May 2005 Archives
Helen Thomas is new my hero. She didn’t back down when Scott McClellan, the White House’s prevaricator-in-residence, claimed, rather absurdly, that the United States is currently in Afghanistan and Iraq by invitation.
Please, just read the transcript, it’s amazing:
Q The other day — in fact, this week, you said that we, the United States, is in Afghanistan and Iraq by invitation. Would you like to correct that incredible distortion of American history —
MR. McCLELLAN: No, we are — that’s where we currently —
Q — in view of your credibility is already mired? How can you say that?
MR. McCLELLAN: Helen, I think everyone in this room knows that you’re taking that comment out of context. There are two democratically-elected governments in Iraq and —
Q Were we invited into Iraq?
MR. McCLELLAN: There are two democratically-elected governments now in Iraq and Afghanistan, and we are there at their invitation. They are sovereign governments, and we are there today —
Q You mean if they had asked us out, that we would have left?
MR. McCLELLAN: No, Helen, I’m talking about today. We are there at their invitation. They are sovereign governments — Q I’m talking about today, too.
MR. McCLELLAN: — and we are doing all we can to train and equip their security forces so that they can provide for their own security as they move forward on a free and democratic future. Q Did we invade those countries?
MR. McCLELLAN: Go ahead, Steve.
I personally supported the war, so don’t confuse my excitement about the exchange to include the sentiment that the US was wrong to invade. But we should be honest with ourselves — we invaded, we are occupying these countries, despite their sovereignty, and we will continue to occupy them as long as we deem necessary for the good of the people there as long as it is politically expedient for the current US administration. Mrs. Thomas didn’t allow McClellan to get away with his usual bull of giving a patently wrong or disingenuous answer until the report gives up and moves on to a new topic. She was so forceful in fact, that he finally had to cut her off completely.
Go Helen, my new American Idol.
The House of Representatives displayed a rare bit of backbone today by passing a bill that would make it easier for federal money to go to stem cell research. President Bush keeps telling anyone who will listen that he will veto any bill that makes it possible to use federal dollars to “destroy life to save life.” The problem with this arugument is that is doesn’t mesh with reality, as much of Bush’s domestic policy does not. The truth is that the embryos from which research would get stem cells are those left over from fertility clinics. These embryos are unused and will be destroyed. The only difference between using the embroys for stem cell research and just throwing them away is the level of good that can be derived — none in the latter, much in the former. The other catch is that Bush has made no effort to seek the elimination of fertility clinics that are the producers of this large body of embroys. If this industry produces so much destroyed life, why not stop the destruction by stopping invetrofertilization. The answer of course is that religious conservatives don’t have a problem with invitro right now, so there is no need to pander to them by stopping it.
No doubt this demonstration by House Republicans is empty of any really conviction because there isn’t much chance of getting the 290 votes needed to override the president’s veto of the bill. It’s just an easy way to vote for something that has wide popular support without the fear of having interest groups breathing down you neck about passage of a bill they don’t like. It’s the best of both worlds for a politician in a tight spot.
[via NY Times]
After 50 years, the venerable pill bottle gets a revamp, and guess who did it? Target! Check out this piece in New York magazine.
Wow, I don’t even know what to say about this picture, except maybe, “Thanks a lot, Scott. You are the next Annie Liebowitz.”
Aren’t Sarah and Jamie cute together?
I seem to be doing these kinds of things a lot lately. First it was mistaken self-identity and now it’s confusing carbonated beverages for consumer electronics.
This morning a few minutes after I got to work I went to plug my iPod in to my computer to get some of the new Toby Keith songs I downloaded last night. Instead of picking up the iPod cable and the iPod I picked up the cable and my morning Diet Coke. Coke and eMacs are not compatible, by the way.
Everyone said it was going to be better than the first two. Ebert liked it, Spielberg was bawling like a little girl, but the New Yorker is all it’s snobbish glory thinks the next Star Wars is going to be like unto a steaming pile of crap. Witness:
The general opinion of ‘Revenge of the Sith’ seems to be that it marks a distinct improvement on the last two episodes, ‘The Phantom Menace’ and ‘Attack of the Clones’. True, but only in the same way that dying from natural causes is preferable to crucifixion.
And this just made me laugh out load:
Anakin, too, is a divided figure, wrenched between his Jedi devotion to selfless duty and a lurking hunch that, if he bides his time and trashes his best friends, he may eventually get to wear a funky black mask and start breathing like a horse.
Banking is such a scam! You’ve heard people complain that banks charge fees to keep your money for you, not only that but they use your money to make more money for themselves while charging you for the privilege. Well, everyone should call their bank right now and ask one simple question, “What are my options for avoiding fees?” Witness the power of one call:
My bank is Citibank, although what I call it only rhymes with Citi. They gave me a free account because NYU keeps is giant pile of gold is one of Citi’s vaults guarded by a blind, mute troll call Shelton. The bank has (finally) wised up that I graduated eight months ago and they started charging me fees. Almost $20 a month mind you. So I started shopping around, but I thought, before I switch I’d call Shelton and see what Citi could do for me. Shelton was unavailable but they transfered me to someone in Bangalore who informed me that I could get all the same features I had before for free, but this time it would be easier to get them free — all I had to do was change the name of my account type. Not my account number or checking card or anything, I just had to promise to call my account an EZ Checking account instead of a Citibank account. That sounds fair to me.
Bite me Citi, you suck, but I still love you (for now).
My work day has been kind of taxing apparently. Evidence? I answered the phone and rather aggressively said, “This is Five,” rather than my usual, “This is Lars.”
I have gotten no small amount of funny looks on the subway for reading Wired. People seem to think that it’s a computer geek magazine — and they are right, but it’s also a got some of the best big-think style science and political writing around. This month’s issue carries an article about a world-wide trend of improving IQs — a phenomenon known as the Flynn Effect. Across the board people’s IQ, g in geek-speak, is improving dramatically. The question is why?
Since the 40’s IQ has improved an average of 17 points. What is really strange is that IQ is supposedly an inherited trait so a big question is why are kids doing better on the tests designed to measure IQ? As the piece says, “we certainly aren’t evolving that fast.” Now a study by the discoverer of the Flynn Effect might have the answer:
Four years ago, Flynn and William Dickens, a Brookings Institution economist, proposed another explanation, one made apparent to them by the Flynn effect. Imagine “somebody who starts out with a tiny little physiological advantage: He’s just a bit taller than his friends,” Dickens says. “That person is going to be just a bit better at basketball.” Thanks to this minor height advantage, he tends to enjoy pickup basketball games. He goes on to play in high school, where he gets excellent coaching and accumulates more experience and skill. “And that sets up a cycle that could, say, take him all the way to the NBA,” Dickens says.
Now imagine this person has an identical twin raised separately. He, too, will share the height advantage, and so be more likely to find his way into the same cycle. […] “If you did a genetic analysis, you’d say: Well, this guy had a gene that made him a better basketball player,” Dickens says. “But the fact is, that gene is making him 1 percent better, and the other 99 percent is that because he’s slightly taller, he got all this environmental support.” And what goes for basketball goes for intelligence: Small genetic differences get picked up and magnified in the environment, resulting in dramatically enhanced skills. “The heritability studies weren’t wrong,” Flynn says. “We just misinterpreted them.”
Flynn wants to know what part of our environment accounts for these environmental effects. He thinks he may have found an answer: video games. Well, that’s not officially his conclusion, but it’s the conclusion some draw from his research. Games and other activities that tax our cognitive abilities are increasing. Video games, more leisure time, a plethora of digital media, etc., are forcing us to use our reasoning skills more and more. And like that say, practice makes perfect — hence our IQs are going up. It’s the “cognitively demanding leisure” hypothesis. Pretty cool, huh?
[via Wired]
Another instance of someone having too much time on their hands. A woman in Australia has successfully trained her cat to use the potty.
Paris Hilton is about to get even more obnoxious, ladies and gentlemen. Word on the street and in the press is that everyone’s least-favorite sex kitten is getting ready to start her business “empire”. The woman who brought you the celebrity sex tape and that irritatingly ugly sidelong pout now brings you Club Paris, with locations in Orlando, Miami, and Las Vegas (almost, anyway).
When I see Hilton, I can’t help but feel a little part of my intelligence being ripped out of my head. Club Paris will no doubt be 100x worse, sort of like a non-invasive frontal lobotomy with sparkles and loud music.
Here’s the Yahoo! News Paris-Gets-Serious roundup
Nicholas Kristof writes in his NY Times column this week that back in the sixties when the parents of people my age were growing up the country made a huge effort to eliminate poverty among the elderly. It’s now down from 29% then to below 10% now. Unfortunately during the same time the poverty rate among children has remained steady at 18%.
As of 2003, the share of elderly below the poverty line had fallen by two-thirds to 10 percent - representing a huge national success. Retirement in America is no longer feared as a time of destitution, but anticipated as a time of comfort and leisure.
On the other hand, the proportion of children below the poverty line is still 18 percent, the same as it was in 1966. And while almost all the elderly now have health insurance under Medicare, about 29 percent of children had no health insurance at all at some point in the last 12 months.
His last point i made all the more real by people like the Govenor of Texas, Rick Perry, who chose to reduce property taxes by pratically eliminating an intiative started by his predecesor, President Bush, to insure most of Texas’s uninsured children.
But what he gets to at the end of this week’s article is that the present leaders in the federal and the state governments are spending so feverishly that they are pissing away my future. According to a government sponsored study the United States has a long-term fiscal gap of $51 trillion. That translates to, you’re screwing your children to the wall people.
I don’t think that is the act of a good parent.
