ended up being compromises not with the Democrats but with the relevant lobbies. What was conservative (or liberal) about the prescription drug bill that he passed? What was conservative (or liberal) about the telecom amnesty bill?
There is one major party in the US and even when the Democrats or Republicans appear to be in charge, the results say otherwise.
—pza
The new compromise
To me, the far more disturbing trend here is the nature of the "compromise" that was ultimately reached. It wasn't a compromise between Democrats and Republicans, or "big" government and "small" government, or "liberal" and "conservative", but rather it was a pretty clear compromise between what the party in power wanted to do and what the relevant corporations wanted. The bill is not more friendly to Republicans, but rather more friendly (if not downright subservient) to the pharmaceutical and insurance lobbies.
What should terrify everyone is that this exact same compromise was continuously played out during the Bush years as well. Outside of his failure to pass Social Security Reform -- a move which was staggeringly unpopular with the people -- all of his major policy changes ended up being compromises not with the Democrats but with the relevant lobbies. What was conservative (or liberal) about the prescription drug bill that he passed? What was conservative (or liberal) about the telecom amnesty bill?
There is one major party in the US and even when the Democrats or Republicans appear to be in charge, the results say otherwise.
—pza
Friday, December 4, 2009
The Cat Box Media Strikes Again
From the Bloomington, IN Herald-Times
Permits spiked in the months around the election of Barack Obama as president, prompting gun dealers to refer to “the Obama factor.” This shows a troubling distrust — paranoia? — about the new administration. Our research doesn’t say whether it’s just political or political and racial, but we have our suspicions.
Does the Herald-Times editorial board really believe that anyone who disagrees with the President is automatically a racist? Or is this just their pre-emptive way of discrediting any opposition to the leader they've chosen for us?
Are their incessant attacks on law abiding gun owners pure mindless reflex, based on their ingrained hateful prejudices? Or are they deliberately engaging in a propagandistic campaign to discredit the most demonstrably lawful sub-segment of the population?
I can't read minds to know the intentions behind the Herald-Times' sleazy, propagandistic brand of "journalism," but I have my suspicions.
One of the last of a dying breed. The cat box media is going the way of the dinosaur. And these guys aren't making me feel too mournful about that.
Permits spiked in the months around the election of Barack Obama as president, prompting gun dealers to refer to “the Obama factor.” This shows a troubling distrust — paranoia? — about the new administration. Our research doesn’t say whether it’s just political or political and racial, but we have our suspicions.
Does the Herald-Times editorial board really believe that anyone who disagrees with the President is automatically a racist? Or is this just their pre-emptive way of discrediting any opposition to the leader they've chosen for us?
Are their incessant attacks on law abiding gun owners pure mindless reflex, based on their ingrained hateful prejudices? Or are they deliberately engaging in a propagandistic campaign to discredit the most demonstrably lawful sub-segment of the population?
I can't read minds to know the intentions behind the Herald-Times' sleazy, propagandistic brand of "journalism," but I have my suspicions.
One of the last of a dying breed. The cat box media is going the way of the dinosaur. And these guys aren't making me feel too mournful about that.
If you're not paranoid yet...
...here are eight million reasons you should be.
Techdirt provides this summary:
Sprint provided law enforcement with GPS location data a staggering 8 million times in the last year. Sprint apparently set up some sort of portal that made such requests easier, and it sounds like law enforcement took advantage of that in a major way. The report also notes that this information should have been disclosed to Congress, under a 1999 law, but the Justice Department has ignored the law for the past five years. The rest of the report also looks at some other concerning factors, such as the fact that the government seems to regularly get all sorts of info from service providers, with little oversight. On top of that, it explains why so many service providers agree to it: they charge the government for such info, and it's quite lucrative.
The original source is the dissertation research of this IU grad student.
As often occurs, h/t to Tam for providing my first link to this very disturbing story.
Oh, and by the way, thanks to the cat box media for digging this up (NOT!). Or, at least providing wider coverage once it was discovered (NOT!). Because when the newspapers fold, there won't be anyone who knows what they're doing to investigate stuff and find things out (NOT!).
Techdirt provides this summary:
Sprint provided law enforcement with GPS location data a staggering 8 million times in the last year. Sprint apparently set up some sort of portal that made such requests easier, and it sounds like law enforcement took advantage of that in a major way. The report also notes that this information should have been disclosed to Congress, under a 1999 law, but the Justice Department has ignored the law for the past five years. The rest of the report also looks at some other concerning factors, such as the fact that the government seems to regularly get all sorts of info from service providers, with little oversight. On top of that, it explains why so many service providers agree to it: they charge the government for such info, and it's quite lucrative.
The original source is the dissertation research of this IU grad student.
As often occurs, h/t to Tam for providing my first link to this very disturbing story.
Oh, and by the way, thanks to the cat box media for digging this up (NOT!). Or, at least providing wider coverage once it was discovered (NOT!). Because when the newspapers fold, there won't be anyone who knows what they're doing to investigate stuff and find things out (NOT!).
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