Some Thoughts On Mother Jones May/June 2011

Mother Jones (as well as The American Prospect) are my Liberal side shining through. You have been warned.

• A little late on getting this to you, but if you want to take a peak behind why those Rapture people continued to insist we were all going to die last Saturday and how they may be coping with it, then look no further.
• I do find it a bit ironic that a men such as this one insist on using the courts to destroy the word of the people when they are the same who cry foul when Liberal judges strike down those same people's word. Anyway he just looks like someone who would do something like allow billions in undocumented financing into our political system doesn't he?
• Really someone is exploiting a populist movement for financial gain? Say it ain't so?
• Lies are far easier to tell than they are to disprove. Probably explains why we have libel laws.
• Have you ever asked yourself what Climategate is/was? Answer.

Some Thoughts on Mandatory Solar Panels

I do not presume to know the cost effectiveness of a policy such as this nor do I claim to know if it is good policy. But all the same it IS policy and I would like to know why we aren't having this discussion in the US (The Federal, Sate or Local level) ? Why isn't there laws that say that in order to build something you must have at some point during the building process a team come out (paid for by the government in question) to determine the feasibility of placing renewable energy production built into the building? They should then issue their report and recommendations to the owners, recommendations that they by now means have to follow but at least then they know the options.

Some Thoughts on The Economist May 21st

In case you have been living under a rock for the past two weeks here is a good rundown of why the arrest of DSK matters.

The housing market continues to fall, I blame Thomas Jefferson.

With 3D printing in it's ascendancy I don't see how there is any other option. That is in the long term, but in the short term I think current manufacturing methods aren't going anywhere anytime soon. Creating small specific pieces and prototypes will be what we use 3D printing for for the foreseeable future.

If you need a crash course on why Pakistan is the problem in Southern Asia then look no further. For my opinion read below.

Some good coverage on Libya this week. Qaddafi is done. This is one of the reasons for why he is done. The international community did the right thing, but it may cost them. Look for my thoughts on Libya a little later.

I'm liberal. I'm Pro-Union. And I still think this looks really bad.

Because this post is lacking opinion I'll leave you with this parting shot. Some people have it out for Ronald McDonald. Now I can't say that when I think of a "balance, active lifestyles ambassador" but I also don't think he is the Marlboro Man. People are not fat because of McDonald's, people are fat because they handed over their hard earned cash to eat food that McDonald's provides. If people can not see the correlation between their ever expanding waste lines and the food they eat then that is their problem. Now if by the grace of god they realize a hamburger is not made of leafy greens then McDonald's will adapt to it. Oh wait......

Some Thoughts on Pakistan

Pakistan, to me, is a country that thinks of itself as a world power when in actuality it is not. As an example I present the following

• A constant need to match India pound for pound militarily (men on the border, their nuclear arsenal and insurgents to make up for the rest) even though it has a smaller population, inferior economy, and weaker ties to the west (the US deals with Pakistan because it has to).
• Insistence that the US not operate within Pakistani borders, be it clandestine operatives or targeted hits against terrorists and insurgents. An insistence that is not coupled with taking care of the problems that these forbidden US actions insinuate.
• A desire to have a future in controlling part of Afghanistan's trajectory (which runs counter to its love of sovereignty when the US is concerned) even though it can not even govern its own fracturous society.

It is as if Pakistan had this grand plan for itself and has spent the past half decade failing to come to grips with the fact that it will never happen. That either directly explains the thought process of its leaders or it indirectly explains the need to demonize the West/India while showing clout in Afghanistan, in order to blind the public of reality. A reality in which Pakistan sponsors terror abroad, tacitly allows it within and has no plan to lift its people out of violence and poverty.

The only solution, in my mind, is for the US, India and Afghanistan to foster economic ties in the region. The stronger the ties the more likely that the Pakistani street will demand peace in lieu of retribution.

Links, Random Links

With the latest issues of Wired and The Atlantic arriving recently I realized I never gave my readers my links from the past issue of both. So here they are, slightly rushed.

Wired May 2011

• Only Bill James would have chronicling a history of dark crime as a hobby. Count his book as one I wish to read if I had the time.
• Yes commercials are indeed louder.
• Japan's quake ridden history.
• Sycophants might now be sooooo bad.
• Why do we still have Region Codes? Answer. Though the DVD is all but dead anyway.
• First rule about private trackers, you don't talk about private trackers.
• We are an angry 12 year old away from Armageddon.
• I for one tend to agree with Steven Levy. Though I would love to do away with physical programs for web based apps I still find myself using a Mac based Twitter client, email client as well as RSS reader. So to find myself doing away with physical files on my computer will be quite a stretch. I myself favor a Dropbox approach for now.

The Atlantic May 2011

• Did you want to know more about the Verizon Wireless Guy? Here you go.
• I am happy to say I do not follow into this category of yuppie.
• Being a pack rat is never a good thing, preserving useless old buildings is an even worse habit. We grow through innovation not through preserving old inferior buildings.

Some Thoughts on Mitch Daniels

I never thought he would run, mostly because it would have been very hard for him to talk candidly about the debt and spending problems when the opposition (GOP and Dem alike) tried to paint those problems as his to begin with (he was George W Bush's budget man). With that said, if he had run I do not think he would have garnered as much support as everyone was saying he was bound to get. I think Mitt Romney has all ready staked his claim as the moderate Republican, with Tim Pawlenty to the right and John Huntsman trying to be slightly to Romney's left. I saw no space for Daniels and my guess is Daniels saw that as well.

I had planned to write about how I thought Daniels mirrored the prospect of Wesley Clark in 2004, but I was overtaken by events.

Podcast's of the Week

This American Life reports that government's don't create jobs, at best they add minimal value to jobs being added by the private sector all ready and at worst they rob future investments in high end job growth to subsidize low wage jobs now (AKA you need to invest in education to really win the future).

Oh and they like to poach jobs from eachother.


Planet Money does a great, and short, history of US debt dating back to Hamilton. Well worth your 20 minutes.

It's All Politics for this week features Ron Elving giving probably the best explanation as to how voters choose between an incumbent President and a challenger. I will be co-opting it from now on.

Charles Barkley is on the BS Report and in only the way Charles can do he makes America (or that specific part of America) look really stupid for disliking gay people.

Some Thoughts On Abolishing the Senate

To start off it should be known that I am not delusional enough to think that this is even remotely possible, you aren't going to see 66 votes in the US Senate nor the 38 State legislature approval needed for the Constitutional Amendment but that doesn't stop me from speculating!

Ezra Klein had a short post recently illustrating how ridiculous a notion the makeup of the Senate is, best expressed by how a Senate vote in Wyoming is worth 68 times more than it is in California. Not exactly fair but it was a necessary compromise needed to bring the smaller states (such as Rhode Island & Delaware) into the Union with larger, more populous states (such as Virginia and Massachusetts) who favored the model used in the house (proportional representation). With that said the 3/5 Compromise was stripped out of the Constitution quite some time ago, though it should be noted however it took a costly Civil War to right that injustice.

In a world molded by my hands I would see the Senate abolished and 100 seats added to the US House of Representatives bringing our avg district population down to 484,000 which would move us from 2nd worst representative to only the 3rd worst. I would prefer to see the US add even more seats but an 1:1 consolidation of the two chambers sounds better. The consolidation would obviously have to revolve around the completion of a census year to bring into the fold the proper proportion of House seats per state.

As for the duties of the Senate (treaty approval, judicial & executive nominations, etc.) either the House would assume all of them or the House could nominate per 2-year session a committee, chaired by the Speaker, that's sole duty was to pass or fail these. I think I would prefer to still give the House the full up or down vote for this partially because the more representative of the US population the better. But mostly because I don't think adding these duties would be all that much of a burden to the House, especially if we were to limit the amount of executive positions that need confirmation which are at about 1,400 (and this would be a great excuse to do so).

Some great side effects of this "merger" would be the elimination of the Senate Pro Tempore from the line of succession as well as the annihilation of all Senate rules such as cloture and secret holds. And who knows maybe we would do away with that pesky Electoral College while we are at it?

The main goal here, as I stated above, would be to make elections fairer. But the obvious side effect from this would be the elevation of the Speaker of the House to near the level of the President, if not above the President. I think it would be a good thing, possibly stop, or at least be a great check on the Imperial Presidency and shift the power back in the direction that the founders assumed it would be.

But again, this will never happen.

Some Thoughts on Federalism and Europe

This hit me when I read the article about the Scottish Elections but it reflects news coming out of Europe over the past couple of months. Despite the opposing viewpoints of a push for more unity among Europe and the same time a push within countries for more local governance they reflect the same need and want for federalism among Europe. But they also expose problems with the way forward:

• As long as each a country's culture is so drastically different from the next (think Greece vs Germany) problems are always going to persist. You can not allow a difference of retirement age by 6 years and expect there not to be serious consequences. Going forward, in order to stop these problems, economic & fiscal policy as well as social welfare goals need to be further alligned. The goals must be identical across the Union and member state's must be held accountable by a central government with teeth. But like in the US each individual states should be allowed leeway in how to implement those goals due to the cultural differences that occur.
• On the other end of the spectrum you see the splintering of states (Scotland, Belgium and distantly the Basque region of Spain). While I applaud the dissolution of powers to local constituencies and governments (something Great Britain has long needed) the assumption of diplomatic and defense responsibilities by such localities would not be advisable. Though if a credible EU diplomatic corp and defense force where to emerge then I would support more drastic dissolution to localities (something on the line of county and big city autonomy in the US) .

Some Thoughts On The Economist May 14th - 20th 2011

Really good Afghan coverage this week, paired with this news, I think my thoughts from earlier in the week are looking better.

Did someone say bubble?
I do think some of these companies are overvalued considering in the end all they hold are pageviews which navigate to the coolest new trends but with that said the market and technology are not the same as a decade ago. Then again I know only what I read online and hear from Planet Money.

Microsoft did not buy Skype to make money, because this market will never make money, especially with Google and Apple all ready in the game and I'm sure Facebook will jump in at some point as well. They must have bought it to integrate it into a future OS and enhance current products. Personally I would like to see, and I think we will some day, an integration of video chatting into the phone system as a whole, regardless of what operator you use.

List the World Cup on Ebay?
Would eliminate board corruption, would reward teams who are looking to spend money on the sport and would set the drama to zero? I'm cool with it.

Security State? You must be white.
Caveat: I'm a middle class, white, male.
I find it interesting that the majority of this country found it ok that people could be stopped at random, searched, roughed up and jailed on a bogus charge but to be inconvenienced at the airport is an outrage.

Once Again......
I would like to stress that if China and India do not start importing females soon then they are in for a whole lot of social upheaval in the next few decades. If China doesn't end its one child policy soon it is going to need to really liberalize on immigration to deal with the huge increase in retirees going forward. In other words China's ascendancy is in for a rocky furture

Consolation Prize
It appears that although we have seen our retirement funds wither away, debt pile up and had to deal with job insecurity all of that was a rouse win back our jobs from the Chinese!

To limit or not to limit?
I think its moronic that we kid ourself into thinking that putting limits on our debt but not our spending will keep us from appropriating too many funds. With that said I like that it requires us to think about our debt obligations and reassess if it is the right thing to do, regardless of how stupid the debate becomes.

Some Thoughts On Newt's Announcement

You may or may not have heard, but former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich announced that he will in fact run for President of the United States.  This was an announcement that was widely expected for months now. It is also widely expected that Newt will not win the nomination. Why is that known you might ask? It has something to do with his love life and how it plays with this, his thoughts about the seating arrangements on Air Force One, and the fact that Bill Clinton stole his lunch. But of course the news networks will cover him and his run like he matters. Again, your 4th Estate at work!

Some More Thoughts On Bin Laden

Apparently the US and Afghan governments have been holding super secret talks (though if it is appearing on this blog I doubt it is all that secret) with various factions of the Taliban in order to bring them into the government fold. It also appears that the death of Osama bin Laden does not complicate those talks, if anything it makes them easier. According to Ahmed Rashid who spoke on NPR's Fresh Air the death of OBL may negate the personal debt that Taliban leader Mohammed Omar has to Al Qaeda (in particular OBL).

Setting aside the fact that the Taliban peacefully integrating back into Afghan society would be nothing short of amazing, let us contemplate what this would do to US domestic politics. I'm no expert (though I do have a degree in Political Science) but would the Afghan and Iraq* wars ending on Mr. Obama's watch not castrate the national security issue in respect to GOP politics? Not to mention it might give Mr. Obama enough political capital to cut the defense budget significantly.

The point of this brief post really is that if you are thinking of donating to Barack Obama's reelection campaign you may be better off investing in a high end disputes lawyer and buying him a ticket to Kabul.

*George W Bush deserves credit for implementing "The Surge" as well as overseeing "The Awakening" movement among Sunni's in Iraq. Without those policies we may well have seen a much less stable Iraq at this time.

My Thoughts on The Economist May 7th - 13th 2011

Redistricting rows: Not so easy
It warms my heart to see that even in a place like Texas redistricting can still be difficult. Some day this nonsense will stop and all districts will be redrawn by an algorithm. That of course will happen in 2076.

Chicago's new police superintendent: The new blue
Is it not counterintuitive that a chief of police comes from a city other than the one he is from? Does he not need an innate knowledge of the city and the citizenry he is protecting? Wasn't Compstat proved to be a load of bullshit and what really works is boots on the ground and a relationship with your local police department? Am I going crazy?

China's population: The most surprising demographic crisis
I assume that is sarcasm in the title but one never does know. But a country that isn't hitting the replacement rate, has very large "boomer" generation, has about eighteen more boys per hundred girls and has yet to hit democracy/labor movements is definitely going to have some social issues in the future.

Robots and Japan's nuclear disaster: Nukebots
Reason 3294850298 I love Massachusetts, we made the robots that Japan can't make.

Pakistan is on no one's side:
And we better start realizing that sooner rather than later.

Real time advertising is the wave of the wave of the future........
......that is until it isn't.

And what are they going to do when the all those IE users eventually die off and the dominant browsers all support a version of Ad Block? What then Don Draper? What then?!?!

The Beer Market
First of all, that's a lot of Stella in that cart. Second: Stella is actually a shit beer to the rest of the world. Third: it is pronounced Who-Gar-Den. Fourth Craft Brews will be brought in to the fold by the big players just like every other "revolution" in every other market. Fifth: OMG THEY FINALLY FIGURED OUT THAT BEER IS CHEAPER AT THE STORE THAN AT THE BAR?!?! THE APOCALYPSE IS UPON US!!!!

Some Thoughts on Bin Laden

Thought #1

If the US government and the world ran the way I would like then he would have been taken alive and tried for his crimes, a practice offered to US citizens on a daily basis and something we should extend to the world, it would only improve our image. Now if I could have my way in the fullest I would like to see it all go down in the way that Lawrence Wright lays out in his recent appearance on Fresh Air, an Osama bin Laden that sees himself tried for each crime in each of the respective countries that his followers carried out his attacks, which culminates in his being tried under Sharia law in his home country of Saudi Arabia (with the possibility of being beheaded in a public setting). But alas the world is not my oyster.

With all that said and knowing the world in which we live in the actual outcome was probably the best that could have happened. If he were taken alive he would have been taken to Guantanamo Bay and the whole thing would have been mishandled from there for years with him being executed with the Muslim street thinking he was murdered by Americans and not brought to justice. His being shot in the head was the best option and kudos to the Navy Seal team for knowing that that's what their bosses really wanted even though they probably didn't voice it.

Thought #2

This will change very little in the scheme of things. Yes its great that we removed an iconic figure of radical Islam and yes this will set back Al Qaeda quite a bit but the positives end there. The problem is is that this "War on Terror" is a lot like the "War on Drugs", there is only one concrete and state oriented side in this fight where as the opposing faction in this "War" is loosely connected via ideology. And even that bond isn't that strong.

As long as there are people buying the crazy that the Islamists are selling then there will always be Islamists. Offer the Muslim street a better alternative (true democracy perhaps?) and then and only then will you see the Islamists fall by the wayside.

Thought #3

Hey America! How about next time we kill someone we don't like we don't act like we collectively won every major sporting event all at once? K? Thanx!

Yes I know he was a horrible human being and yes I think the world is better off without him but celebrating death never helped any situation in the long term. My point is, as outlined by the previous thought, we don't actually "win" until the rest of the world thinks we are decent people and that we are not out to destroy their way of life. How does dancing on the grave of a man some of them may be sympathetic too achieve that?

And as a fellow "Millennial" I don't buy this closure thing being propagated by my peers yes Osama bin Laden may be dead but that does not mean everything will go back to normal (not in the sense that you knew someone who died on September 11th in that respect I completely understand that this may mean closure and that is not what I am speaking to, I'm speaking to what was discussed in this weeks This American Life).

September 11th altered the fabric of America for good (Lexington speaks well to this) and the worst thing that could happen is if we go back to thinking terrorism is only something that happens "over there" and not to us. The party atmosphere was naive, if not just perfectly American in the sense that we are always looking for an excuse to throw a party.

Further Reading:

Steve Coll on OBL's death

The Economist briefing on OBL's death

NYT Obituary on OBL

The Economist April 30th - May 6th 2011

Cloud Computing's Growing Pains: Break-ins and breakdowns
What I find hilarious about the outrage with the compromising of data online is that people seem to think that this is innately due to the relative newness of the technology and the corresponding market. The thought that overtime this won't happen is ludicrous. People still rob banks, piracy continues to plague the seas and muggings still happen. All this even though we now have security cameras, spend billions on anti piracy measures and personal use of mace and tasers. Online capers will never go away, the stakes will only get higher.

America's transport infrastructure: Life in the slow lane
I love infrastructure projects, and I loathe the lack of train infrastructure in the US. So it should not come as a surprise that I agree that the US is woefully underspending on infrastructure. We are not just talking about potholes either, we area talking about losing economic prowess and jobs to other countries because we make the cost of doing business harder due to our lack of a modern transport network.

America's jobless me: Decline of the working man
And while we are at it why don't we employee the millions of men in the construction trade to improve that said transport infrastructure?

Europe's political parties: The shrinking big tents
While reading this I couldn't help relate it to the fragmentation of TV since the introduction of cable channels. The overwhelming majority of viewers of television in the US used to be held by the big three broadcasting companies ABC, NBC and CBS but now because of the spread of satellite and cable technologies as well as the internet their ratings are shrinking. Like TV ratings votes in political systems that allow for choice (parliamentary systems) are spreading out across the spectrum. This must be because of the internet and the downward cost of advertising that allows people to easily identify and engage with smaller parties instead of having to choose between the political behemoths that used to dominate the market.

Nuptial Economics: Unbridled
A $19,000 signing bonus to marry a woman from the UAE?

Economic Focus: Botox and beancounting
Why do country's report official economic numbers in such varying ways? Do they not realize that they only confuse those who vote? Oh wait....