Not All Cultures Are Equal

She called someone else "absolutely stark raving mad." Awesome, right?

Paper Bottles

1.5 Terabytes, Stack the Memory to the Sky

I've been trying to tell ya...

My home state does it right, homeslice. Not always (see recently passed Proposition 102), but definitely on daylight savings time. We don't observe it because it doesn't reduce energy consumption. Turns out, it might actually do the opposite in Indiana (from WSJ):

Having the entire state switch to daylight-saving time each year, rather than stay on standard time, costs Indiana households an additional $8.6 million in electricity bills. They conclude that the reduced cost of lighting in afternoons during daylight-saving time is more than offset by the higher air-conditioning costs on hot afternoons and increased heating costs on cool mornings.

Those researchers, only days ago, said in a recent Times Op-ed, "Arizona, one of the hottest states, may have it right; it does not practice daylight time." Hottest, baby.

And BB says our new pres wants to axe it. Gobama!

100 Days

Good morning,

I have so far supported Senator Obama for the Democratic presidential nomination. But I am still curious about how he prioritizes the challenges that confront all of us? (The Economist is curious about the specifics too.) What does he do in the first 100 days of his presidency?

PS: I also engage in a very lazy form of news distribution: my Google Reader shared items. At least one of you has found it interesting. Get an inside track on high level politics, technology trends, and capital markets. Here you are. At least you would have known that house prices were almost certainly poised to fall. If a year too early. Thanks!

Temporarily

I've re-registered temporarily as a Demoncrat to vote in the February 5th Arizona Primary.

The Green Demon

Money enters campaigns through a new avenue, the Times pointed out yesterday. Basically, non-profits will buy TV advertisements to promote their issue, all the while promoting a particular candidate's work thereof, even when the issue doesn't merit the airtime:

The so-called Wounded Warriors Act, legislation intended to improve health care for veterans, has attracted nearly unanimous, bipartisan support in Congress. So why would the newly formed Foundation for a Secure and Prosperous America begin running a television commercial urging the citizens of South Carolina to tell Congress to pass it?

The answer lies in the commercial’s glowing images of Senator John McCain, the Arizona Republican banking on a South Carolina victory to jump-start his cash-poor Republican primary campaign. The group that paid for the advertisement operates independently of Mr. McCain’s campaign, but was set up and financed by his supporters seeking to help him as much as possible up to the limits of the law.

Highlight of the whole business:

Mr. McCain has crusaded for years against just this sort of unencumbered political spending and has publicly called upon the foundation to stop the advertisement, a request competitors say seems half-hearted and the group’s leader has ignored.

I don't think it was a planned venture, but I'm not sure it matters. After someone knows that a group backs her/him because a particular stance, will they be willing to to reconsider given new information? Won't the carrot of continued support hold them in place? That's the problem with money in politics. Any ideas on how we're going to solve that? I hate the idea of federal finds, but it seems like one of those lesser evil things now.

Free Rice

The site blows my mind. Participate!

This Gender Thing is History

But let me tell you, this gender thing is history. You're looking at a guy who sat down with Margaret Thatcher across the table and talked about serious issues.
--George H. W. Bush

I don't know whether to be appalled or incredulous about the World Gender Equality rankings. Didn't we solve this question a number of years ago? I mean, there's only four areas of assessment: differences between men and women's salaries, access to education, political representation and health including life expectancy. Shouldn't we be doing better? It makes me wonder if there still people in the U.S. that would agree that it's permissible to pay women less for doing the same job.

Salaries, access to education, health? I'm willing to hear arguments about political representation and potentially consider that a person doesn't necessarily have to look like me to represent my beliefs, but the other standards are undoubtedly factors we talk about in the U.S. as points of pride, right? Maybe I've got this all wrong, but I'm pretty sure I learned in school, "America is better, cuz we're free and equal." Damn teachers, lied to me.

A Novel Take

I have have spent some number of pixels on the Turk-American-Kurd issue. While the Kurds can carryout hit-and-run attacks against Turkish troops, I have been curious about the end game. How do the conflicting interests resolve? As usual, John Robb presents a plausible scenario, applying his global guerilla heuristic to the question.

Current tightness in the oil markets (peak oil?) has presented the PKK, the Kurdish guerrilla group fighting the Turkish government, with an amazing opportunity. It can become responsible for sending oil prices over $100 a barrel and sowing panic in global markets.

How? This objective can be accomplished through a series of attacks on the BTC pipeline that runs from Azerbaijan to the Turkish port of Ceyhan (in a fashion similar to earlier attacks that PKK has made on less substantial pipelines). With over 750,000 barrels of oil flow a day (1 m a day next year) over 1,092 miles of pipeline, ongoing disruption would result in [several consequential outcomes].

Please click through for the full text.

Pharrell Williams, etc

It can't just be me. Pharrell is getting better. That's quite an achievement given the critic's judgement in 2006. From that spot, Mr Williams' "Blue Magic" is sincerely sinister. It plays like inevitability -- the drums sound like fate itself knocking from the speaker. A preliminary video is below. (Aside: "Blue Magic"'s drums require playback with deep bass. And volume. And a chip on your shoulder.)



Williams' versatility matches his excellence for expressing specific moods -- such as the vanity, fun, and exceptionalism, for which he's most famous. Timberlake party track? The Jam. He's got range. See 'despondent' under 'd' in his alphabetically sorted discography. Pharrell's lyrics amplify the sentiment: "I'm out of my mind, I'm running from guilt, but there's no one around". Despondent is cross referenced with 'saudade' in the 'S' section.

PS: My co-editor's claims to London compel me to keep the pulse of British hip hop: "acting immaturely in a hurry to be old" is an unforgettable irony. I follow New Orleans' best MC out of habit. Minnesota's Minne-appleseed continues to release hit records -- herewith Brother Ali (myspace):



"I just don't believe in quitin' time"



Brother Ali is label mates with Slug. Who is a label mate to Eyedea. Slug and Eyedea rap together. MTV's Sway was easily won over.

In conclusion, a link festival for Slug and Atmosphere: most accessible and pop-like, a good live performance("the patience is short and, of course, the pride is way too tall"), the song that originally turned me on in 1999 (the linked video was produced by a fan). With a live band, Slug slayed a Jimmy Kimmel Show performance in 2006:



"peace, make steps, on the run with BDP in tape deck"

Slug's rapped with lots of folks. In addition to Eyedea, he's recently hooked up with Los Angeles' Murs to create an entity named Felt. They worked well together -- the evidence is posted here for your review:



"but in the middle of the night, reached for a second helpin', got a handful of sheets, I was all by myself, and"

The second song in this couplet is a personal favorite. It's about gratitude.

Social Cartography

Linked without commentary.

Portraits

The New York Times gives character portraits of the presidential candidates holding JDs; NPR has been running a sometimes interesting series about the candidates' first campaign. One listens to these stories seeking a nugget of information that will inform performance in 2008.

Tomorrow's Forecast

"[A] rising, not a setting, sun"
--Benjamin Franklin

(via Brad DeLong)

Continued Brilliance

I can't believe the things that Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-CO) comes up with. I'm beside myself after reading this Times article. Yesterday, he kept up his promise to America...

Representative Tom Tancredo of Colorado, a Republican presidential candidate whose fierce opposition to illegal immigration is the center of his campaign, contacted the immigration service yesterday demanding that agents raid a senator’s news conference.

The afternoon event on Capitol Hill was held by Senator Richard J. Durbin, Democrat of Illinois and the leading sponsor of a bill that would give legal status to illegal immigrants who are high school graduates, if they attend college or serve in the United States military for two years. The bill is scheduled to come up for an important procedural vote in the Senate this morning.

Mr. Tancredo announced yesterday morning that he had contacted Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the federal agency, calling for the arrest of illegal immigrants he said would attend the news conference.

“If we can’t enforce our laws inside the building where American laws are made, where can we enforce them?” Mr. Tancredo said in a statement.

Comedy Mondays

How hot was Anderson as blogger? Those posts were so money, I've made him a permanent contributor. And in his honor, I give you E.R.A. Comedy Mondays. I loved it from his All The Riches Baby blogging days, and I'm importing it for the good of DR readers. Today's edition comes via Zach via Opinionator:

The political experts have found Mike Huckabee’s presidential campaign to be less than a Delta Force for change, mostly because his money-raising has been Missing in Action. Now, however, comes an announcement that could lift Huckabee’s sails, or at least karate-chop them: Chuck Norris has endorsed Huckabee’s candidacy.

“Like most of you, over the summer and into the fall, I’ve been watching, listening, studying and praying about who could lead this country as our next president,” Norris writes at WorldNetDaily. He adds:

I won’t leave you in suspense. Though Giuliani might be savvy enough to lead people, Fred Thompson wise enough to wade through the tides of politics, McCain tough enough to fight terrorism and Romney business-minded enough to grow our economy, I believe the only one who has all of the characteristics to lead America forward into the future is ex-Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee.

Norris says he chose Huckabee for his “integrity, commitment, truthfulness and respect” and because Huckabee “is a compassionate Christian conservative. Though solid in his faith and standing for traditional family values, he’s not an uncaring extremist.”

Norris also compares the former Arkansas governor to, yes, King David:

Seven men were poised and paraded for the position of king, but David was left in the field shepherding because he wasn’t “a frontrunner in the polls.” They overlooked the best because they were too busy judging by outward appearance. But God appointed David king.

The folks who run The Palmetto Scoop think that Norris’s article will secure the White House for Huckabee: “Huckabee will now be unstoppable. And by unstoppable, we mean they face the wrath of a man who is rumored to have played Russian Roulette with a fully loaded gun and won and who reportedly grinds his coffee with his teeth and boils the water with his own rage.”

Norris’s endorsement is quite serious, though it isn’t being treated that way in blogland. But hey, if two of the stars of the action movie “Predator” ­– Jesse Ventura and Arnold Schwarzenegger — can become governors, why can’t the star of “Walker, Texas Ranger” become a presidential kingmaker?

On Friday

Why Now?

I remain curious about the timing of Foreign Affairs Armenian genocide vote. All of the available evidence suggests that local politics principally informed the committee members' votes: election year plus Armenian constituents equals 'yay' vote.

George Harris, a former State Department analyst now at the Middle East Institute, said the machinations of domestic politics were playing a key role in the affair -- one year out from the next presidential elections.

"The Democrats won control of Congress and they have to show they can do something," he said, adding that Pelosi, like many others who support the bill have powerful constituents in the Armenian community.

I looked for district demographic data to support that, but it wasn't immediately forthcoming. Nevertheless, the "all politics is local" model seems sensible enough. And where the geopolitical repercussions were so apparent that even President Bush anticipated them, it's doubly disappointing. (After all, the President is a man that expected to spend $50B liberating Iraq -- one ninth of the spend to date.)

In end, I'm just happy to see that the responsibility of government isn't affecting the Democratic moralistic ethos:

The committee this week passed the bill to the full House floor after Lantos had called a vote of "conscience" and argued the United States had a moral duty to describe the killings as "genocide" despite the consequences.

Oh, brother.

The same "conscience" doesn't flinch at the sight of Turkish tanks rolling towards northern Iraq's Kurds, and the American soldiers there?

Atmosphere

Square Hole, Round Peg

I'm not saying that Sullivan is wrong here, maybe not even inconsistent, but it's still a curious calculus of facts, and negations. On the one hand, speaking of Congress:

The decision...to make...a point about the Armenian genocide of almost a
century ago is foolish in the extreme.

And of course, this type of recognition isn't an entirely novel thing in American history. Reagan equated the Armenian genocide with the Holocaust. On the other hand, speaking of that 1940's horror:

It is easy to become numb to an outrage. But what just happened in Tehran -
the Holocaust denial conference - really requires us ">not to give in to
numbness. Anyone who seriously wants to question the fact of one of the
greatest crimes in human history is a monster. Period.

So, it's wrong for the American Congress to recognize the American genocide; it's also wrong for the Iranian president to not recognize the Jewish genocide. Perhaps agnosticm of genocides is the safest position.

You may have noticed the ellipses in my excerpt of Sullivan. That deliberate rhetorical tactic modified this statement in Sullivan's original:

The decision to antagonize our most important ally in the war against Islamist
extremism to make a symbolic point about the Armenian genocide of almost a
century ago is foolish in the extreme.

Sullivan leaps to conclusions that warrant parsing. "The decision to antagonize" -- no. One of the effects of the Congressional decisions was to antagonize the Turks. At least if you accept the superficial facts. Why this? Why now? Middle Eastern politics, a storm of oil, money, identity politics, (and 150K American soldiers) begs those questions.

Even the most naive observer of the young Turks recognizes this gesture's insult. The Turks' backlash is fomenting. That diplomatic recall is likely prelude; escalations would see Turkish incursions into Kurdish controlled northern Iraq to relieve Turkey of long standing irritants. The United States has hitherto contained that violent impulse.

Underscoring that freshly possible scenario, Democrat Tom Lantos argued: "We have to weigh the desire to express our solidarity with the Armenian people... against the risk that it could cause young men and women in the uniform of the United States armed services to pay an even heavier price than they are currently paying."

The Congressional committee vote crossed party lines.

Some things just don't seem to fit where they should.

Full disclosure: I'm long energy interests. And apologies to those using feed readers.