HBO is cruel

All season HBO has been running The Wire (aka one of the top two shows on television) one week ahead of schedule via the Comcast On-Demand service (which I why I subscribe to the thing). For the series finale they ran a one minute teaser saying we have to wait a week. HBO is an evil corporate monster.

Adventures in profiling

The New York Times wins the saggy pants headline contest with "The Boxer Rebellion". It's about the current mini-craze to outlaw thug-style fashion in some cities. I have no idea why we would want to outlaw this fashion statement. How you dress says a lot about a person, and in this case it says "I'm a ridiculous person who's wasting my time, and I'll probably waste yours". Isn't it better to know that in the two seconds it takes to see a person instead of the five minutes it might take talking to him?

We should be encouraging this sort of behavior instead of outlawing it. This is America, and time is valuable.

Random links from the laptop

• Christianity and China - history is going to be interesting for a long time to come.
• Confessions of a BBC Liberal - The politics of it aren't terribly interesting, but the illustration of groupthink is. It would be interesting to see a breakdown of party affiliation by profession.
• Nerds One and Two: The Hyperwhite - It seems that someone did research on nerdiness. Some choice excerpts -

  Nerdiness, she has concluded, is largely a matter of racially tinged behavior. People who are considered nerds tend to act in ways that are, as she puts it, “hyperwhite.”

  ...

  In a 2001 paper, “The Whiteness of Nerds: Superstandard English and Racial Markedness,” and other works, including a book in progress, Bucholtz notes that the “hegemonic” “cool white” kids use a limited amount of African-American vernacular English; they may say “blood” in lieu of “friend,” or drop the “g” in “playing.” But the nerds she has interviewed, mostly white kids, punctiliously adhere to Standard English.

  The author seems not to realize that the appeal of hyper-proper English is that the rules are memorable and never change, which reduces the aren't tied to a peer group to stay current. That's my theory anyway.
  

The start of the Friday In Appreciation Series

I've decided to start a more or less weekly series about the people and forces of that don't get enough credit in our society. I call it the Friday In Appreciation Series.

We live in age when sanctimonious piety rivals hydrogen as the most common thing in the universe. Be it suburbanites railing against city-dwellers not having children, Ultra-Calvinist urbanites railing against Bushies standing in the way of progress, or Muslims from loser countries blaming Danish cartoons for their crappy lives, it's hard to walk five feet without getting smacked in the face by righteous outrage, backed up by the usual litany of reasons people have for telling other people to run their lives.

But there's one group that not only walks the walk and talks the talk; they also handle the snakes. Yep, I'm talking about Snake Handlers. It's refreshing to see someone use the fine print and not bother other people. They actually follow the fine print just because it's there. They even keep going when their leaders die of snake-bite. Now that's faith!

Thus I begin the series.

The wheel turns full circle

Feminists arguing that adult women shouldn't be allowed to make decisions on what to do with their bodies. In this case raising the age of consent to appear on Girls Gone Wild videos from 18 to 21. Oddly, the author supports her argument by pointing out the many lawsuits filed against GGW producers by people who did not consent to be photographed/videotaped. It's a bit like saying Iraq is a horrible disaster, therefore we need to invade Iran.

I suppose the right of women to control their bodies only applies below the waist.

Monday link roundup

• A useful post from CodingHorror.com on interface friction
• Al Gore, like Ann Coulter, seems to be a mac person
• A blog for women! And one of the editors might be someone I went to high school with.
• Kuler! The Adobe web color harmony tool - via this site
• Co-Mapping (mind mapping software) looks cool
• Properly bashing ethanol
• HiddenUnities and PurposeSlog have posts on the Wire and 24. I helpfully added the Shield in the comments. All excellent programs, though 24 is basically a commercial for the cell phone industry, not torture.
  

Two from Slate

• Hitchens on Falwell - a nice vicious hit job, closing with

  It's a shame that there is no hell for Falwell to go to, and it's extraordinary that not even such a scandalous career is enough to shake our dumb addiction to the "faith-based."

• On Generals - An interesting piece on the lack of turnover at the Pentagon due to the Iraq war. Unmentioned is the lack of turnover as a result of 9-11, which should be the larger clue.
  

We live in scary times when Bill Maher is right about something

Check out this post from The Agitator. The whole "They hate us for our freedom" bit sounds nice, and is partly true, but it is the most useless adage ever created. If we're going to reduce the number of terrorists to zero (the goal) we're going to need to do more than just proclaim our greatness and ignore all specifics. Sigh.

The belated Imus post

I'm not sure whether I said this already in a post or an email, but in any case..

Imus said "Nappy Headed Hos".

The outrage industry sprang into action, because that is their entire job.

The media covered it, because all of the major players were happy to come to them, and news coverage consisted largely of replaying existing footage, or cutting and pasting press releases. This equaled a cheap to produce (in time and dollars) article or news segment, especially compared to the two wars that are going on right now

People liked it because it was widespread and easy to understand. Anyone could shoot his mouth off to anyone else and not get schooled by someone who knew more about the topic. There was also no personal connection to anyone they knew, so no feelings could be hurt.

There is no deep meaning to the "controversy".

Super Jews are coming! Duck!

Mathew Yglesias links to a Charles Murray article in Commentary about the apparent brainpower edge of the Jewish people. For the most part, Yglesias' commenters go off on the notion of implied inequality with a few dissents.

To me this is partial proof of evolution. The world has changed to a mostly urban lifestyle, and Jews have been living in cities for much longer than most groups. That would make them more suited to score higher than other groups on what we measure on IQ tests. Jewish culture essentially "chose" the right path to the future.

Throw in non-random mating and the fact that Jewish culture values literacy more than most other cultures and it seems quite reasonable that Jews would score higher on whatever test the psychologists can throw at them.

None of this matters much (yay minimalist view of politics) but it is interesting. I imagine it is as unprovable as are most other evolutionary theories.

Thoughts on Scooter Libby

I haven't paid much attention to the Libby trial. Joe Wilson always seemed like too much of a pompous blowhard, and Libby too much of a devoted apparachik, to care much. However, like tax cuts, impeachments and special prosecutors are always good.

Two surprising things

• Fitzgerald convicted Libby on essentially technical grounds, which struck me as odd, as he's a rather talented lawyer. IIRC he was Clinton pardonee Marc Rich's lawyer.
• No one has brought up this reason for the animus towards Wilson; to wit: Cheney's office is filled with 45-65 year old true believers who all work 60-80 hours a week. Along comes some guy who retired in his late 40s who tries to tell them their business (and not too well either). That has to some sort of huge insult in the late middle aged workaholic society.
  

RIP Mickey Spillaine

He'd been writing since the 40s. More details here.

What dreams may come

Yesterday I did a tough 80 miles on the Silver Comet. It was a hotter than usual, and for some reason I decided to push myself speed wise. I averaged a mile an hour over my usual speed for that distance, and my heart rate was about 10-15 bpm over the usual rate as well. I mistimed the start of the ride and wound up riding for an hour in a darkness usually found in the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Riding safely in this sort of dark mandated an unusually upright and uncomfortable posture for the final hour (I had to keep my vision focused on the area covered by my headlight, which was small).

I'm also on a low-carb kick at the moment.

After I got home I finished Eric Hoffer's autobiography, Truth Imagined. I'm sure I'll have more thoughts on the book later. The book describes his time as a migrant farm worker in California in the 20s and 30s. One interesting thing he writes about is the sheer variety of people he encountered while on the bum. People of learning and accomplishment, forced by the depression into a migrant way of life. It struck me that this is a as a little remarked price of prosperity, as well as the relative meritocracy that is part and parcel of a free society. To wit; in good times one is more likely to meet people just like oneself than in times of physical and economic catastrophe, for good or ill.

That night I had a dream where I attended a cocktail party, wearing a tuxedo. I was talking to an interesting and confident woman my age named Trea. I had told her the observation mentioned above and she opined that I had the cause and effect backward. Economic catastrophe's are caused by the mixing of people (grouped by ability, not race) which interferes with the division and specialization of labor.

What does this labor produce? Society and culture. The conventional view (of mine anyway) is that society and culture are like an investment portfolio; it's outside one's immediate grasp, it changes over time, and grows incrementally. Trea's view was that society is produced and consumed, and does not change incrementally at all. It's like the contents of one's pantry; food goes in, it goes out, but it doesn't last forever, and neither grows nor evolves.

In economic parlance, society/culture are stocks, not flows, which is the way I usually think of them.

I've usually don't have these sort of dreams, nor do I have new (to me) ideas in dreams. I'm not sure what to make of it all.

And if you've read this far, I'm impressed.

Rapid fire and random thoughts

• Interesting thoughts on the use of mercenaries to settle third world conflicts (Darfour, the Congo, etc) at Instapundit and Marginal Revolution. I'm a bit queasy about the idea myself, though it's probably worth trying.
• Congress asserts amazing immunities for itself. No-knock raids and tear gas are good enough for you and me though.
• Why do we believe anything sponsored by supposedly independent interest groups, in this case, an epidemic of girls going wild?
• A nice AJAX primer from Brainjar.
• Traffic Data in Windows Live Local.
• The current media created craze is the fight club. I think this article misses out on reasons why it is appealing to techies though. If you're a programmer, you're spending all day in your virtual world, and stepping into the ring is about as far away from that as you can get.
  

Things I don't believe in

A list of things I don't believe in, for no reason other than I find their proponents objectionable, or sensationalistic.

• Intelligent Design theory
• Global Warming
• Public education reform
• Keyboards in rock music
  
• Authenticity as a meaningful part of music
• McCarthyism being a defining moment of American History
• Native American culture being inherently earth friendly
• Anything to do with "carbs"
  
• Apple's vaunted OS stability
• Apple's better "interface"
• Any positive influence of Janis Joplin
• The oft-touted claim by libertarians that 20% of Americans are libertarian also
• "Natural" foods
• Homeopathy
• Divorce being a public/social problem
• Stem cell research being a big deal, for good or ill
• Biomass fuels
• Peak oil
• Addictive personalities
• Chiropractors
  

How is this possible

Amazon, Maher to swim in 'Fishbowl'
"New 30-minute entertainment Web program will make its debut June 1, exclusively on Amazon.com."

How is Bill Maher still popular, much less more popular than ever? His delivery, never a strong suit of his, has gotten more tortured than ever, or at least it was before I quit watching him. He also prefaced every line with "Isn't it really....".

I find a lot of left-wing comics (Mark Maron, Jon Stewart has come back quite a bit after a bad slump) funny, so I don't think it's that his politics are offensive to me, he just seems about as funny as an episode of Mama's Family these days.

De gustibus non est disputandum I suppose.

Now this is interesting

The Smoking Gun is running a long article on James Frey, author of A Million Little Piece. Apparently he made it up.

Of interest to me

During the October show, which featured Frey as its only guest, Winfrey discussed details of that tale. He was, she said, "the child you pray you never have to raise," a raging, drug-abusing teenager who had been arrested 11 times by age 19. In college, he drank to excess, took meth, freebased cocaine, huffed glue and nitrous oxide, smoked PCP, ate mushrooms, and was "under investigation by police." By the time he checked into Hazelden in late-1993, Frey, then 23, was "wanted in three states," added Winfrey.

Now really, if you've been arrested 11 times by 19, and done all the drugs listed above, what's left to investigate? Heavy, Bad Lieutenant style drug use would seem to preclude most heavy criminal activity, and pretty much anything else. If you've reached the crapping blood stage of drug use (as he claims), I don't think you rate any high powered police attention.

I haven't read the book, but the article is very good and very detailed. If true, (and it seems to be) Frey is quite the liar.

But what about Biggie?

link via The Agitator, Cynthia McKinney brings America.... the

SEC. 4. TUPAC AMARU SHAKUR RECORDS COLLECTION AT THE NATIONAL ARCHIVES.

(a) In General- (1) Not later than 60 days after the date of enactment of this Act, the National Archives shall commence establishment of a collection of records to be known as the `Tupac Amaru Shakur Records Collection.' In so doing, the Archivist shall ensure the physical integrity and original provenance of all records. The Collection shall consist of originals or record copies of all Government records relating to the life and death of Tupac Amaru Shakur, which shall be transmitted to the National Archives in accordance with section 2107 of title 44, United States Code. The Archivist shall prepare and publish a subject guidebook and index to the collection, including the central directory described in paragraph (2)(B), which shall be available to the public and searchable electronically.

And

SEC. 5. CITIZENS ADVISORY COMMITTEE.

(a) Not later than 60 days after the date of enactment of this Act, the National Archives shall appoint an independent Citizens Advisory Committee, subject to the Federal Advisory Committee Act (5 U.S.C., App.), as defined in App. 2, from candidates solicited from and nominated not later than 30 days after the date of the enactment of this Act by non-governmental organizations from the Society of American Archivists, the National Bar Association, the Black Caucus of the American Library Association, Inc., and the National Conference of Black Political Scientists, the civil rights, civil liberties, entertainment and African American community, which will consist of appointees--

(1) who have not had any previous involvement with any official investigations into the life and death of Tupac Amaru Shakur,

(2) who were never employed or engaged by any Federal, state or local intelligence or law enforcement agency which is covered in the scope of this Act's search for records related to the life and death of Tupac Amaru Shakur,

(3) who shall be impartial private citizens, none of whom is presently employed by any branch of the Government, and

(4) who shall be distinguished persons of high national professional reputation in their respective fields who are capable of exercising the independent and objective judgment necessary to the fulfillment of their role in ensuring and facilitating the review, transmission to the public, and public disclosure of records related to the life and death of Tupak Shakur,

(A) who possess an appreciation of the value of such material to the public, scholars, and government, and

(B) who include at least three scholars in current history, at least 3 members of the civil rights community, at least 3 experts on civil liberties, and at least one member of the immediate family of Tupac Amaru Shakur.

IIRC I think there is only one immediate member of Shakur's family.

I think we saw the gutlessness of the Republicans with the failure of the Coburn amendment. If this makes it though Congress I suggest we hand the keys to the country to Walmart and call it a day.

Some people are just wrong

I read the article L.I. Principal Cancels 'Bacchanalian' Prom, not quite knowing what to expect. In short summary, the prom pre and after parties were getting out of hand and the principal cancelled the school prom. Then I come across this juicy quote

"It is not primarily the sex/booze/drugs that surround this event, as problematic as they might be; it is rather the flaunting of affluence, assuming exaggerated expenses, a pursuit of vanity for vanity's sake — in a word, financial decadence," Brother Hoagland said, fed up with what he calls the "bacchanalian aspects" of the prom.

This, mind you, is a Catholic school. So, the principal finds spending money on the sex/booze/drugs more objectionable than the sex, booze and drugs? He's the principal of the school and he's primarily concerned about the price of the decadence!?

Jane Galt at her best

From one of several posts recently about poverty and culture

In other words, middle class culture is such that bad long-term decision making also has painful short-term consequences. This does not, obviously, stop many middle class people from becoming addicted to drugs, flagrantly screwing up at work, having children they can't take care of, and so forth. But on the margin, it prevents a lot of people from taking steps that might lead to bankruptcy and deprivation. We like to think that it's just us being the intrinsically worthy humans that we are, but honestly, how many of my nice middle class readers had the courage to drop out of high school and steal cars for a living?

I'm not really kidding. I mean, I don't know about the rest of you, but when I was eighteen, if my peer group had taken up swallowing razor blades I would have been happily killed myself trying to set a world record. And if they had thought school was for losers and the cool thing to do was to hang out all day listening to music and running dime bags for the local narcotics emporium, I would have been right there with them. Lucky for me, my peer group thought that the most important thing in the entire world was to get an ivy league diploma, so I went to Penn and ended up shilling for drug companies on my blog.

Social Decline

From the article Police: Witnesses mum in rap mogul's shooting

"It's disturbing that someone can let off six shots in a packed club and can escape without being arrested," said Elliott Wilson, editor in chief of the rap magazine XXL. "The hip-hop community doesn't trust the police to confide info to them, and in turn the police have done little to make us feel like they give a damn about our safety. It's a vicious cycle."

He said this out loud. As if giving information on someone who had shot a member of the "hip-hop community" was some sort of deep favor to the police. Sigh.

So like us

I saw this at Gates of Vienna under the heading "The Jihad That Refreshes". Then I laughed hysterically. It basically takes the Coca Cola logo, flips it, changes it is non-obvious ways, to make the logo have an anti-Islam message. It's a middle eastern version of the old Proctor & Gamble church of Satan hoax.

Funny

Nothing is stranger than reading the New York Times discuss NASCAR

For a certain segment of the population, Nascar's raid on American culture -- its logo festoons everything from cellphones to honey jars to post office walls to panties; race coverage, it can seem, has bumped everything else off television; and, most piercingly, Nascar dads now get to pick our presidents -- triggers the kind of fearful trembling the citizens of Gaul felt as the Huns came thundering over the hills. To these people, stock-car racing represents all that's unsavory about red-state America: fossil-fuel bingeing; lust for violence; racial segregation; run-away Republicanism; anti-intellectualism (how much brain matter is required to go fast and turn left, ad infinitum?); the corn-pone memes of God and guns and guts; crass corporatization; Toby Keith anthems; and, of course, exquisitely bad fashion sense. What's more, they simply don't get it. What's the appeal of watching . . . traffic? It's as if ''Hee Haw'' reruns were dominating prime time, and the Republic was slapping its collective knee at Grandpa Jones's ''What's for supper?'' routine. With Nascar's recent purchase of a swath of real estate on Staten Island, where it intends to plop down an 80,000-seat racetrack and retail center for the untapped New York City market, the onslaught seems poised on the brink of full-out conquest. Cover your ears, blue America. The Huns are revving their engines.

Thinking about Culture

First I come across this interview with the Aspen institute with some serious thinkers (Irshad Manji, Steven Emerson and Gilles Kepel), about how Muslim immigration into Europe is changing the immigrants, then 5 minutes later I come across this Rumble In Europe post (speculation about how Muslim immigration into Europe is changing the Europeans. Then that night, I see an interview with Irshad Manji on Tucker Carlson's program (synopsis, Islam is infected with Arabian culture).

All quite interesting to read and watch, I suppose the most interesting part is that I came across all of the independently, all within 2 hours of each other, and they all had the same general topic.