B12 Solipsism

MT 4.0

Fri, 24 Aug 2007 20:08:52 -0600

If things look freaky on this page, it is because I broke the cardinal rule of technology upgrades by starting work at the end of the day. I did something odd with my MT 4.0 upgrade, or multiple things, and now don't have the mental stamina to fix them. Doh! You'd think by now SixApart would have this down to a smoothly functioning science, but you'd be wrong.

Gambling and the WTO

Fri, 24 Aug 2007 10:08:57 -0600

I personally have no urge to gamble, especially on-line casinos, however, why the US bans certain kinds of gambling but depends upon other kinds (lotteries, for instance) to fill holes in state's budgets is something that baffles me. Why not allow people to do what they want? The ironic part of this whole story is that the US has long bullied other nations into joining the W.T.O., and now the W.T.O. is ruling against the US. The kicker: Antigua is asking for permission to violate intellectual property laws and freely distribute American movies, music and so on, since the US will probably not pay the $34,000,000,000 fine levied by the W.T.O's court.

Gambling Dispute With a Tiny Country Puts U.S. in a Bind:
A trade dispute filed by Antigua and Barbuda, a Caribbean nation with dozens of online casinos, challenges Washington’s effort to prohibit online gambling.
The dispute stretches back to 2003, when Mr. Mendel first persuaded officials in Antigua and Barbuda, a tiny nation in the Caribbean with a population of around 70,000, to instigate a trade complaint against the United States, claiming its ban against Americans gambling over the Internet violated Antigua and Barbuda’s rights as a member of the W.T.O. Antigua is best known to Americans for its pristine beaches and tourist attractions like historic English Harbor. But the dozens of online casinos based there are vital to the island’s economy, serving as its second-largest employer. More than a few people in Washington initially dismissed as absurd the idea that the trade organization could claim jurisdiction over something as basic as a country’s own policies toward gambling. Various states and the federal government, after all, have been deeply engaged for decades in where and when to allow the operation of casinos, Indian gambling halls, racetracks, lotteries and the like. But a W.T.O. panel ruled against the United States in 2004, and its appellate body upheld that decision one year later. In March, the organization upheld that ruling for a second time and declared Washington out of compliance with its rules. That has placed the United States in a quandary, said John H. Jackson, a professor at Georgetown University Law Center who specializes in international trade law. Complying with the W.T.O. ruling, Professor Jackson said, would require Congress and the Bush administration either to reverse course and permit Americans to place bets online legally with offshore casinos or, equally unlikely, impose an across-the-board ban on all forms of Internet gambling — including the online purchase of lottery tickets, participation in Web-based pro sports fantasy leagues and off-track wagering on horse racing.

and:

But not complying with the decision presents big problems of its own for Washington. That’s because Mr. Mendel, who is claiming $3.4 billion in damages on behalf of Antigua, has asked the trade organization to grant a rare form of compensation if the American government refuses to accept the ruling: permission for Antiguans to violate intellectual property laws by allowing them to distribute copies of American music, movie and software products, among others.

to my other point:

Yet another reason the fraternity of trade lawyers and experts are so closely watching the case, Mr. Van Den Hende said, is “that the U.S. is not behaving as one would expect.” “One day they’re out there saying how scandalous it is that China doesn’t respect W.T.O. decisions,” he said. “But then the next day there’s a dispute that doesn’t go their way and their attitude is: The decision is completely wrong, these judges don’t know what they’re doing, why should we comply?”

Technorati Tags: civil_liberties, copyright, WTO

Farm Bill Showdown

Fri, 24 Aug 2007 09:34:52 -0600

John Nichols has a few thoughts worth noting re: the travesty of 2007 farm bill we've talked about before.

Farm Bill Showdown:
The 2007 farm bill, as approved by the House on the eve of the August recess, is as shambolic a piece of legislation as will ever be OK'd by a chamber that frequently endorses the incomprehensible and the indefensible.
... On the negative side, the House bill proposes to open gaping loopholes that would allow environmentally destructive factory farms to qualify for funding intended to help family farmers conserve the land; maintains corrupt practices that stifle competition in the livestock industry; and fails to endorse basic health-and-safety moves like banning the practice of blasting spoiled beef with carbon monoxide to make it appear wholesome. Hovering above all the good bits and nasty pieces of the measure is that it would do little to change our corrupt system of paying subsidies to some of the wealthiest nonfarmers in the world. Nor does the House address the fact that the bulk of the money intended to maintain diverse and competitive family farms would go to a handful of Southern states that overproduce crops like rice and cotton.

The fact that debate about farm and food policy plays out on the margins of the national discourse, thanks to media that treat rural America as a punch line, makes it too easy for politicians and interest groups to distort the discussion. For instance, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi can get away with her absurd claim that the House bill is “reform” that “takes America's farm policy in a new direction.” Not true. The Speaker chose the status quo over innovative proposals by author Michael Pollan, chef Alice Waters and savvy policy groups like Food and Water Watch and the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy to stop pouring federal dollars into the coffers of agribusiness, establish a real safety net for working farmers, protect the environment and encourage the production of healthy foods. But just as Pelosi is wrong to dub herself a reformer, so too are the editorial writers and Washington think-tank gurus who grumble about the rejection of their favored “reform.” The plan so beloved by those so distant from rural America--a scheme by Representatives Ron Kind and Jeff Flake to establish the farming equivalent of the “individual retirement accounts” promoted by those who would destroy Social Security--failed because farm and consumer groups saw through its false promise of “market solutions.” Rejecting real reform as well as false promises, Pelosi backed a “Christmas tree” measure, which offered something for everyone--from agribusiness to Congressional Black Caucus members seeking long-overdue justice for minority farmers to consumer groups that want country-of-origin labeling on meat--then played on the fears of urban House members who know less about countercyclical payments than about crop circles

Technorati Tags: agriculture, corn, corruption, Democrats, deregulation, farm

Telecom Firms in Wiretaps Is Confirmed

Fri, 24 Aug 2007 09:10:25 -0600

Where do I sign up for a civil suit? Bastards. I know the Electronic Frontier Foundation is suing on our behalf, they need your support.

Role of Telecom Firms in Wiretaps Is Confirmed:
The Bush administration has confirmed for the first time that American telecommunications companies played a crucial role in the National Security Agency’s domestic eavesdropping program after asserting for more than a year that any role played by them was a “state secret.”
The acknowledgment was in an unusual interview that Mike McConnell, the director of national intelligence, gave last week to The El Paso Times in which he disclosed details on classified intelligence issues that the administration has long insisted would harm national security if discussed publicly. Mr. McConnell made the remarks apparently in an effort to bolster support for the broadened wiretapping authority that Congress approved this month, even as Democrats are threatening to rework the legislation because they say it gives the executive branch too much power. It is vital, he said, for Congress to give retroactive legal immunity to the companies that assisted in the program to help prevent them from facing bankruptcy because of lawsuits over it. “Under the president’s program, the terrorist surveillance program, the private sector had assisted us, because if you’re going to get access, you’ve got to have a partner,” Mr. McConnell said in the interview, a transcript of which was posted by The El Paso Times on Wednesday. AT&T and several other major carriers are being sued over their reported role in the program, which permitted eavesdropping without warrants on the international communications of Americans suspected of terrorism ties. The administration has sought to shut down the lawsuits by invoking the state-secrets privilege, refusing even to confirm whether the companies helped conduct the wiretaps. Cindy Cohn, legal director for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which is heading up the lawsuit against AT&T, said her group might ask the appeals court to consider Mr. McConnell’s comments in deciding whether the state-secrets argument should be thrown out. “They’ve really undermined their own case,” Ms. Cohn said.

and this McConnell character is just an idiot:

Mr. McConnell, who took over as the country’s top intelligence official in February, warned that the public discussion generated by the Congressional debate over the wiretapping bill threatened national security because it would alert terrorists to American surveillance methods. “Now part of this is a classified world,” he said in the interview. “The fact we’re doing it this way means that some Americans are going to die.”. Asked whether he was saying the news media coverage and the public debate in Congress meant that “some Americans are going to die,” he replied: “That’s what I mean. Because we have made it so public.” Mr. McConnell, though, put new information on the public record in the interview, on Aug. 14 while in Texas for a border conference.

If we don't break the law, ponies will die!

Technorati Tags: activism, civil_liberties, EFF, surveillance, Telecom

iPhone Telecom Annoys Customers

Fri, 24 Aug 2007 09:01:46 -0600

We didn't get an iPhone even though we strongly considered it. One of the main arguments against signing up is that we've always had horrible experiences with SBC, Cingular and AT&T. Not to mention how quickly AT&T turned over all of their customers data to the Bush Big Brother initiative, and Ma Bell's censorship propensities. So, was not surprised to read about AT&T's stupid billing system a few weeks ago (the NYT is usually a few weeks behind in stories like these)

AT&T’s Overstuffed iPhone Bills Annoy Customers - New York Times:
The reason for the outsize bills is that AT&T itemizes not just every phone call, but every detail about every text message and Internet data transfer. Unless instructed otherwise, AT&T sent out detailed bills.

“It’s nonsense,” said Mike Brophy, 34, who owns a software company near Seattle and posted an item about his 64-page bill on his blog. “Ninety-five percent of the bill is just page after page of 1K data transfers, all with a charge of zero.”

Mr. Brophy also did not appreciate the amount of paper. “My bill was probably half a pound,” he said. “Just think of the fuel. It’s a real waste, not to mention information overload.”

Ms. Ezarik, who noted that AT&T spent $7.10 in postage to send her bill,

Technorati Tags: iPhone, Telecom

No Presence for Me

Fri, 24 Aug 2007 08:53:16 -0600

Where D and I had our first date (different restaurant at the time)

No Presence for Me, originally uploaded by swanksalot.
Wall, West Loop.

BP Pollutes Munster, Ind

Thu, 23 Aug 2007 08:48:49 -0600

Speaking of BP (yet again), seems like facts about BP's faux green-ness keep bubbling to the surface, in this case, when residents of Munster, Indiana complained. You'd think a corporation with such massive quarterly profit margins would be able to maintain their own infrastructure, but I guess their advertising budget has consumed all the extra cash. Or something.

cbs2chicago.com - BP Cleans Up Oily Mess In Munster, Ind.:
BP officials say the source of the oil pipeline leak that got into storm sewers and caused a strong odor in a Munster neighborhood Monday night was a seeping, inactive pipe.

Officials have yet to determine whether there are any more leaks in two idle pipelines in the area
... Residents along Somerset Drive near St. James Place called the Munster Fire Department around 7 p.m. Monday to report a fuel odor that turned out to be an oil pipeline leak. “My wife called it in. I kept smelling whiffs of it. It started getting real strong around 6 p.m. I'm wondering if the area's contaminated. My neighbor says he smelled it two years ago,” said James Aerts, who lives a few houses from where the leak was detected. “It was in my garage, on my front porch, everywhere.” Workers determined the smell came from storm sewers, and dug manholes to backtrack the leak from the point in the sewer system where the oil was detected to the pipeline. The leak was traced to a pipe at St. James Place just off the Somerset intersection. From the storm sewer system, the oil flowed into a retention pond behind Somerset residences. ... Resident Gene Kelly said he smelled fuel inside his house, located right by the leak. He said he would have liked BP to inform him what was going on rather than having to read it in the newspaper. “I'm concerned about the safety of the house, the smell lingering,” he told BP officials, when they came by. IDEM spokesman Steve Polston said IDEM will oversee the cleanup and inspect whether environmental standards are being met. He couldn't say whether BP would face any penalties.

BP says not to worry, industrial contamination is good for you. Plus, having to comply with environmental regulations has killed more people than Hilter (sic).

Technorati Tags: BP, Green, pollution

links for 2007-08-23

Thu, 23 Aug 2007 02:19:56 -0600

Macworld: Mac Gems: HandBrake 0.9.0

might be useful info, if I ever get around to desiring to watch films on my videopod

(tags: tutorial video software Macintosh OSX iPod)
The Panda's Thumb: So Sue Me

criticism of an Evolution criticism leads to lawsuit. Screwballs.

(tags: evolution mouth_breathers Intelligent_Design)
Pharyngula: Lifecode: From egg to embryo by self-organization

Pivar is a crackpot "This is a book suitable only for use at clown colleges, and even there, I suspect the clowns would tell us that it is impractical, nonsensical, and has no utility in their craft."

(tags: Science evolution Intelligent_Design)
Pharyngula: Lifecode

"seems no expense was spared getting it published, which is in contrast to the content, and is unusual for such flagrant crackpottery"

(tags: Pivar evolution Intelligent_Design)
Tang / Exhibitions / Upcoming Exhibitions

requested permission to use a photograph of mine in the presentation. I wish I could see the finished project.....

(tags: Science molecules republished photos)
Chicago Tribune - Illinois Property Transfers

keeping my eye on this

(tags: Real_Estate Chicago)
creativepro.com - View Source: Advanced CSS Rollovers

"reate dynamic rollover images using just CSS"

(tags: CSS design webdesign tutorial)

BP Lies About Greenness, Then Asks to Dump Ammonia

Wed, 22 Aug 2007 21:24:21 -0600

BP gets caught, as so many corporations do, doing one thing while claiming to do the exact opposite. In this case, being a green company. BP is no green company, and anyone who believes BP ever considered actually doing anything other than stuffing their corporate coffers is deluded, or paid off by BP.

BP Touts Greenness, Then Asks to Dump Ammonia:
“We'd like to have them live up to their advertising.” That remark came from Sudhu Johnston, chief environmental officer for the city of Chicago, in response to oil giant BP applying for -- and receiving -- a permit from the state of Indiana to dump more toxic discharges from its Whiting, Ind., refinery into Lake Michigan. The move, which allows BP to dump 54% more ammonia and 35% more suspended solids into the lake, enraged officials in the Windy City and raised the specter of consumer boycotts of BP, which has its U.S. base in Chicago. But mainly the matter drew attention to the cardinal sin of touting an environmentally conscious image in marketing—the central focus of BP's advertising for the past several years—and failing to live up to the message.

and of course, the solution BP came up with is to spend more money planting lies and obfuscations disguised as advertising into the nation's data pipes. You'll probably see several soon.

To mitigate the backlash, BP started advertising in regional newspapers several weeks ago to clear up misconceptions about the issue, a spokesman said.

Technorati Tags: Advertising, BP, Green, Lake_Michigan, pollution

Spiky Mikey

Wed, 22 Aug 2007 20:30:44 -0600

True confession, I couldn't stand to read more than a page or two of Michael Ignatieff's 2519 words of bloviating, published recently in the New York Times Magazine. Spiky Mikey's argument, best I can tell, is that those of us who opposed the Iraq War travesty from the beginning were blinded by our suspicion of Bush's regime, and we didn't help matters by insisting upon voicing our opinions in demonstrations (which were ignored by the corporate media for the most part). Or something. Predictably, Ignatieff was slaughtered in the blogosphere, such as, somewhat randomly found, here, or here. Or take a look here for more. Katha Pollitt gets in a few licks of her own:

Who's Sorry Now?:
In the months leading up to the invasion of Iraq, there was no more effective intellectual spokesperson for war than then-Harvard professor Michael Ignatieff.
... Four years, four months and seventeen days after bombs began falling on Baghdad, Ignatieff, who left Harvard to become deputy leader of Canada's Liberal Party, has finally joined the long parade of prowar commentators who've publicly acknowledged their mistake. On August 5 The New York Times Magazine carried his long, woolly, pompous pseudo-confession “Getting Iraq Wrong: What the War Has Taught Me About Political Judgment.” Wandering among references to Isaiah Berlin, Churchill, Roosevelt, de Gaulle, Beckett, Burke and Kant, Ignatieff distinguishes between the experimental, enthusiastic mindset natural to academics (himself then) and the “good judgment” and “prudence” required of political leaders (himself now). He thought politics was about all that high-minded stuff he taught at Harvard and let himself get carried away by his sympathy for Iraqi exiles. In other words, Michael Ignatieff supported the war because he was just too smart and too good for this fallen world. Never mind that most academics opposed the war, especially if they actually knew something about the Middle East and were foreign policy “realists,” like Ignatieff's peers Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer. Once, just once, I'd like to see a repentant war proponent acknowledge in a straightforward, non-weaselly way that Howard Zinn, Noam Chomsky, Scott Ritter, Code Pink and, yes, The Nation--to say nothing of the millions around the world who demonstrated so ardently against the war--got it right. But no: “Many of those who correctly anticipated catastrophe did so not by exercising judgment but by indulging in ideology,” Ignatieff writes. “They opposed the invasion because they believed the President was only after the oil or because they believed America is always and in every situation wrong.” Excuse me while I set myself on fire. I remember the run-up to the invasion very well, and “It's all about oil” and “America is always wrong” were hardly the major arguments on the table. Since Ignatieff must know this--surely he listened to Mark Danner and Robert Scheer when he teamed with Hitchens to debate them at UCLA--his calumny is not only self-serving, it's disingenuous. Let's review. You wouldn't know it from Ignatieff's piece, but Bush's stated reason for war was not the liberation of the Iraqi people; it was that Saddam Hussein promoted terrorism, colluded with Al Qaeda, possessed WMDs and presented an immediate threat to the United States. Long before the war there was quite a bit of evidence that none of this was true. Were Hans Blix and Mohammed ElBaradei ideologues who hated America? Remember the yellowcake, the aluminum tubes, the Niger documents the International Atomic Energy Agency determined were forgeries? It was possible to say, and many did, that Saddam was a murderous tyrant but that unilateral pre-emptive war against a country that presented no threat was a dangerous upending of settled international law.

More here

Technorati Tags: Iraq

Twisted Spoke renovation

Wed, 22 Aug 2007 19:48:20 -0600

My favorite source of smut and eggs is going to revamp their restaurant.

Twisted Spoke, which closed its Wrigleyville outpost (3365 N. Clark St.) on July 28th, will redo the original location (501 N. Ogden Ave.; 312-666-1500) as well. “As best we can describe it, we are going to flip the space,” says Cliff Einhorn, a partner. “Where the bar is now we are going to put the front room, and vice versa. We need to rebuild the bar itself because of the huge whiskey and bourbon collection. Besides, the place is getting sort of tired-looking.” The menu will be revamped, says Einhorn, but the makeover shouldn’t affect business: “I don’t think we can renovate our customers.”

-Chicago Magazine I actually mostly drink beer there, and am partial to their grilled portobello sandwich, eaten on the roof deck.

Technorati Tags: Chicago, restaurant, West_Loop

How the Democrats Blew It in Only 8 Months

Wed, 22 Aug 2007 19:06:51 -0600

Speaking of spineless Democrats, Alexander Cockburn writes (subscribers only)

How the Democrats Blew It in Only 8 Months:
Led by Democrats since the start of this year, Congress now has a “confidence” rating of 14 percent, the lowest since Gallup started asking the question in 1973 and five points lower than Republicans scored last year.

The voters put the Democrats in to end the war, and it's escalating. The Democrats voted the money for the surge and the money for the next $459.6 billion military budget. Their latest achievement was to provide enough votes in support of Bush to legalize warrantless wiretapping for “foreign suspects whose communications pass through the United States.” Enough Democrats joined Republicans to make this a 227-183 victory for Bush. The Democrats control the House. Speaker Nancy Pelosi could have stopped the bill in its tracks if she'd wanted to. But she didn't. The Democrats' game is to go along with the White House agenda while stirring up dust storms to blind the base to their failure to bring the troops home or restore constitutional government.
... The one Democrat acting on principle in the Gonzales affair has been Senator Russ Feingold. He at least tried to dig into the visit of chief White House counsel Gonzales, as he then was, to the bedside of Attorney General John Ashcroft, to get him to sign off on the illegal wiretaps. And how did the Democrat-controlled Congress deal with Feingold's efforts to nail Gonzales for his efforts to undermine the Constitution and for his prevarications under oath? It promptly legalized the eavesdropping. Just as the Democrats work tirelessly to demonstrate to the voters that it makes zero difference which party controls Congress, the political establishment forces all candidates for the presidential nomination to sever any compromising ties to sanity and common sense. Right now they're hosing down Barack Obama because he said in the YouTube debate in South Carolina that he would be prepared to meet with Kim Jong Il, Hugo Chávez, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Fidel Castro to hash over problems face to face. The pundits whacked him for demonstrating “inexperience.” Experienced leaders order the CIA to murder such men. Then Obama drew even fiercer fire by saying he would take nukes off the table in the war on terrorism in Afghanistan and Pakistan. “I think it would be a profound mistake for us to use nuclear weapons in any circumstance,” Obama told the AP on August 2, adding, after a pause, “involving civilians.” Then he quickly said, “Let me scratch that. There's been no discussion of nuclear weapons. That's not on the table.” ... A war people hate, Gitmo, Bush's police-state executive orders of July 17--the Democrats have signed the White House dance card on all of them. And guess what? Just as their poll numbers are going down, Bush's are going up, by five points in Gallup from early July. People are beginning to think the surge is working, courtesy of the New York Times. So are we better or worse off since the Democrats won back Congress?

Technorati Tags: Congress, Democrats, weasel_Democrats

Things Fall Apart

Wed, 22 Aug 2007 18:50:44 -0600

For your depressing news of the day:

Things Fall Apart:
Everywhere one looks, the results of decades of public neglect and underinvestment are clear: not only collapsing bridges and exploding steam pipes but traffic-choked streets, clogged ports, corroded drinking-water systems and power brownouts. From 1950 to 1970 the government spent more than 3 percent of GDP on infrastructure. After 1980, that figure dropped by more than a third. Two years ago, following the catastrophic collapse of the levees in New Orleans, which cost more than 1,000 lives, the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) issued a report cataloguing the myriad deficiencies in our nation's infrastructure. That report was followed by a number of other worrying findings. The Transportation Department, for example, estimated that freight bottlenecks were costing the economy $200 billion a year. The Environmental Protection Agency warned of antiquated drinking-water and waste-water systems that would require more than $541 billion a year to rebuild over the next twenty years. And the Federal Highway Administration has calculated that some $141 billion will be needed every year for the next twenty years to repair deficient roads and bridges. All told, the ASCE estimated, the government would need to spend $1.6 trillion over the next five years to repair infrastructure. And that estimate did not address our lagging deployment of high-speed broadband or the major expenditures needed to reduce carbon emissions to stave off climate change.
Those reports, and the tragedy of the New Orleans levee collapse, should have been a wake-up call for our leaders, but little has been done. The Bush Administration has been more interested in protecting its tax cuts for the rich and siphoning off money for its endless occupation of Iraq. And the Democratic Party, scrambling to impress Wall Street with its fiscal conservatism, seems to have forgotten its proud heritage as the party of the New Deal and the Tennessee Valley Authority. Indeed, one of the first acts of the new Democratic Congress was to pass a “pay as you go” budget procedure, a roadblock to new public spending, whether on healthcare or infrastructure.

Technorati Tags: Congress, Democrats, deregulation, Republicans