Strippers make more money when they're ovulating.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/09/magazine/09lapdance.html
Friday, June 27, 2008
Thursday, June 19, 2008
September 20th, 2001 - Aftermath Now.
This was The Daily Show's first broadcast after September 11, 2001. I missed it at the time. Just today it occurred to me to look it up.
As I see this today, I have the advantage of looking backwards across all the intervening years. I recall how that day's events affected and wounded me, reflected in Jon Stewart's recorded face. I see the journey our country has traveled since that day. And I see the spine and good character inherent in this man. A man who since that time has become one of my personal heroes, for the great aid and sometimes even life support he's given to the soul of America.
Thank you, Jon.
As I see this today, I have the advantage of looking backwards across all the intervening years. I recall how that day's events affected and wounded me, reflected in Jon Stewart's recorded face. I see the journey our country has traveled since that day. And I see the spine and good character inherent in this man. A man who since that time has become one of my personal heroes, for the great aid and sometimes even life support he's given to the soul of America.
Thank you, Jon.
Going meta on those who are going meta on the AP
The AP is the latest of old-media princesses to start flailing around in rage and desperation, because the blogging peasantry is usurping their rightful place. US and international copyright law isn't doing enough to keep the commoners handing over coin, so the AP is threatening to sue bloggers for quoting or linking to their articles.
Tech Crunch lays it all out beautifully:
...the Associated Press...went after Drudge Retort for having the audacity to link to their stories along with short quotations via reader submissions...frankly the fact that they are being linked to should be considered a favor.
...[The AP] do not want people quoting their stories, despite the fact that such activity very clearly falls within the fair use exception to copyright law.
Even such natural enemies as conservative and liberal bloggers are united on the absolute shite-suckitude of AP's position. That's because this position is basically "Waaaaaah!" It's certainly not every day when a liberal blogger like me actually agrees with Conservative Yankee. His rather funny and pointed idea: bloggers should turn around and start charging the AP, for fact-checking their awful-to-the-point-of-negligence reporting.
Just doing a quick check of my content from the present back until the beginning of May, the Associated Press owes me editorial services fees of $2,580 for 1,032 words correcting AP stories dating back to May 2.
But of course, such an ideological truce is not to last forever. Not when further delicious meta-memetic ironies can turn in on each other.
Thus the liberal commoners commentators at Sadly, No! responded with an invoice, for the amount of words they've expended correcting Confederate Yankee's occasionally fact-free invective.
This is snark times snark, or snark cubed if you will. It is like candy-coated crack to me. I love the fact that such a beautifully involuted snark can even take place. That is a really beautiful aspect of the interlocking networks of information which we have now. Real beauty emerges from beneath the surface, and can be created at any level. The savage ballet of ideas in battle can now be performed on any floor, of a palace as large as we care to make it.
Notwithstanding the efforts of the AP to either snatch the lease or knock it down.
Tech Crunch lays it all out beautifully:
...the Associated Press...went after Drudge Retort for having the audacity to link to their stories along with short quotations via reader submissions...frankly the fact that they are being linked to should be considered a favor.
...[The AP] do not want people quoting their stories, despite the fact that such activity very clearly falls within the fair use exception to copyright law.
Even such natural enemies as conservative and liberal bloggers are united on the absolute shite-suckitude of AP's position. That's because this position is basically "Waaaaaah!" It's certainly not every day when a liberal blogger like me actually agrees with Conservative Yankee. His rather funny and pointed idea: bloggers should turn around and start charging the AP, for fact-checking their awful-to-the-point-of-negligence reporting.
Just doing a quick check of my content from the present back until the beginning of May, the Associated Press owes me editorial services fees of $2,580 for 1,032 words correcting AP stories dating back to May 2.
But of course, such an ideological truce is not to last forever. Not when further delicious meta-memetic ironies can turn in on each other.
Thus the liberal commoners commentators at Sadly, No! responded with an invoice, for the amount of words they've expended correcting Confederate Yankee's occasionally fact-free invective.
This is snark times snark, or snark cubed if you will. It is like candy-coated crack to me. I love the fact that such a beautifully involuted snark can even take place. That is a really beautiful aspect of the interlocking networks of information which we have now. Real beauty emerges from beneath the surface, and can be created at any level. The savage ballet of ideas in battle can now be performed on any floor, of a palace as large as we care to make it.
Notwithstanding the efforts of the AP to either snatch the lease or knock it down.
Monday, June 16, 2008
time capsule: expectations from obama
I had a beer with my friend Jason last night. After discussing women for a while, we moved on to topic with slightly less baggage and heartbreak: politics.
At that point I was challenged to place my expectations of an Obama presidency into a time capsule, so we can check back and see what actually happened in the next few years. Since it seems pretty likely that Obama will defeat McCain, unless he's found in bed with a live boy or a dead woman.
1) Universal health coverage that's a step towards a single-payer health care system. It'll probably still have insurance companies in the loop, unfortunately, but it will be much better than what we have.
2) An Apollo Program-style alternative energy initiative - similar to the JFK initiative, to place a man on the moon in ten years. This would be the intelligent thing to do, and Obama isn't directly beholden to oil company interests, so I think this actually has a high probability of being started.
3) Tax cuts rolled back on the upper class, meaning an effective increase on their current taxes - and lower taxes on the middle class and poor. This fits in clearly with Obama's more Clintonian tax policies, which simply work well. As opposed to trickle-down theories based on the aptly named Laffer Curve, which simply don't work and have never worked.
4) investment in education funding and loans for college - pretty much a done deal.
5) renewed investment in crumbling infrastructure - simply because it has to happen. Our roads, bridges and other structures have been neglected for 7 years now.
6) an EPA that actually goes after companies again.
7) other regulatory agencies actually doing more of their jobs again as well.
8) a considerable reduction of lobbying among all elected officials. Obama's already put this in place for his Presidential campaign - in order for your donation to be accepted, you have to certify that you are not donating on behalf of a corporation, or on behalf of any other individual person - just you, yourself.
So, with this policy already in place for Obama's presidential campaign, I think this is a rather safe prediction.
9) Sadly, a continued Iraq occupation - *but* no attack on iran.
I do think that we will maintain some military presence in Iraq indefinitely. Hopefully the occupation will be less violent, and will settle down to some sort of uneasy peace.
I think the best possible solution to the Iraq issue would be to just split it in 3 nations. Unfortunately that has it's own host of political difficulties to be ironed out - our ally Turkey will be furious about an independent Kurdistan, and Iran will have much more influence over 1/3 of Iraq's oil resources due to their cultural affiliation with their fellow Shiites in Iraq. But in this a bad situation, I think that's the least terrible solution...
No matter what happens, I still expect a continued US military presence until there's no more oil in Iraq. And if other oil remains in the region, possibly even then.
I've never met Obama personally, so for all I know he's fooling me and everyone who's voting for him. *But* an attack or invasion of Iran would be so suicidally stupid for us at this point, that there's no way I see an Obama presidency making this happen - even if the Obama administration were amoral and venal enough to consider it.
10) Finally, it goes without saying but I'll say it anyway: my number one expectation that I'm certain Obama can't help but deliver on, is to be better than McCain. We've dodged one huge bullet already: President Giuliani (shiver). If we can just not have the GOP in the White House for the next 4 years, we really have a good chance to undo all of the damage that has been done. And even to move forward.
I remember what it was like, to feel like our country and our world was heading forward on all fronts. It was so nice...
At that point I was challenged to place my expectations of an Obama presidency into a time capsule, so we can check back and see what actually happened in the next few years. Since it seems pretty likely that Obama will defeat McCain, unless he's found in bed with a live boy or a dead woman.
1) Universal health coverage that's a step towards a single-payer health care system. It'll probably still have insurance companies in the loop, unfortunately, but it will be much better than what we have.
2) An Apollo Program-style alternative energy initiative - similar to the JFK initiative, to place a man on the moon in ten years. This would be the intelligent thing to do, and Obama isn't directly beholden to oil company interests, so I think this actually has a high probability of being started.
3) Tax cuts rolled back on the upper class, meaning an effective increase on their current taxes - and lower taxes on the middle class and poor. This fits in clearly with Obama's more Clintonian tax policies, which simply work well. As opposed to trickle-down theories based on the aptly named Laffer Curve, which simply don't work and have never worked.
4) investment in education funding and loans for college - pretty much a done deal.
5) renewed investment in crumbling infrastructure - simply because it has to happen. Our roads, bridges and other structures have been neglected for 7 years now.
6) an EPA that actually goes after companies again.
7) other regulatory agencies actually doing more of their jobs again as well.
8) a considerable reduction of lobbying among all elected officials. Obama's already put this in place for his Presidential campaign - in order for your donation to be accepted, you have to certify that you are not donating on behalf of a corporation, or on behalf of any other individual person - just you, yourself.
So, with this policy already in place for Obama's presidential campaign, I think this is a rather safe prediction.
9) Sadly, a continued Iraq occupation - *but* no attack on iran.
I do think that we will maintain some military presence in Iraq indefinitely. Hopefully the occupation will be less violent, and will settle down to some sort of uneasy peace.
I think the best possible solution to the Iraq issue would be to just split it in 3 nations. Unfortunately that has it's own host of political difficulties to be ironed out - our ally Turkey will be furious about an independent Kurdistan, and Iran will have much more influence over 1/3 of Iraq's oil resources due to their cultural affiliation with their fellow Shiites in Iraq. But in this a bad situation, I think that's the least terrible solution...
No matter what happens, I still expect a continued US military presence until there's no more oil in Iraq. And if other oil remains in the region, possibly even then.
I've never met Obama personally, so for all I know he's fooling me and everyone who's voting for him. *But* an attack or invasion of Iran would be so suicidally stupid for us at this point, that there's no way I see an Obama presidency making this happen - even if the Obama administration were amoral and venal enough to consider it.
10) Finally, it goes without saying but I'll say it anyway: my number one expectation that I'm certain Obama can't help but deliver on, is to be better than McCain. We've dodged one huge bullet already: President Giuliani (shiver). If we can just not have the GOP in the White House for the next 4 years, we really have a good chance to undo all of the damage that has been done. And even to move forward.
I remember what it was like, to feel like our country and our world was heading forward on all fronts. It was so nice...
Sunday, June 15, 2008
Information Highway Road Test
Filing this blog from my phone, at Cafe Brasil, around the corner-ish at 10831 Venice Blvd- where, on a beautiful Sunday afternoon, I had a lovely chat and meal with friend and writer Julie Orlov.
Today, the mission of life is on target.
Thursday, June 12, 2008
Wednesday, June 11, 2008
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