Silver Adept (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
silveradept) wrote2010-02-02 01:11 pm
silveradept) wrote2010-02-02 01:11 pm
And now, another installment of Yesterday's News - 30 January-1 February 2010
Greetings, people of knowledge and technology! Over the weekend, a rather interesting fracas broke out - Amazon accused MacMillan of gouging readers with their plans to introduce e-books above the $9.99 ceiling imposed by Amazon. In retaliation, Amazon pulled all of MacMillan's titles from being sold directly by them, although they were still available from third parties, basically freezing them out of any Kindle sales.
Cue reactions. Starting with Mr. Stross on how the whole thing woks out and why Amazon's decision is important, Tobias Buckell rewrites the comment to make more sense to him, Lee Goldberg on why the reasoning mentioned is silly, Mr. Westerfeld points out the shenaningans involved he sees, as does Laura Ann Gilman. As a consequence, Justine Greene pulled mentions of Amazon from her correspondence and site, and encourages others to do the same. Last of this kerfuffle, Jon Scalzi points out all the ways that Amazon botched their statement, and their response, such that they made themselves into the bad guys and alienated the people they really needed to be on their side - authors, fans, and people who buy stuff.
On the other side of the coin, though, is![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
bradhicks. The Infamous Brad sides with Amazon, believing MacMillian is attempting to dictate to booksellers and Amazon what they must charge for their books.
The Air Force Academy in Denver has a spot for Earth-centered religions to gather, helping tuen their image away from being somewhere that non-Christians suffer harrassment and denial of their ability to worship.
Also, has it been 15 years since Calvin and Hobbes ended? I still miss the kid and his tiger. Bill Watterson gave a short interview about the strip, fifteen years on and still regrets nothing.
Finally, of professional interest, a telephone box has been turned into an exchange library, after the mobile library service stopped for the area. We're still waiting to see whether it can be quickly converted into a TARDIS-summoning device. Plus, an author on how fears of technology replacing books are overblown and a short piece on the ALA Notable Books Chair, Dr. Dresang, the Beverly Clearly Children's Literature Chair at the University of Washington, someone I have had the privilege of meeting.
Out in the world today, Sir Terry Pratchett indicated his willingness to be a test case to get assisted death legalized in the United Kingdom. And speaking of the UK, in advance of his visit there, the Pope criticized the UK's position as being in the Century of the Fruitbat and requiring places like adoption agencies to be nondiscriminatory. (Which then closed off several of the Catholic adoption agencies, because they could not, in good conscience, give up their prejudice against homosexuals.)
United States missiles and ships are on their way to the Persian Gulf, supposedly as a deterrent in case Iran should decide to test any weapons capability they have. Not that Iraq is quiet - a female bomber killed 54 in Baghdad, detonating inside a way station for pilgrims of one of the two main Islamic factions.
In domestic news, California's Senate ignored a veto threat from the Governor and approved a plan for single-payer health care in the state. This would be interesting. A successful model could be federalized, an unsuccessful model provides information on how to make the next one better.
Not that anything will come of it, plans to invade Iraq and oust Saddam were drawn up a full two years before the actual invasion, which makes it more and more likely that Iraq was a convenient target for the last administration. The document itself was drawn up even before the 11 September attacks, so it seems very likely that this invasion was going to happen regardless of what got in the way.
On the matter of the Pants on Fire bomber, his visa was apparently not revoked because doing so might have jeapordized a larger investigation into al-Qaeda actions. That would make a little bit more sense. That it happeend to almost go horribly, horribly wrong is something worth thinking about, though.
The possibility of a lockout looms large on a small town tied completely to the local borax mine. The company is citing losses and wants the union to budge on the way things have been there for years.
Analysis on why people vote against their own best interests - because they've been scared or appealed to emotionally so effectively that it overrides the facts. That emotional appeal can be as simple as "Look at the guy with the numbers. He's an elitist nerd who wants government to make decisions for you." It can also be phrased as "The educated class think they know how to run the government, and believe they're doing things in your best interest that you're too stupid to understand", provoking resentment, regardless of whether the premise about your intelligence is true.
Or, on a different note, "we should stop the EPA because climate data is severely flawed, based partially on the e-mails of researchers taken out of context". "We must praise the 'heretics' of climate change, because they buck the consensus" (Or, actually, The General's endorsement of the resolution in Utah.)
So let's see how the reaction to a $3.83 trillion USD budget proposition goes, whether it's numbers and facts based or emotions-based.
Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington hopes that members of Congress do not attend the "National Prayer Breakfast" on 4 February because it both gives legitimacy to the idea that Christianity is a state-sponsored religion and because it is a recruiting effort for The Fellowship Foundation, creator of groups like "The Family", a shadowy organization that seeks to do its work by converting government officials to its cause.
On more conventional political matters, Mr. Brown intends to be his own person on several matters in the Congress, voting with his part on economic issues, but siding with the opposition on some social issues. As it should be - strictly voting the party line is not good for your re-election chances, unless your party runs off an improbable string of right decisions. Mr. Fund interviews Mr. Brown as he gets settled into his new job.
An actual bill to repeal the "don't ask, don't tell" policy may face an upward slog in both houses of Congress, because there are enough Republicans and conservaDems to make passage difficult. It seems absurd that a basic wrong such as this would face a long battle, but then again, we're not exactly stellar on the wider treatment of homosexuals, either.
Revenge against collectors in the form of Craig Cunningham, a man who sues debt collectors when they break the law, something pretty easy for them to do if they're not up on their law. there is a certain appeal to getting debt collectors off your back by hitting them with suits, so long as you can afford them and can spend the time doing so.
And last out, in the significantly more conspiracy-theory department, the accusation that the four men in Senator Landrieu's office were really a CIA-trained black-operations squad.
In technology, NASA joins the e-book department with a book on the X-15 hypersonic test aircraft, utilizing components of tobacco plants in solar cells, because plants are obviously efficient solar power collectors, peering into the brain to see what goes on during jazz improvisation, discovering that self-control or its lack has a contagious behavior, and a reconstruction of flight 1549, captain Sullenberger, in three dimensions, based on information released to the public about the incident.
Into the opinions, where it is still a truism that Bill'O will tout numbers over context, this time over "trust" of various networks, proudly proclaiming that Fox is the most trusted news channel. Meaning, their news programming is trusted. Blowhards and wannabe pundits like you, Bill'O, don't get to share in that. Sucks to be you. And if you're the trusted name in news, why pull off the President in the Republican session to let your own wannabe pundits talk about what they've heard, despite the live stuff still happening?
Showing a lack of contextual awareness is Mr. Giles, who insists that just because James O'Keefe was charged doesn't mean ACORN isn't the rotten, corrupt, organization O'Keefe exposed it as. A true statement in a context-devoid world. This particular incident gives credence to the idea that O'Keefe was staging things and would happily edit out any footage that did not conform to what he wanted to present (like all the other ACORN people who threw him out and called the cops). Thus, his presentation and the subsequent banning of funding to ACORN are even more suspect than before.
Going from there, Mr. Scarborough accuses Harper's of running a factually untrue conspiracy theory regarding the three Guantanamo Bay inmates mentioned in their magazine, using "authoritative" but unnamed sources and making reference to the apparent absurdity of a cover-up involving NCIS and several other officials. Cover-up, yes, that would be absurd. Shoddy investigation and acceptance of the official version without full and complete probing? That's much more plausible, and I think that's what Harper's was detailing.
And then, putting the cherry on top, Mr. McClanahan returns to a familiar well and calls the President an inept politician, based on "squandering" his great majorities by trying to do big non-economic things (and health care isn't a significant part of the economy?) and by "outsourcing" his vision to the Congresscritters. There's something that smacks greatly of stupidity when someone doesn't realize that it's the Congresscritters who must craft the law. The President can guide, but ultimately his options are either to sign or veto. We are not in a dictatorship, no matter how hard both Left and Right have wanted one for the last ten years (or more.)
More conventionally, Mr. Hayden, former CIA director, complains about the way things have been run after him. Mr. Roff believes the administration is being indecisive, returning to a familiar well, and that this indecision is dangerous.
Mr. Lazear considers budget freezes to be cosmetic, and believes only tax cuts will help us now, because all taxation (above about 18 percent of tax-to-GDP), even defecit-neutral taxation, is damaging to the economy. Mr. Lambro agrees that the budget and economic policies are only going to be ruinous and disastrous. Mr. Henninger believes the liberal dream of a health care system that works will always fail because the system works to protect itself, and thus it creates needlessly complex entities to hide in and then screams that they're going to die if someone decides they're going to try and untie them. Better, perhaps, to cut the Gordian knot Mr. Henninger describes.
Still making commentary on the State of the Union address, Mr. Lowry accuses the entire speech of having been lies upon justifications of lies, Mr. Morris considers it evidence the Persident intends on learning nothing he would think the President should know from his first year in office, Ms. Noonan believes the speech was a contradiction of anti-Washington and pro-Washington rhetoric, choosing not to notice that the spots considered diseased and the spots needing assistance were not one and the same, The WSJ's editors also believe the speech was mostly vaporware, with the onus of whether any sort of bipartisanship (read: being Republican) comes from it squarely on the President, Ms. Strassel blames the anti-big business rhetoric and policy of Mr. Obama for why the economy hasn't come roaring back, suggesting that Mr. Obama become more like a pro-business Republican if he wants to tap into the true populist rage. Still-unfunny comedian David Limbaugh suggests the President not only lied, but believes that he can make his lies true despite reality's crushing embrace,
All of this generates an echo chamber that, when distilled, boils down to two things, unless the President governs as if he were a Republican, things will only get worse, with a side of the socialist ideologue the appeared after the centrist campaigned is not going away, and seems bolder than he was before.
Out of all of this drek, Making a large amount of sense, although not following through on the knowledge to good conclusions is Ms. Chavez, blaming the administration for not demanding across-the-board spending cuts and instead going with a cosmetic freeze. Most of her supporting information is great - and highlights just how much people, corporations, and businesses will do to wiggle their way out of paying taxes so they can keep it for themselves, instead of paying the appropriate share they should be.
Last for tonight, a Rickroll for the WBC, not that they'd understand. Well, that, and the video game burlesque show, starring Peach, Rayne, Chun-Li, Samus, Zelda, and a special appearance by Link.
Cue reactions. Starting with Mr. Stross on how the whole thing woks out and why Amazon's decision is important, Tobias Buckell rewrites the comment to make more sense to him, Lee Goldberg on why the reasoning mentioned is silly, Mr. Westerfeld points out the shenaningans involved he sees, as does Laura Ann Gilman. As a consequence, Justine Greene pulled mentions of Amazon from her correspondence and site, and encourages others to do the same. Last of this kerfuffle, Jon Scalzi points out all the ways that Amazon botched their statement, and their response, such that they made themselves into the bad guys and alienated the people they really needed to be on their side - authors, fans, and people who buy stuff.
On the other side of the coin, though, is
bradhicks. The Infamous Brad sides with Amazon, believing MacMillian is attempting to dictate to booksellers and Amazon what they must charge for their books.The Air Force Academy in Denver has a spot for Earth-centered religions to gather, helping tuen their image away from being somewhere that non-Christians suffer harrassment and denial of their ability to worship.
Also, has it been 15 years since Calvin and Hobbes ended? I still miss the kid and his tiger. Bill Watterson gave a short interview about the strip, fifteen years on and still regrets nothing.
Finally, of professional interest, a telephone box has been turned into an exchange library, after the mobile library service stopped for the area. We're still waiting to see whether it can be quickly converted into a TARDIS-summoning device. Plus, an author on how fears of technology replacing books are overblown and a short piece on the ALA Notable Books Chair, Dr. Dresang, the Beverly Clearly Children's Literature Chair at the University of Washington, someone I have had the privilege of meeting.
Out in the world today, Sir Terry Pratchett indicated his willingness to be a test case to get assisted death legalized in the United Kingdom. And speaking of the UK, in advance of his visit there, the Pope criticized the UK's position as being in the Century of the Fruitbat and requiring places like adoption agencies to be nondiscriminatory. (Which then closed off several of the Catholic adoption agencies, because they could not, in good conscience, give up their prejudice against homosexuals.)
United States missiles and ships are on their way to the Persian Gulf, supposedly as a deterrent in case Iran should decide to test any weapons capability they have. Not that Iraq is quiet - a female bomber killed 54 in Baghdad, detonating inside a way station for pilgrims of one of the two main Islamic factions.
In domestic news, California's Senate ignored a veto threat from the Governor and approved a plan for single-payer health care in the state. This would be interesting. A successful model could be federalized, an unsuccessful model provides information on how to make the next one better.
Not that anything will come of it, plans to invade Iraq and oust Saddam were drawn up a full two years before the actual invasion, which makes it more and more likely that Iraq was a convenient target for the last administration. The document itself was drawn up even before the 11 September attacks, so it seems very likely that this invasion was going to happen regardless of what got in the way.
On the matter of the Pants on Fire bomber, his visa was apparently not revoked because doing so might have jeapordized a larger investigation into al-Qaeda actions. That would make a little bit more sense. That it happeend to almost go horribly, horribly wrong is something worth thinking about, though.
The possibility of a lockout looms large on a small town tied completely to the local borax mine. The company is citing losses and wants the union to budge on the way things have been there for years.
Analysis on why people vote against their own best interests - because they've been scared or appealed to emotionally so effectively that it overrides the facts. That emotional appeal can be as simple as "Look at the guy with the numbers. He's an elitist nerd who wants government to make decisions for you." It can also be phrased as "The educated class think they know how to run the government, and believe they're doing things in your best interest that you're too stupid to understand", provoking resentment, regardless of whether the premise about your intelligence is true.
Or, on a different note, "we should stop the EPA because climate data is severely flawed, based partially on the e-mails of researchers taken out of context". "We must praise the 'heretics' of climate change, because they buck the consensus" (Or, actually, The General's endorsement of the resolution in Utah.)
So let's see how the reaction to a $3.83 trillion USD budget proposition goes, whether it's numbers and facts based or emotions-based.
Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington hopes that members of Congress do not attend the "National Prayer Breakfast" on 4 February because it both gives legitimacy to the idea that Christianity is a state-sponsored religion and because it is a recruiting effort for The Fellowship Foundation, creator of groups like "The Family", a shadowy organization that seeks to do its work by converting government officials to its cause.
On more conventional political matters, Mr. Brown intends to be his own person on several matters in the Congress, voting with his part on economic issues, but siding with the opposition on some social issues. As it should be - strictly voting the party line is not good for your re-election chances, unless your party runs off an improbable string of right decisions. Mr. Fund interviews Mr. Brown as he gets settled into his new job.
An actual bill to repeal the "don't ask, don't tell" policy may face an upward slog in both houses of Congress, because there are enough Republicans and conservaDems to make passage difficult. It seems absurd that a basic wrong such as this would face a long battle, but then again, we're not exactly stellar on the wider treatment of homosexuals, either.
Revenge against collectors in the form of Craig Cunningham, a man who sues debt collectors when they break the law, something pretty easy for them to do if they're not up on their law. there is a certain appeal to getting debt collectors off your back by hitting them with suits, so long as you can afford them and can spend the time doing so.
And last out, in the significantly more conspiracy-theory department, the accusation that the four men in Senator Landrieu's office were really a CIA-trained black-operations squad.
In technology, NASA joins the e-book department with a book on the X-15 hypersonic test aircraft, utilizing components of tobacco plants in solar cells, because plants are obviously efficient solar power collectors, peering into the brain to see what goes on during jazz improvisation, discovering that self-control or its lack has a contagious behavior, and a reconstruction of flight 1549, captain Sullenberger, in three dimensions, based on information released to the public about the incident.
Into the opinions, where it is still a truism that Bill'O will tout numbers over context, this time over "trust" of various networks, proudly proclaiming that Fox is the most trusted news channel. Meaning, their news programming is trusted. Blowhards and wannabe pundits like you, Bill'O, don't get to share in that. Sucks to be you. And if you're the trusted name in news, why pull off the President in the Republican session to let your own wannabe pundits talk about what they've heard, despite the live stuff still happening?
Showing a lack of contextual awareness is Mr. Giles, who insists that just because James O'Keefe was charged doesn't mean ACORN isn't the rotten, corrupt, organization O'Keefe exposed it as. A true statement in a context-devoid world. This particular incident gives credence to the idea that O'Keefe was staging things and would happily edit out any footage that did not conform to what he wanted to present (like all the other ACORN people who threw him out and called the cops). Thus, his presentation and the subsequent banning of funding to ACORN are even more suspect than before.
Going from there, Mr. Scarborough accuses Harper's of running a factually untrue conspiracy theory regarding the three Guantanamo Bay inmates mentioned in their magazine, using "authoritative" but unnamed sources and making reference to the apparent absurdity of a cover-up involving NCIS and several other officials. Cover-up, yes, that would be absurd. Shoddy investigation and acceptance of the official version without full and complete probing? That's much more plausible, and I think that's what Harper's was detailing.
And then, putting the cherry on top, Mr. McClanahan returns to a familiar well and calls the President an inept politician, based on "squandering" his great majorities by trying to do big non-economic things (and health care isn't a significant part of the economy?) and by "outsourcing" his vision to the Congresscritters. There's something that smacks greatly of stupidity when someone doesn't realize that it's the Congresscritters who must craft the law. The President can guide, but ultimately his options are either to sign or veto. We are not in a dictatorship, no matter how hard both Left and Right have wanted one for the last ten years (or more.)
More conventionally, Mr. Hayden, former CIA director, complains about the way things have been run after him. Mr. Roff believes the administration is being indecisive, returning to a familiar well, and that this indecision is dangerous.
Mr. Lazear considers budget freezes to be cosmetic, and believes only tax cuts will help us now, because all taxation (above about 18 percent of tax-to-GDP), even defecit-neutral taxation, is damaging to the economy. Mr. Lambro agrees that the budget and economic policies are only going to be ruinous and disastrous. Mr. Henninger believes the liberal dream of a health care system that works will always fail because the system works to protect itself, and thus it creates needlessly complex entities to hide in and then screams that they're going to die if someone decides they're going to try and untie them. Better, perhaps, to cut the Gordian knot Mr. Henninger describes.
Still making commentary on the State of the Union address, Mr. Lowry accuses the entire speech of having been lies upon justifications of lies, Mr. Morris considers it evidence the Persident intends on learning nothing he would think the President should know from his first year in office, Ms. Noonan believes the speech was a contradiction of anti-Washington and pro-Washington rhetoric, choosing not to notice that the spots considered diseased and the spots needing assistance were not one and the same, The WSJ's editors also believe the speech was mostly vaporware, with the onus of whether any sort of bipartisanship (read: being Republican) comes from it squarely on the President, Ms. Strassel blames the anti-big business rhetoric and policy of Mr. Obama for why the economy hasn't come roaring back, suggesting that Mr. Obama become more like a pro-business Republican if he wants to tap into the true populist rage. Still-unfunny comedian David Limbaugh suggests the President not only lied, but believes that he can make his lies true despite reality's crushing embrace,
All of this generates an echo chamber that, when distilled, boils down to two things, unless the President governs as if he were a Republican, things will only get worse, with a side of the socialist ideologue the appeared after the centrist campaigned is not going away, and seems bolder than he was before.
Out of all of this drek, Making a large amount of sense, although not following through on the knowledge to good conclusions is Ms. Chavez, blaming the administration for not demanding across-the-board spending cuts and instead going with a cosmetic freeze. Most of her supporting information is great - and highlights just how much people, corporations, and businesses will do to wiggle their way out of paying taxes so they can keep it for themselves, instead of paying the appropriate share they should be.
Last for tonight, a Rickroll for the WBC, not that they'd understand. Well, that, and the video game burlesque show, starring Peach, Rayne, Chun-Li, Samus, Zelda, and a special appearance by Link.