Author: Brian

Look, here it is,
Nestled in the curve of my palm.

Hope sheltered in the heart,
Trusting, as it rests there,
That for a while,
Or perhaps forever,
No harm will come.

It’s a Wide Open World.

We now have opensecrets.org. In muckraker’s heaven, there’s a new world.

1. 195 million records tracking campaign fundraising and spending
2. 3.5 million records on lobbyists, their clients, fees
3. personal assets, liabilities and transactions of Congress
4. shadow records of unlimited money from corporations, unions and individuals

For every unemployed, there’s a stupid leader. For every lost dollar, there’s a lobbyist. For every favor, there’s government insiders. For every starving journalist, there’s failed news.

Fix it. Get a shovel and dig dirt.
There’s gold here. Nuggets of history. Shine of tomorrow.

Nobel economist Paul Krugman writes in the New York Times that Republicans have become embarrassing to watch. [story]

And it doesn’t feel right to make fun of crazy people. Better, perhaps, to focus on the real policy debates, which are all among Democrats.

But here’s the thing: the G.O.P. looked as crazy 10 or 15 years ago as it does now.

That didn’t stop Republicans from taking control of both Congress and the White House. And they could return to power if the Democrats stumble. So it behooves us to look closely at the state of what is, after all, one of our nation’s two great political parties.

UK Reuters published a decent summary. My first question is, “What have ambassadors and embassy staff been doing the last years? Teaching abstinence and sipping wine?”

Away from the international limelight, the gangs have been striking regularly for years. After the rescue of U.S. ship captain Richard Phillips, they still hold about 260 hostages, including nearly 100 Filipinos, on 17 captured vessels.

So who are these modern-day buccaneers?

How did the pirates start?

* When warlords toppled former dictator Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991, Somalia collapsed into anarchy. That led to a wave of illegal fishing, plus dumping of toxic and industrial waste, in Somali waters by foreign fleets from Europe and Asia.

* Towards the end of the decade, local fishermen and militia formed groups with names like the “Somali Coastguards” and the “National Volunteer Coastguards”, to drive away or apprehend the vessels from South Korea, Italy, Spain, Thailand and elsewhere.

* Seeing how easy it was to capture ships, those groups metamorphosed this decade into old-fashioned pirate gangs, becoming ever more sophisticated in methods and bold in range.

Mark Morford, columnist at SFGate asks, “What’s a Somali pirate? Why, just your avg post-anarchy do-gooder vigilante fisherman-turned-sophisticated criminal thug.”

The White House gets another leader.
Meet Bo Obama, a young male Portuguese Water Dog.

Dancers are kicking higher.

Comparing performances since 1949, ballet dancers are raising their legs higher and higher.

That’s a lift.

It’s old news now.

But I hoped for this picture because, in all the headlines and commentary about Michelle behaving inappropriately in audience with the Queen, this is the only picture that’s news, the shot viewed least.

Sorry no worthy attribution.

“The Greeks invented the idea of nemesis to show how any single virtue, stubbornly maintained, gradually changes into a destructive vice.

“Our success, our industry, our habit of work have produced our economic nemesis.

“Work made modern men great, but now threatens to usurp our souls, to inundate the earth in things and trash, to destroy our capacity to love and wonder.” – Sam Keen

This is annoying. The announcement says left-over glycerin works as animal feed reducing the negative impact of diverting corn or soy to biofuel

http://www.ars.usda.gov/is/pr/2009/090410.htm
Agricultural Research Service (ARS) scientists have found environmentally and economically sound uses for the byproducts of biofuel production.

Maybe it’s true, but it’s annoying to think about.

State and local cuts and tax increases will total about $350 billion.

This is nuts — exactly the opposite of what government needs to be doing. That $350 billion is a huge fiscal drag on the U.S. economy.

It essentially negates almost half of the federal stimulus. Robert Reich

The Wall Street Journal compiled a few facts:

Folks earning about $14,000 a year use 20% of their pay for health policies.

Upper income Americans draw ~3% and ninety percent are covered.

Since 1966, get this: Health insurance premiums grew 5% a year.

Astounding error.

That man, that stupid, daft man and all his adventures.

The sun is out after three days of grey and it dries the Mahi and sends energy through the solar panels to the batteries. I just got an email from a Chinese cargo ship Captain that we passed a few days ago. I had not seen a ship in so long I decided to check my VHF radio. We had a brief chat and I gave him the address of the website so he could look me up. When he emailed us, he said they were astonished that I had been over 700 days non-stop at sea. They were in route non-stop from China to Brazil and they thought their 30 days was long enough to be at sea, but that now they would rethink that idea.

Years ago when I conceived of spending 1000 days non-stop at sea, I realized I could change the accepted paradigm for what was considered to be a long time at sea.

I especially felt that I could do a good turn for my nation, setting an example for our Navy, Coast Guard, Merchant Marines and fishing fleet. Once they hear of how long I have been at sea, they will think their tour of duty is not so long after all. They will think if I can stay out this long, then they will buckle up, their moral goes up, their performance goes up and our country benefits in a big way far into the future.

Of course this includes men and women from all countries who are professionals at sea. We are all alike. We have our fears of the great ocean, the environment puts stress on all of us and we all miss our loved ones and the life on the land. Knowing that someone has spent so long at sea and found grace while doing it will automatically lift the spirits of those who venture on the high seas.

The United States: a country that promotes the ‘survival of the fittest’ while half don’t believe in evolution. [link]

Joe Biden reminiscing:

I remember President Bush saying to me one time in the Oval Office, and he was a great guy, enjoyed being with him.

He said to me, he said, ‘Well, Joe,’ he said, ‘I’m a leader.’ And I said, ‘Mr. President, turn around and look behind you. No one’s following.’

a report.

“We find that Google Trends data can help improve forecasts of the current level of activity for a number of different economic time series, including automobile sales, home sales, retail sales, and travel behavior. Even predicting the present is useful, since it may help identify “turning points” in economic time series. If people start doing significantly more searches for “Real Estate Agents” in a certain location, it is tempting to think that house sales might increase in that area in the near future.”

Danny Sullivan is straightforward about the arrogance of legacy media:

“Should we be allowing Google to steal all our copyrights?” asked the News Corp. chief at a cable industry confab in Washington, D.C., Thursday. The answer, said Murdoch, should be, ” ‘Thanks, but no thanks.’ “

Let me help you with that, Rupert. I’m going to save you all those potential legal fees plus needing to even speak further about the evil of the Big G with one simple line. Get your tech person to change your robots.txt file to say this:

User-agent: *
Disallow: /

Done. Do that, you’re outta Google. All your pages will be removed, and you needn’t worry about Google listing the Wall St. Journal at all.

There’s also a policy statement from Google; associate general counsel Alexander Macgillivray: Don’t point fingers at us.

“We show snippets and links under the doctrine of fair use enshrined in the United States Copyright Act.

“Even though the Copyright Act does not grant a copyright owner a veto over such uses, it is our policy to allow any rightsholder, in this case newspaper or wire service, to remove their content from our index–all they have to do is ask us or implement simple technical standards.”

Introduced at the New York Auto Show, General Motors and Segway have teamed up to create a new type of personal transport vehicle, Project PUMA, Personal Urban Mobility and Accessibility, 35 mph for a range of 35 miles.

OK. Now I get it. China sells us boatloads of electric commuter cars and we respond by exporting the 21st Century rickshaw.

Now that’s balance of trade!

Car & Driver

To stop the banks, Americans are planning creative actions all over the country for April 11. Check ZIP here.

Adam Smith Warned Against Subprime Lending

Adam Smith, in The Wealth of Nations, advocated usury laws (limits on interest rates) because they would promote lending to prudent borrowers and productive projects, which was better for society as a whole. [link]

Thinking about terrorism enhances people’s self-esteem. – British Psychological Association

The blog at NextBigFuture reveals a next very big future:

One in five of the global city dwellers will be in Chinese cities.
China in 2025 will have 221 cities of one million people; Europe has 35.
China will have 25 cities with more than 5 million people.

Psychologist Robert Epstein argues that the differences in the teen brain are relatively minor.

The stereotype of the ‘teen in turmoil’ is not a biological fact of brain development, but a result of the cultural pressures put upon adolescents.

Why did the police punish bystanders? – Times

“At 8.45pm, as the last protesters were allowed to leave, I asked the police about the tactics. One said the intention was to keep demonstrators there until all they wanted to do was head quietly home. That does not explain the slow territory squeeze.

“Another suggested that keeping the crowd until it got violent was a useful way to identify troublemakers before the G20 proper began. Those are good operational strategies. But they are not a justification. The police should not have the authority to enact collective punishment.”

Comment: “I was there to have a look at a protest but was trapped in for five hours in increasing danger. I asked a police woman what she gained from not letting my injured and innocent friend out. She replied that ‘Maybe you’ll think twice before coming to a protest’. It’s not their job to prevent protest.”

territory squeeze: a strategy called ‘the kettle‘, protesters herded into an area and kept there for hours.

“I’ve suddenly gone from being an outside observer to being one of 2000 people (not all of whom were protesters, I can assure you) trapped in the middle….”

We could fund a charity hospital in every city if Congress would follow through after discovering a $3 Billion jet or a $300 bolt, oh how long we wait. I’m often curious about little public attention paid to the military. Of course nothing should interfere with tactics nor with time tables or supply, and strategy belongs to rank not commentary. Policy, though, is ours. But for every death, there’s so little attention. A better world would reverse that.

Susanne Koelbl at Germany’s Spiegel summarizes Marc Garlasco who has said, “Each individual contributes something, and that’s what is executed in the end.”

Well, bitching and bellyaching is a contribution too. He studies victims and he’s not happy.

As chief of high-value targeting at the Pentagon, Marc Garlasco was in charge of the hunt for former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. Now, in his position as a weapons expert at Human Rights Watch, he has become a critic of the military.

Marc says weapons are loosely used, by the US and others. Battle is unnecessarily sloppy. He’s angry about the unnecessary dead.