Stirking out again - 21-24 August 2010

Good day, wizards of the mind and body - while this particular item is about women, I’ve got to wonder whether it’s possible for men as well - with the right kind of mental stimulation, it's possible to achieve physical orgasm without physical stimulation, whcih in some ways seems pretty obvious. After all, “Talk dirty to me” wouldn’t be part of the lexicon if it didn’t have some sort of effectiveness. And just as there are physical ways for strengthening the muscles involved in sex, there are ways of strengthening the mental muscles involved in adding that component to the experience.

Speaking of exercising the mental muscles, another example of egregious whitewashing on a cover, making a stellar book look like the novice offering of a very young and inexperienced Harlequin Romance Fanfic writer. Why don’t authors get some creative control over their book covers? Considering it’s the thing most likely to make a prospective buyer pick up the book or throw it away and flee screaming, one would think that authors should be able to control and accurately represent what’s inside on their covers. As it turns out, after reader complaints, the cover will be redesigned. Interesting that the readers can control when the author, who is presumably the person that knows the most about the characters involved, cannot get any control.

A German historian suggests that a lack of copyright law in Germany spurred a great amount of knowledge, publishing, and reading among the populace at a time when copyright was choking off books in England. Hrm... lot of books available for low cost and a relatively free hand to read, remix, and create new knowledge from it. We could certainly use soem tweaking in our system to encourage more of this.

Continuining his series on how much infrasturcture needs replacing and how much now is the perfect time to do the upgrades, the Slacktivist notes that banks have a giant pool of money that their depositors are throwing at them that they need to spend, and we have a giant infrastructure gap that needs lots of money. He also points out the power grid needs a serious overhaul as well, including the engineers needed to think up how it will be. So all those safe investors can get their interest if the banks and the government would just throw the money out in loans to businesses that want to hire people and do infrastructure work. It’s a win-win for everyone. If we would just, y’know, do it.

And if you want to look into the pretzels that the opponents of Proposition 8 can tie themselves into, observe the Catholic League claiming that the Judge is in error and that nature has already definitively resolved the issue - sex is only between male and female animals in a committed relationship. You may begin laughing, whichever side of the Prop 8 fence you sit on, at your leisure.

Out in the world today, WikiLeaks jumps back into the news, first with confirmation that the Pentagon has been refusing to help Wikileaks in their redaction efforts, perhaps so they can then continue to rail against them as endangering the troops (even though, if they were really interested, they’d help with the redaction). Or perhaps they would rather just throw out charges of rape and molestation (from Sweden) that are then suddenly withdrawn without reason, after they've done their job to smear the founder in the court of public opinion, and to bascially make those people who have suffered rape that much less likely to be taken seriously.

The motivations behind the arrest of a high-profile target in Afghanistan show two countries working together with very different agendas - one focused on terrorism, the other on projection of political power. As soldiers continue to fight hard in tough zones, hoping that they can beat out the Taliban long enough for a different government to take root, there is always the wonder that instead of being the black queen, the United States is the black pawn.

Finally, crank your paranoia up some as Iran unveils its first unmanned aerial bomber. Taking that cue and running with it, we also find out the Iranian president taunted the United States military, saying they were beaten by a small army in Iraq and that Israel is condemning the nuclear power plant in Iran, meaning someone’s going to look like they were goaded into glassing the place if it happens.

Domestic news begins with the Colorado governor candidate who is against a bike-share program because it's a secret conspiracy to make the state subject to the United Nations, and will lead to other programs, like population control and abortions. Politics is fascinating, sometimes, but this time around, it seems we don’t have to dig to find the fringe - it’s right there in the open for us. One of the clear fountains of the weird is candidate Sharron Angle, who returns to the news this time for crusading against the change of a high school's football jerseys to the color black because it was "thoroughly evil, invoking the supernatural and especially the devil". Said team had done so as an attempt to break a winless streak that lasted all the way through the previous year.

Furthermore, several complaints filed with the Military Religious Freedom Foundation allege that soldiers were punished for choosing not to attend a concert of evangelical Christian bands put on by the commander of the unit. Punishment for not attending? Sounds like there needs to be both investigations and demotions, if not dishonorable discharges, for those who chose to restrict the First Amendment rights of soldiers through these actions. At least those soldiers aren’t being told they have to burn copies of the Qu'ran, as this church will willingly do.

When it comes to procedure in the federal legislature, the party out of powr, or the lobbyists about to be screwed badly from an upcoming decision are suddenly very fond of procedure and doing things by the book, if it gives them more time to stall, lobby, and buy votes. When they’re in power, though, full speed ahead - no time for anyone to question their enlightenment.

The city of Philadelphia wants you to pay $300 for a license to blog, if you should happen to make any revenue related to that blogging, and pay them taxes on your profits.

In technology, the increasing use of wireless electronic systems in cars, as well as the wireless electronic systems in telephones could create a serious security vulnerability that would disable cars and spread from car to car when they were in close proximity. Such that a malicious attacker could cause cars on the freeway to simply stop working and create collisions with other cars.

Speaking of vulnerabilities - with the right kind of time and data, one can reprogram a voting machine to run PAC-MAN, without breaking any of the tamper seals. I looked at that machine, and I think it’s in use in our county. So I’m guessing it’s pretty easy to steal votes on it, too.

Apparently, someone is committing fraud and draining people's Paypal and linked accounts through iTunes, which is fairly impressive on the number of hops, but very bad in that one service, tied to another, allows for one hack to use the other like that.

An update - the school that spied on its students using their laptop webcams? No charges for them, because there was apparently no "criminal intent". I hope conservatives who are all about strict reading of the laws are up in arms about this inappropriate use of judgment. For myself, Ithought that the act was what was criminalized. Intent might mitigate how harshly one might be punished, but if the act was done and is criminal, they should at least be charged with it.

In happier materials, some pretty impressive mpg in the eco-contests - why aren't we seeing designs like these get into the mainstream? Also, the possibility of an HIV-killing protein that works in rhesus monkeys.

And finally, right before opinions, a study that analyzed the changes in language that happen when your boss, or a CEO, is bullshitting you.

Now we can put those skills to work in the opinion section, where, in certain parts of the political spectrum, you will be told repeatedly that liberals and special interests intend on destroying America by making you feel like it's a bad, bad, country, using that pesky discipline we call “history” to provide evidence for the point. They will supplement that idea with one that says the country is beyond racism now - what we&apors;re discussing is culture and politics, so that anyone accusing another citizen of racism or having a philosophy that works on race-based ideas on any hot-button issue of the now is using a word they do not know the meaning of. This, while promoting their own ideologues as being only interested in the country, patriotism, and pride, despite those ideologues openly working to undermine the guarantees of religious freedom provided by the Constitution and to restore the country to some nameless past time, with the warts, cancers, and ugly oozing pustules of that society fully intact. They will claim that it is all about upholding the values of the country, instead of accepting or advocating for the perverted versions pushed by the current government that are used as weapons against one particular group or nets to ensnare people into dependence on the government.

They will write tirades about how environmental and green technologies are being fast-tracked by the government, while the potential cure for cancer or HIV-1 languishes in the slow bureaucratic lane, and accuse the administration of having misplaced priorities.

While championing that the American public’s opinion should be paramount in things like whether health care legislation was actually a good thing, or in places like whether two men or two women can enjoy the legal protections and benefits of marriage, these people believe that if the majority of the populace feels the Iraq War was a failure, then it’s clearly because they don't see the accomplishments and the great things done that will make Iraq a success story in the future.

They will insist that any problems with legislation not passing are entirely the fault of the majority party not being able to get things done, with no mention at all to the minority that has made it their mission to make sure nothing gets done, and then complain when the administrator takes a vacation or stumps to raise money for his party. Because when their guy was in charge, he never took vacations or stumped for his political party. (Passing legislation, well, not as much trouble with that, although the Dirty Tricks Brigade would have a field day looking at all the string-pulling.)

They can attempt to scare you with the idea that America wasting tons of money on ineffective foreign organizations with the support of the government. Or that your right to a secret ballot on whether to unionize or not will be taken away by legislation, and that the “forced” unionization of millions of businesses will result in jobs lost and productivity killed, because unions are evil, stopping companies from firing those who bring them down and preventing the hiring of new people with their unreasonable demands for good wages and benefits. (Those same people, of course, will tell you that shifting the burden of health care and retirement onto the government's back is “socialism” and similarly unacceptable.)

Some of them may fetishize the great responsibility and fraternity that military service is, with its weighty history and mindlessly root for the troops to “win”, no matter the cost of lives, material, treasure, or reputation that war and conflict inevitably brings.

And they have the data to back it up, too - coming from their favorite pollsters, who might be on to accurately predicting how people who vote will vote, which is the metric of use in these games, not any measure of right and wrong, truth and fiction, but percentage points, ahead or behind. These people also have plenty of money backing their agendas.

The best part about it? As anyone can and will point out, when the role reversal happens, most of this will still apply, whether from the party in power to the opposition, or the opposition to the party in power. Some of the names may change, but the situation stays the same. The problems that plagued your opposition will plague you, as well. And you’ll still ahve to deal with the bias of the people who really affect the populace - the media, whether official or blog. We Are Not Unbiased.

Last for tonight, though, a science fiction magazine is printing its ninth issue on clay tablets. And in digital form available on the web, too.

Big Thinky - The Heritage Foundation Solutions only create problems.

The long-promised report from Heritage about how broken the country is and how Inherently Superior Conservatism will win the day for us all has arrived. “Solutions for America” starts with an overview of the standard Conservative/Teabagger world: The country is in massive danger due to federal bureaucrats spending what they don’t have, interfering with the Inherently Superior mechanisms of the private market to enrich their friends, encroaching on the provinces of state and local government and stifling their ability to innovate, destroying the private sector in the process, cutting our military interests and leaving us vulnerable to state-based or non state-based attacks, and transforming the vital American populace into a bunch of handout-dependent sheep who pay too much in taxes and costs. The people are concerned that their futures are not bright, and governemnt is to blame for all of it. Pay no attention to the CEOs and other bandits laughing their asses off behind the curtain.

Based on their polling, majorities of Americans (sorry, what percentages?) apparently believe:

• America is an exceptional nation worth preserving and defending, and the best way to do so is through military strength.

The first you can get away with, the second you cannot. It took the spectre of “terrorists everywhere! onoes!” and “weapons of mass destruction! for realz!” to sell the populace on the two land wars in Asia. In other words, fear. Fear that started with the idea that the Communists were going to launch the bomb and/or take over the world. Americans believe in military strength, sure, but I’m inclined to believe they think of it more as “being able to squish things that we’re afraid of quickly”. Besides, aren’t we supposed to be for civilian control of the military and against people who impose military juntas?


• America’s virtues are such that, when an immigrant settles here, he should embrace our culture, values, and heritage rather than become isolated in the culture, heritage, and language of his country of origin;

Ooh. I want to see the wording on that question - it makes it sound like the country is totally “ASSIMILATE NOW. LEAVE YOUR ETHNIC ORIGINS BEHIND”, when it’s probably more like “Well, they should at least learn English and abandon those pesky things that say you can kill women for looking at another man without their husband's permission.” Most people are okay with keeping ethnic heritage, including cooking, so long as that heritage doesn’t hinder our ability to interact with them and make them a productive tax-payer.


• The government has too much power, wastes too much money, and cannot be trusted to pursue the right priorities; therefore it should be smaller in size and more limited in scope;

On what? I believe the government is wasting trillions of dollars in fraud, graft, and waste hiring military contractors because we don’t have enough soldiers to do the job. Heritage believes the government is wasting trillions of dollars giving lazy people handouts that let them stay unemployed and alive instead of scrambling to take the lowest low-wage job that will have them just so they can have an income and not starve. In both instances, the government could be characterized as having too much power, wasting too much money, and pursuing the wrong priorities. Everyone thinks the government is too big on something...


• The closer a government is to the citizen, the more effectively it will spend the citizen’s tax dollars; i.e., the federal government wastes the most, state governments somewhat less, and local governments waste the smallest portion of each tax dollar;

Wellllllll...maaaaybe? The residents in Bell, California had a bit of a rude awakening about the fraud from their local officials. What’s more likely is that there’s a lot less punditry and talking heads about how much the local government is wasting money, so people aren’t as aware about it. That said, local governments also generally have to spend their budgets on things people want - police services, fire services, libraries, schools, et cetera. There’s not usually a lot of wiggle room there. (Oh, and local taxes are usually based in different things, like sales and property, than the federal ones, that are usually income-based. Smaller pool of money, and smaller bites, usually, from the paycheck.)


• Government regulations usually backfire and generate unintended consequences, whether it be in lowering the quality and increasing the cost of our health care or negatively affecting businesses in other policy areas;

Corporate policies usually work as intended, lowering the quality and increasing the cost of our items, including health care and negatively affecting businesses in other areas. At one point or another, everyone is going to get burnt by an unintended consequence of something, be it regulation or the CEO’s decision that they want another $300,000 car. We’re human - things happen and stuff goes kerflooey. We’re also human in that we will devise excellent schemes to maximize profit, often at the cost of lives, health, and safety. (Also, count the “Obamacare” dig there.)


• The best way to promote job creation and economic growth is by exerting a lighter regulatory touch, which includes lightening the burden of environmental regulations;

(Aaaand here’s the climate change one.) Oooh, ncie sleight of mind there - regulations are the problem! Regulations must be killed. Except for one tiny problem - regulations derive from laws. If the law says something must happen, then there is almost always a regulation involved in spelling out what the targets are and ensuring that it does happen. Even if there was a “lighter regulatory touch”, meaning “corporations should be able to get away with flouting the law if they want”, the laws still apply. And deregulation can result in disasters, like Deepwater Horizon, or the financial sector meltdown from the subprime mortgage crisis. That’s your “lighter regulatory touch” at work.


• Government should not use its power to pick winners and losers, whether it be policies that grant preferences to unions, certain racial groups, trial lawyers, corporate subsidy-seekers, or other politically connected entities;

“Government should shun groups that support Democrats. Those that support Republicans are a-ok! Also, black people, poor people, and other minorities - shut up about inequality. You got more than you deserved already.”


• Welfare recipients should be required to work in exchange for their benefits;

Because everyone who is on welfare is lazy and could find a job, even in this economy where five people apply for one position on average, and the jobs available to people are at minimum wage or close to that, which wouldn’t be enough for most people to live on and pay their bills. The fact that the “welfare queen” and/or “career welfare” idea is a lie on the same order as Barack Obama’s
Kenyan birth origins means nothing when you poll people’s perceptions.


• Judges should make decisions based on what is written in the Constitution or clearly delineated in the law, and not on the basis of their own viewpoints and feelings.

“Activist judges are bad, because they keep reminding us that we’re not actually equal and they use things like empathy in their decisions. When they let corporations donate to political causes and reinforce that inequality, though, their activism is fine with us.”

Heritage then goes into the highlights of their report on what their “Solutions for America” are. (Some have been rearranged from their original order to produce themes.) Starting at the very top with:

• Place a firm cap on overall federal spending, and limit future year-to-year growth to inflation plus population growth. Federal spending is on an unsustainable trajectory because we lack a mechanism that forces Congress to live within agreed upon spending limits. A binding cap will force lawmakers to make the tough decisions required to get us back to fiscal sanity.

For an organization that is going to be all about states’ rights and local power, I’m surprised they started with this. Why? Because they can survey the various state governments that have these kinds of spending initiatives in the law. What will they see? Underfunded services that have to seek ballot measures to reapprove their levies or for any sort of increase in them past the point of the spending cap. And the people still complain about the tax burden they have to carry, because you’re not going to be the person who votes down the fire department, are you?

Having stumbled hard outside the gate, they look to regain their footing with the next item.


• Require the Big Three entitlement programs—Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security—to live within firm, Congressionally approved budgets. If Congress is ever to control spending, it must end the era of open-ended entitlements. Currently, Big Three spending is on autopilot—increasing automatically year after year. Entitlement spending must be brought into the congressional budgetary process. Lawmakers should establish a five-year budget for these programs and include protective mechanisms, such as triggers, that will automatically keep spending within the congressionally approved limits
.
So, in this case, the budget is whatever Congress decides is appropriate for them. It will be an easy task for a party insistent that entitlements be shrunk to nothing and Social Security be privatized to pass those underfunded budgets and then tout the virtues of the Inherently Superior private market in wealth creation. It's all part of the plan to reduce spending by forcing privatization. And then they’ll laugh when the market crashes and all that retirement wealth goes with it, leaving seniors with absolutely nothing to do but work until they die in jobs that likely won’t provide health care to them. Wait, what’s that?


• Liberate employed seniors from payroll taxes. As part of the broader effort to reform entitlement programs, seniors who wish to work beyond retirement age should be freed from the burden of paying Social Security payroll taxes. Employers willing to retain or hire these older workers also should be exempt from paying the employer share of the FICA tax.

As part of their budget magic for entitlement programs, they’re also going to remove a bunch of people and companies from contributing money in, ostensibly as the carrot to employers to retain their older workers and keep them working instead of shuffling them off to retirement. Except that puts seniors in an unenviable position - keep working for a slightly higher wage and not draw Social Security, while also letting one’s employer enjoy the tax break, or retire and hope that one can live on the benefit plus some small amount of extra work or private retirement income that has been saved up and wasn’t wiped out in a market crash.


• Limit the unsustainable growth of welfare spending, and require recipients to give something back. Aggregate welfare spending now approaches $1 trillion annually and does more harm than good. Congress must treat all 71 means-tested welfare programs holistically, as a discrete category of federal spending, and cap annual year-to-year welfare spending growth at inflation. This will force Congress to consider new approaches that could actually help the poor surmount poverty. To this end, Congress should require able-bodied adults to treat a portion of certain welfare benefits as loans to be repaid rather than as an open-ended grant from taxpayers.

Yep, that’s right - all welfare spending is to be considered as one, and worse, capped at inflation, despite the proven suckitude of inflation-capped spending in the states. But with less money, of course, those lazy people would have to go find jobs quickly, or be turned down at the outset so they couldn’t become welfare kings and queens, and instead we’d be able to create the proper underclass to fill all our low-wage, no-benefit jobs and force everyone else to accept less wages and benefits with the threat that they’d have to fight each other for unemployment, ah-hah-ah-hah-hahahaha!

And if that wasn’t bad enough, if you do manage to win the lottery and get unemployment, you’re going to have to pay it back with your nonexistent wages, or your minimum-wage, no benefits job as you already try to wrestle with your other bills. Because, despite all our talk of wanting to get you out of poverty, we really want you to stay there so we can use you as a political tool and weapon any time we want.

Heaven help you if you work for the government, too.


• Pay federal workers wages and benefits comparable to what their counterparts earn in the private sector. Federal employee compensation is far too generous. Total compensation—hourly wages plus benefits—is 30–40% above that of comparable private sector workers. By bringing federal compensation in line with market rates, Congress would save taxpayers approximately $47 billion a year.

So by either cutting wages or benefits, probably benefits, because that also will help make you feel vulnerable, scared, and fiercely protective of what little scraps you have...oh, and you’ll also be able to enjoy the great feeling all the uninsured have about how what they make every month isn’t going to cover premiums and definitely won’t cover any sort of preventative maintenance or emergencies.

Then, they’re ready to tackle the other discretionary sectors by...


• Revive federalism. The federal government has usurped the states’ traditional role in areas such as transportation, education, health (especially Medicaid), homeland security, and law enforcement. Washington must cede vast swatches of its policymaking authority—and the funding that goes with it—to states willing to reassume leadership in these areas.

So if Texas wants to teach creationism in its schools, there should be no federal oversight on that. In fact, there should be no such thing as federal standards for schools, national transportation and road authorities, or any sort of requirements that law enforcement not be totally all about the racial profiling. SB 1070? Totally okay, and the feds should never interfere with that kind of decision-making. Banning mosques because they’re obviously terrorist training camps, no matter what they say? Fine with us, even if there’s a Constitutional amendment about free exercise.

So, after reducing the defecit by reducing entitlement spending, by reducing wages and benefits for government workers, and then getting rid of as much discretionary spending as they can, they turn their eye to another big sector, like, say, the military-industrial complex, and say:


• Invest in peace through strength. A robust military is the surest way to deter aggression and reinforce U.S. diplomacy. To accomplish this, the Pentagon procurement holiday must end. Congress must refurbish our armed forces, especially our depleted Navy fleet and vital missile defenses.


...we’re going to spend anything we “save” by gutting the safety net on more military spending and contractors. If they were serious about deficit spending, they’d be advocating for getting rid of the highly expensive wars, the wasteful contractors, and in reducing the active forces number down so that we don’t spend so much in another big sector of the economy.

So, having figured out what they’re going to do about spending, they’re ready to turn to the income side of the equation. Heritage being who they are, I’m sure they have a robust plan to increase federal revenues so as to balance the budget and possibly generate a surplus...


• Do no harm. Tax increases, especially those loaded on small-business owners (our most productive and entrepreneurial individuals), are counterproductive at any time. To raise taxes during a recession is a recipe for crippling economic growth and job creation. Maintaining the tax burden at its current level is the least Congress should do.


• Encourage investment and job creation. Reduce the top tax rate on corporate earnings—currently the second highest among all industrial nations—and let businesses immediately deduct investments in new plant and equipment. These two changes to the tax code will unleash the most productive investment and create the most private sector jobs. Specifically, lawmakers should align the top rate on corporate earnings to those that prevail in our 30 largest trading partners—approximately 25%.

...right.

So the Heritage solution for America is to go back to the way things were - reduced revenues, increased military spending, assuming that tax cuts are stimulative (which they aren’t all that much), and cutting or privatizing anything that looks like a program that the government can administer well or that would help the poor when they’re in need of assistance. Is that the contract with America that we want?