Adventures in Tab Closing #3
Because I need to start cleaning up what's on this computer and transfer stuff on it to the new one fairly soon, I'm gonna try to do these at least once a day until I'm done, and I'll be doing seven main links instead of six. (Unrelated: I started doing this yesterday by trying to pare down my huge iTunes library. It's not going as well as I'd like; there's a lot of music I know I'll never listen to, but I still can't bring myself to delete them, and I don't know why. :PPP)
Paul Krugman: "America Goes Dark"
The lights are going out all over America - literally. Colorado Springs has made headlines with its desperate attempt to save money by turning off a third of its streetlights, but similar things are either happening or being contemplated across the nation, from Philadelphia to Fresno.
Meanwhile, a country that once amazed the world with its visionary investments in transportation, from the Erie Canal to the Interstate Highway System, is now in the process of unpaving itself: in a number of states, local governments are breaking up roads they can no longer afford to maintain, and returning them to gravel.
And a nation that once prized education - that was among the first to provide basic schooling to all its children - is now cutting back. Teachers are being laid off; programs are being canceled; in Hawaii, the school year itself is being drastically shortened. And all signs point to even more cuts ahead.
[...]
How did we get to this point? It’s the logical consequence of three decades of antigovernment rhetoric, rhetoric that has convinced many voters that a dollar collected in taxes is always a dollar wasted, that the public sector can’t do anything right.
The antigovernment campaign has always been phrased in terms of opposition to waste and fraud - to checks sent to welfare queens driving Cadillacs, to vast armies of bureaucrats uselessly pushing paper around. But those were myths, of course; there was never remotely as much waste and fraud as the right claimed. And now that the campaign has reached fruition, we’re seeing what was actually in the firing line: services that everyone except the very rich need, services that government must provide or nobody will, like lighted streets, drivable roads and decent schooling for the public as a whole.
And what happens when this kind of anti-government rhetoric becomes prominent? Citizens disengage from the democratic system they're supposed to be maintaining, leading to more corporate control of politics, more fueling unnecessary wars and colonialism, and a lower quality of life for most Americans. What I'm afraid of is that the things Krugman is complaining about will seem quaint within the next few years.
RELATED LINKS:
--Glenn Greenwald: "What collapsing empire looks like"
--Grist: "Rule of Enragement: the filibuster and Senate reform"
--Johnathan Cohn: "The stupidity of liberal apathy"
Grist: "Why did the climate bill fail?"
1. The broken Senate
The U.S. Senate is already an unrepresentative institution: Wyoming's two senators each represent 272,000 people; California's two senators each represent 18,481,000 people. On top of this undemocratic structure is a series of rules that have been abused with increasing frequency.
The main one, of course, is the default supermajority requirement that's been imposed by abuse of the filibuster. I'll have much more to say on this soon, but suffice to say, the supermajority requirement has perverse, deleterious consequences that extend much farther than most progressives seem to understand.
For a complex, contentious, and regionally charged issue like climate change, the supermajority requirement presents a virtually insuperable barrier to action. I don't think we would have the climate bill of our dreams if only 51 votes were required, but I'm fairly sure something along the lines of Waxman-Markey or stronger could have made it over the finish line.
2. The economy
You may have noticed that Americans aren't in a very good mood right now. Unemployment is high and people are suffering. Given that most people don't follow politics very closely, or at all, that translates to anger and suspicion toward whoever's in power (despite the fact that, yes, it's Bush and the Republicans who are responsible for both the economic downturn and the deficit).
Yes, the left could have done a better job of framing a climate/energy bill as an economic boost -- mainly by starting earlier and being much more consistent -- but the fact is, the environment-vs.-economy frame has been established by a well-funded 40-year campaign on the right. It can't be overturned in two years. The American people were just bound to be indifferent and/or suspicious of grand environmental initiatives during a time of economic pain.
Three more reasons are in the article at the link above. As always, Grist has some of the best analysis of environmental policy and issues I've come across; this article is no exception, and I highly recommend it.
RELATED LINKS:
--New York Times: "U.S. puts oil spill total at nearly 5 million barrels"
--New York Times: "Gulf oil spill: the effects on wildlife"
--New York Times: "Gulf of Mexico has long been dumping site"
--CNN: "In Gulf oil disaster, cameras can't capture the human toil"
--Newsweek: "A Green Retreat: Why the environment is no longer a surefire winner"
--Johann Hari: "The Wrong Kind of Green" [HIGHLY RECOMMENDED]
--PBS: "Grousing at windmills: In Wyoming, economic development and renewable energy are at odds with a bird's survival" (as something of an environmental policy nerd, I find this sort of thing interesting XD)
--PBS: "When bad things happen to good windmills"
--darksumomo: "Expedition to western Amazon find conservation efforts working despite logging and mining" (some good news for once 8D)
Real Clear Politics: "Raising the stakes on gay marriage"
The 14th Amendment is a mighty sword, and U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker used it Wednesday to flay and shred all the specious arguments -- and I mean all of them -- that are used to deny full marriage rights to gay and lesbian Americans. Bigotry has suffered a grievous blow.
Walker found that California's Proposition 8, which sought to ban gay marriage in the state, violated not one but two of the amendment's clauses -- those guaranteeing due process, and equal protection under the law. By deciding the case on constitutional grounds, and by crafting such a detailed and comprehensive ruling, Walker all but guaranteed that the issue will eventually reach the Supreme Court.
[...]
The Supreme Court used the due process clause in its 1967 Loving v. Virginia decision that struck down laws against interracial marriage. Walker used the same language to rule that Proposition 8 was unconstitutional because it denies a "fundamental" right to selected citizens without a legitimate, let alone compelling, reason to do so.
One decision by one federal judge does not settle the controversy over gay marriage. But Walker's 136-page ruling lays down a formidable marker because it changes the terms of the debate. He frames gay marriage as a question involving the most basic, cherished rights that the Constitution guarantees to all Americans. In doing so, he raises the stakes sky-high: Are gays and lesbians full citizens of this country, or are they something less?
While I'm not entirely optimistic over how this ruling will turn out in the mostly conservative Supreme Court, this is definitely very hopeful. Even though there is already talk of revising or even repealing the Fourteenth Amendment.
RELATED LINKS:
--Nate Silver: "Washington's Muteness on Prop 8 a Sign of Cynicism, Not Progress"
--io9: "The science fiction explanation of why gay people must be allowed to marry"
--Los Angeles Times: "Behind the numbers of Prop 8"
--Salon: "Gay adoption: the kids really are all right"
ontd_political: Fareed Zakaria returns ADL award over "Ground Zero Mosque" controversy
Newsweek writer and CNN host Fareed Zakaria has returned an award he received in 2005 from the Anti-Defamation League over the Jewish group's opposition towards the Ground Zero mosque.
"Five years ago, the ADL honored me with its Hubert H. Humphrey First Amendment Freedoms Prize," Zakaria writes in next week's Newsweek. "I was thrilled to get the award from an organization that I had long admired. But I cannot in good conscience keep it anymore. I have returned both the handsome plaque and the $10,000 honorarium that came with it. I urge the ADL to reverse its decision. Admitting an error is a small price to pay to regain a reputation."
In the column, Zakaria argues in favor of building the Ground Zero mosque, writing:
If there is going to be a reformist movement in Islam, it is going to emerge from places like the proposed institute. We should be encouraging groups like the one behind this project, not demonizing them. Were this mosque being built in a foreign city, chances are that the U.S. government would be funding it.
No comment on this one, except for the fact that the video at the link is amazing, and that Zakaria is one of my favorite commentators, so to se him do something like this is awesome. ^_^
RELATED LINKS:
--NY Daily News: "Mayor Bloomberg stands up for mosque"
laliandra: "Note to Self. Be better."
I did what I should have done. What should be the average response to this situation. I wasn't at risk, it wasn't brave. What's the worst that could have happened? A guy I didn't like much who had turned out to be a bigot disliked me? My boyfriend sometimes has to visit building sites for his job, and has been physcially threatened for reacting to racist and homophobic comments. Nothing like that was going to happen to me. No one had insulted me. No one had expressed disgust at the idea of me kissing my boy. I was totally fine.
I have it so easy. I am a white, well educated, cisgendered Westerner, living in a society where I can express my views with next to no personal risk. And that's privilege, and I should use it for something good. I spent the best part of a day worrying about having been impolite. About people thinking I was some crazy person who ranted about issues. So I'm writing about this to remind myself that I shouldn't feel that way. Calling someone out on their bigotry is not the same as being rude, and if they hate me for it, well, fuck them in the ear, as azurelunatic put it. It's not a big brave thing to do. It's something I regret not doing more. It's something I'm going to do more. I might get to make a man think twice about expressing hateful views in public. Good. We need more safe spaces. Maybe it won't do anything. But I'll still be trying. This is more the me I want to be and this is about all of us.
This is something I needed to read, and may need to read from time to time in the future, as what she says here is the truth. And I think a lot of people on the f-list can benefit from knowing this truth and keeping it in the back of their minds. I'll definitely take these words to heart.
RELATED LINKS:
--
iambickilometer: "On finishing what you started" (on problems with the phrase "It's not my job to educate you" in discussion of privilege and -isms)
--
poisontaster: "You've now turned into the motherfukcing greatest" (on why "political correctness" is not at all a bad thing -- HIGHLY RECOMMENDED)
--thewaterbandit: "three thoughts on racism, fandom and being offended"
--Li Huan Shandross: "Asians can be heroes too!" (written by a 10-year-old, which is enough reason why you ought to read it =D)
--TheLoop21: "The Black sidekick: Want your character to shine?"
New Scientist: "Morph-osaurs: How shape-shifting dinosaurs deceived us"
DINOSAURS were shape-shifters. Their skulls underwent extreme changes throughout their lives, growing larger, sprouting horns then reabsorbing them, and changing shape so radically that different stages look to us like different species.
This discovery comes from a study of the iconic dinosaur triceratops and its close relative torosaurus. Their skulls are markedly different but are actually from the very same species, argue John Scannella and Jack Horner at the Museum of the Rockies in Bozeman, Montana.
Triceratops had three facial horns and a short, thick neck-frill with a saw-toothed edge. Torosaurus also had three horns, though at different angles, and a much longer, thinner, smooth-edged frill with two large holes in it. So it's not surprising that Othniel Marsh, who discovered both in the late 1800s, considered them to be separate species.
Now Scannella and Horner say that triceratops is merely the juvenile form of torosaurus. As the animal aged, its horns changed shape and orientation and its frill became longer, thinner and less jagged. Finally it became fenestrated, producing the classic torosaurus form
All right, say it with me now: Pluto/Triceratops = OTP. ;-)
Brandon Bird: "These Are Their Stories"
For twenty years, the heroes of "Law & Order" have navigated literally hundreds grotesque tragedies, moral quandries, and improbable crimes.
Each piece is an artist's interpretation of a one-line episode summary from the DirecTV program guide (full list of titles artists could pick from). Like the series that inspired them, they are sometimes straightforward and sometimes offer a twist; sometimes they contain no easy answers, and sometimes they are just plain goofy.
The above pretty much says it all. ^_^;
And finally, an unrelated extra link: This is pretty much my philosophy regarding what I write in this journal.
Paul Krugman: "America Goes Dark"
The lights are going out all over America - literally. Colorado Springs has made headlines with its desperate attempt to save money by turning off a third of its streetlights, but similar things are either happening or being contemplated across the nation, from Philadelphia to Fresno.
Meanwhile, a country that once amazed the world with its visionary investments in transportation, from the Erie Canal to the Interstate Highway System, is now in the process of unpaving itself: in a number of states, local governments are breaking up roads they can no longer afford to maintain, and returning them to gravel.
And a nation that once prized education - that was among the first to provide basic schooling to all its children - is now cutting back. Teachers are being laid off; programs are being canceled; in Hawaii, the school year itself is being drastically shortened. And all signs point to even more cuts ahead.
[...]
How did we get to this point? It’s the logical consequence of three decades of antigovernment rhetoric, rhetoric that has convinced many voters that a dollar collected in taxes is always a dollar wasted, that the public sector can’t do anything right.
The antigovernment campaign has always been phrased in terms of opposition to waste and fraud - to checks sent to welfare queens driving Cadillacs, to vast armies of bureaucrats uselessly pushing paper around. But those were myths, of course; there was never remotely as much waste and fraud as the right claimed. And now that the campaign has reached fruition, we’re seeing what was actually in the firing line: services that everyone except the very rich need, services that government must provide or nobody will, like lighted streets, drivable roads and decent schooling for the public as a whole.
And what happens when this kind of anti-government rhetoric becomes prominent? Citizens disengage from the democratic system they're supposed to be maintaining, leading to more corporate control of politics, more fueling unnecessary wars and colonialism, and a lower quality of life for most Americans. What I'm afraid of is that the things Krugman is complaining about will seem quaint within the next few years.
RELATED LINKS:
--Glenn Greenwald: "What collapsing empire looks like"
--Grist: "Rule of Enragement: the filibuster and Senate reform"
--Johnathan Cohn: "The stupidity of liberal apathy"
Grist: "Why did the climate bill fail?"
1. The broken Senate
The U.S. Senate is already an unrepresentative institution: Wyoming's two senators each represent 272,000 people; California's two senators each represent 18,481,000 people. On top of this undemocratic structure is a series of rules that have been abused with increasing frequency.
The main one, of course, is the default supermajority requirement that's been imposed by abuse of the filibuster. I'll have much more to say on this soon, but suffice to say, the supermajority requirement has perverse, deleterious consequences that extend much farther than most progressives seem to understand.
For a complex, contentious, and regionally charged issue like climate change, the supermajority requirement presents a virtually insuperable barrier to action. I don't think we would have the climate bill of our dreams if only 51 votes were required, but I'm fairly sure something along the lines of Waxman-Markey or stronger could have made it over the finish line.
2. The economy
You may have noticed that Americans aren't in a very good mood right now. Unemployment is high and people are suffering. Given that most people don't follow politics very closely, or at all, that translates to anger and suspicion toward whoever's in power (despite the fact that, yes, it's Bush and the Republicans who are responsible for both the economic downturn and the deficit).
Yes, the left could have done a better job of framing a climate/energy bill as an economic boost -- mainly by starting earlier and being much more consistent -- but the fact is, the environment-vs.-economy frame has been established by a well-funded 40-year campaign on the right. It can't be overturned in two years. The American people were just bound to be indifferent and/or suspicious of grand environmental initiatives during a time of economic pain.
Three more reasons are in the article at the link above. As always, Grist has some of the best analysis of environmental policy and issues I've come across; this article is no exception, and I highly recommend it.
RELATED LINKS:
--New York Times: "U.S. puts oil spill total at nearly 5 million barrels"
--New York Times: "Gulf oil spill: the effects on wildlife"
--New York Times: "Gulf of Mexico has long been dumping site"
--CNN: "In Gulf oil disaster, cameras can't capture the human toil"
--Newsweek: "A Green Retreat: Why the environment is no longer a surefire winner"
--Johann Hari: "The Wrong Kind of Green" [HIGHLY RECOMMENDED]
--PBS: "Grousing at windmills: In Wyoming, economic development and renewable energy are at odds with a bird's survival" (as something of an environmental policy nerd, I find this sort of thing interesting XD)
--PBS: "When bad things happen to good windmills"
--darksumomo: "Expedition to western Amazon find conservation efforts working despite logging and mining" (some good news for once 8D)
Real Clear Politics: "Raising the stakes on gay marriage"
The 14th Amendment is a mighty sword, and U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker used it Wednesday to flay and shred all the specious arguments -- and I mean all of them -- that are used to deny full marriage rights to gay and lesbian Americans. Bigotry has suffered a grievous blow.
Walker found that California's Proposition 8, which sought to ban gay marriage in the state, violated not one but two of the amendment's clauses -- those guaranteeing due process, and equal protection under the law. By deciding the case on constitutional grounds, and by crafting such a detailed and comprehensive ruling, Walker all but guaranteed that the issue will eventually reach the Supreme Court.
[...]
The Supreme Court used the due process clause in its 1967 Loving v. Virginia decision that struck down laws against interracial marriage. Walker used the same language to rule that Proposition 8 was unconstitutional because it denies a "fundamental" right to selected citizens without a legitimate, let alone compelling, reason to do so.
One decision by one federal judge does not settle the controversy over gay marriage. But Walker's 136-page ruling lays down a formidable marker because it changes the terms of the debate. He frames gay marriage as a question involving the most basic, cherished rights that the Constitution guarantees to all Americans. In doing so, he raises the stakes sky-high: Are gays and lesbians full citizens of this country, or are they something less?
While I'm not entirely optimistic over how this ruling will turn out in the mostly conservative Supreme Court, this is definitely very hopeful. Even though there is already talk of revising or even repealing the Fourteenth Amendment.
RELATED LINKS:
--Nate Silver: "Washington's Muteness on Prop 8 a Sign of Cynicism, Not Progress"
--io9: "The science fiction explanation of why gay people must be allowed to marry"
--Los Angeles Times: "Behind the numbers of Prop 8"
--Salon: "Gay adoption: the kids really are all right"
ontd_political: Fareed Zakaria returns ADL award over "Ground Zero Mosque" controversy
Newsweek writer and CNN host Fareed Zakaria has returned an award he received in 2005 from the Anti-Defamation League over the Jewish group's opposition towards the Ground Zero mosque.
"Five years ago, the ADL honored me with its Hubert H. Humphrey First Amendment Freedoms Prize," Zakaria writes in next week's Newsweek. "I was thrilled to get the award from an organization that I had long admired. But I cannot in good conscience keep it anymore. I have returned both the handsome plaque and the $10,000 honorarium that came with it. I urge the ADL to reverse its decision. Admitting an error is a small price to pay to regain a reputation."
In the column, Zakaria argues in favor of building the Ground Zero mosque, writing:
If there is going to be a reformist movement in Islam, it is going to emerge from places like the proposed institute. We should be encouraging groups like the one behind this project, not demonizing them. Were this mosque being built in a foreign city, chances are that the U.S. government would be funding it.
No comment on this one, except for the fact that the video at the link is amazing, and that Zakaria is one of my favorite commentators, so to se him do something like this is awesome. ^_^
RELATED LINKS:
--NY Daily News: "Mayor Bloomberg stands up for mosque"
laliandra: "Note to Self. Be better."
I did what I should have done. What should be the average response to this situation. I wasn't at risk, it wasn't brave. What's the worst that could have happened? A guy I didn't like much who had turned out to be a bigot disliked me? My boyfriend sometimes has to visit building sites for his job, and has been physcially threatened for reacting to racist and homophobic comments. Nothing like that was going to happen to me. No one had insulted me. No one had expressed disgust at the idea of me kissing my boy. I was totally fine.
I have it so easy. I am a white, well educated, cisgendered Westerner, living in a society where I can express my views with next to no personal risk. And that's privilege, and I should use it for something good. I spent the best part of a day worrying about having been impolite. About people thinking I was some crazy person who ranted about issues. So I'm writing about this to remind myself that I shouldn't feel that way. Calling someone out on their bigotry is not the same as being rude, and if they hate me for it, well, fuck them in the ear, as azurelunatic put it. It's not a big brave thing to do. It's something I regret not doing more. It's something I'm going to do more. I might get to make a man think twice about expressing hateful views in public. Good. We need more safe spaces. Maybe it won't do anything. But I'll still be trying. This is more the me I want to be and this is about all of us.
This is something I needed to read, and may need to read from time to time in the future, as what she says here is the truth. And I think a lot of people on the f-list can benefit from knowing this truth and keeping it in the back of their minds. I'll definitely take these words to heart.
RELATED LINKS:
--
iambickilometer: "On finishing what you started" (on problems with the phrase "It's not my job to educate you" in discussion of privilege and -isms)
--
poisontaster: "You've now turned into the motherfukcing greatest" (on why "political correctness" is not at all a bad thing -- HIGHLY RECOMMENDED)
--thewaterbandit: "three thoughts on racism, fandom and being offended"
--Li Huan Shandross: "Asians can be heroes too!" (written by a 10-year-old, which is enough reason why you ought to read it =D)
--TheLoop21: "The Black sidekick: Want your character to shine?"
New Scientist: "Morph-osaurs: How shape-shifting dinosaurs deceived us"
DINOSAURS were shape-shifters. Their skulls underwent extreme changes throughout their lives, growing larger, sprouting horns then reabsorbing them, and changing shape so radically that different stages look to us like different species.
This discovery comes from a study of the iconic dinosaur triceratops and its close relative torosaurus. Their skulls are markedly different but are actually from the very same species, argue John Scannella and Jack Horner at the Museum of the Rockies in Bozeman, Montana.
Triceratops had three facial horns and a short, thick neck-frill with a saw-toothed edge. Torosaurus also had three horns, though at different angles, and a much longer, thinner, smooth-edged frill with two large holes in it. So it's not surprising that Othniel Marsh, who discovered both in the late 1800s, considered them to be separate species.
Now Scannella and Horner say that triceratops is merely the juvenile form of torosaurus. As the animal aged, its horns changed shape and orientation and its frill became longer, thinner and less jagged. Finally it became fenestrated, producing the classic torosaurus form
All right, say it with me now: Pluto/Triceratops = OTP. ;-)
Brandon Bird: "These Are Their Stories"
For twenty years, the heroes of "Law & Order" have navigated literally hundreds grotesque tragedies, moral quandries, and improbable crimes.
Each piece is an artist's interpretation of a one-line episode summary from the DirecTV program guide (full list of titles artists could pick from). Like the series that inspired them, they are sometimes straightforward and sometimes offer a twist; sometimes they contain no easy answers, and sometimes they are just plain goofy.
The above pretty much says it all. ^_^;
And finally, an unrelated extra link: This is pretty much my philosophy regarding what I write in this journal.