I Dream of a Comment God
If I Could Write the Code… I’d create a comment-sorting algorithm. The idea is to send the most useful comments to the top so that I don’t have to search so hard to find the sharpest responses in the proverbial haystack. The closest thing we have now is the reader’s choice buttons for ‘recommend’ or ‘don’t recommend’. Usually this doesn’t change the order of the comments, just flags them. I want the juicy, witty, clever, insightful comments to float to the top. Here’s my suggested weighting of comment characteristics:
Forcing Us to Listen Demerit
-15 points: Uses more than one exclamation point attempting to emphasize!! what logic and reasoning can’t sustain. Occasionally overlooked when the exclamation points are contained in a response and to an ignorant poster and are justified subtext for “I’m sorry but you are a blatant dumbass!”
A for Effort Credit
+25 points: Cites legitimate sources; does not include Fox News, Glenn Beck’s show, Rush Limbaugh’s show, blogs with a readership as small as mine, etc.
Times Have Changed Demerit
-10 points: Begins an argument with “when I was a kid…”
Humility Indication Credit
+10 points: Begins an argument with “I probably don’t know what I’m talking about, but…” or any IMHO variant.
Cogent Response Credit
+20 points: Begins comment with “I agree.” or “I disagree.”
Anger Demerit
-25 points: Writes in ALL CAPS forcing me to place hands over my ears
Making It Personal Demerit
-15 points: Lectures the author using their first name. Newsflash–I already have a Mom.
Bicker-stopping Smackdown Credit
+50 If you can come up with that rare witty retort, that gem of an inside joke, that sweet vengeance plus humor argument-ender, you win the thread. :)
I love blogs and citizen reporters. The unwashed masses who come out to comment? Not so much. You? You’re great!
Classic Liberalism: A Chance for Political Parties to Unite
In the old days, say 1850 and before, the country operated fairly heavily in the realm of “Classic Liberalism.” Classic liberalism is defined roughly this way:
Freedom of religion, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and freedom of assembly were core commitments of classical liberalism, as was the underlying conception of the proper role of just government as the protection of the liberties of individual citizens. Also central to classical liberalism was a commitment to a system of free markets as the best way to organize economic life.
John Stuart Mill (‘Over himself, over his own body and mind, the individual is sovereign’) and John Locke (all true power of governance derives from the people) laid out the fundamental ideals of Classic Liberalism. Adam Smith is another famous proponents of Classic Liberalism, sometimes called laissez-faire liberalism. But somehow the country drifted away from these core tenets. Some of that drift has been justified correction. Some has been radical ideology worming it’s way into the basic configuration of constitutional intent. Some have radicalized the intent of Classical Liberalism turning it into full-fledged Libertarianism. At it’s best, Classic Liberalism provides core values that both parties can agree on, even if they arere split over the finer points of its implementation.
The Republican Party has become the bastion of theocrats hoping to Christianize the country, and self-serving arses who say any dollar earned is a good dollar despite environmental harm, harm to the greater good, or harm to individuals. It seems to have become the party to protect senior citizens from those greedy young people. At its best, it supports fiscal conservatism, a staunch adherence to the right to individual liberty, and — surprise! — land and environmental conservation.
The Democratic Party has been hijacked by misguided political correctness leading to a “we solve all your problems” brand of immature and fiscally reckless governance. It’s become the party that protects illegal aliens from paying for anything. At its best, it supports a moderate safety net, corrects for legal social injustice (like Jim Crow laws), and protects the environment. Democrats have supported individuals over corporations in the form of unions and labor laws.
Both parties could use a return to some of those core ideals in Classic Liberalism:
- Fiscal Conservatism: NO ONE should spend more than they have, not government, not individuals. How did we become a country that embraces debt as a money-making tool? It’s just wrong. Many Classical Liberals supported the Gold Standard. The gold standard limits the power of governments to inflate prices through excessive issuance of paper currency. If not the gold standard, then at least adherence to hard currency and limits to or complete elimination of fractional reserve banking.
- Separation of Church and State: All people should enjoy the right to worship in the most personal and meaningful way. And this should have NOTHING AT ALL to do with government. See Thomas Paine’s Age of Reason.
- Legislative Restraint: No law should be passed, no individual liberty abridged, without a fundamental justification of its necessity. In other words, seatbelt laws save lives and money, yet constrain individual liberty. Our bar has been lowered way too far allowing laws to abridge individual freedoms in exchange for a nanny state. Once these laws are passed, like taxes, they never come back. Laws should be passed in the protection of freedom and to provide a reasonable framework for constitutional rights to be expressed in contemporary times (e.g. bans on automatic weapons and profit raiding or other modern excesses the founders could not have foreseen).
- Smaller Government: This one’s tricky for all of us these days. All government programs should be lean and efficient, including the military and the safety net of social programs. The military is bloated. Medicare is bloated. Prisons are bloated with non-violent offenders. State and county budgets are trying to cover more and more. As a result, taxes are going only one way: UP! The role of government at every level must be delineated.
- Individual Responsibility: Inherent in the ideas of John Locke in the concept that the individual is the government. Individuals must step up to the civic plate by voting and participating as officeholders. No more “They did it!! They made our taxes go up.” They are we. We must ensure that laws are reasonable, pay taxes for all the benefits we enjoy, and propose tangible solutions when we see problems. A passive citizenry leads to no good. Keep the participation constructive and push for solutions. Work hard to earn stuff. No one owes you anything.
Two immediate issues call for Americans to unite to find suitable solutions: the Banking Crisis, and Climate Change.
Regarding the banking crisis, Classical Liberal economists (Smith, and to some extent Friedman) argued against regulation since they believed that enlightened self-interest would preserve the system and constrain the greed-factor. It hasn’t. There’s been an egregious lack of the “enlightened” portion of that behavior. Classical Liberalism sought to balance the right to entrepreneurial pursuit and the right to protection of the individual over more powerful entities. Post economic meltdown and bail out, the more powerful entities seem to have gained the upper hand.
Where Climate Change is concerned, we are currently in the throws of a philosophical dilemma best summed up in the analogy called the Tragedy of the Commons.
The tragedy of the commons refers to a dilemma described in an influential article by that name written by Garrett Hardin and first published in the journal Science in 1968. The article describes a dilemma in which multiple individuals acting independently and solely and rationally consulting their own self-interest will ultimately destroy a shared limited resource even when it is clear that it is not in anyone’s long term interest for this to happen.
The phrase usually does not refer to the article but to the dilemma itself, typically in talking about a circumstance to which it is thought to apply. Perhaps most who use it are not aware of, nor have read, Hardin’s essay but are looking at conceptually parallel situations.
Central to Hardin’s article is an example, a hypothetical and simplified situation from medieval land tenure in Europe, of herders sharing a common parcel of land (the commons), on which they are each entitled to let their cows graze. In Hardin’s example, it is in each herder’s interest to put the next (and succeeding) cows he acquires onto the land, even if the carrying capacity of the commons is exceeded and it is damaged for all as a result. The herder receives all of the benefits from an additional cow, while the damage to the commons is shared by the entire group. If all herders make this individually rational economic decision, the commons will be destroyed to the detriment of all.
The Constitution intended to protect the common good. It seems that any party for the future needs to heed the lesson of the Tragedy of the Commons and provide a solution that accommodates a reasonably regulated and protected model for shared resources. The Constitution does not cover this explicitly. So far, the Democrats seem to have stepped up to this plate somewhat while the Republicans bury their heads and deny the threat of unrestrained population growth, environmental degradation, and resource depletion (see peak oil).
Neither party has come anywhere near solving our Bankers Gone Wild problem.
But the main point of this post is this: We can agree on most of what made, and still makes, this country great. Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, and Daily Kos all spout hatred and sowing chaos where we should be looking for common ground. We have some big issues to attend to as a country. The sooner we join forces to get back to our core values the sooner we’ll find reasonable solutions.
A Massive Pinnacle of Awesomeness. But First, Tea Partiers.
I have a girlfriend from Georgia who visited back home for a few weeks this summer. After she returned we were discussing the bizarre level of caustic hatred for President Obama, how he hasn’t been in office nearly long enough to earn that kind of emotion. I said, “Do you think it’s really just racism?’ And she said, “Yeah, it’s definitely that.” And I started spouting about the unfairness and the failure to evolve and blah, blah, when she stopped me. “You know, in the South, they believe Obama’s a Muslim. That’s a much bigger problem.” And she was right. Because the anger from white southerners seems to stem from an amorphous yet powerful threat that their way of life is under attack. Their fundamental beliefs are under attack. Though the framers were purposeful in their insistence on a separation of church and state, many still believe that our country was founded for Christians, by Christians. Here’s the video in all it’s uneducated, unenlightened glory…
But since that’s down right scary, you can watch the best mashup I’ve seen in years. Yay! It beats depressing politics for sure!
Oh the Scary, Scary Debt. Is Obama to Blame?
The Economist has put together an interactive graphic showing public debt worldwide. While it’s fun and colorful and interesting to play with, it’s also a visual illustration of the state of the world’s economies, especially all the developed countries with massive debt.
If you’re an African country (other than Zimbabwe, whose money is basically fictional) your per capita debt is quite low. Because if you live in an African country, you are receiving very few benefits from the government. And your country has no credit rating to finance a debt splurge. The developed nations, on the other hand, are credit maxed to the hilt. All of them, not just the US.
Obama Had Help
It seems that Obama, while he has made some unwise decisions like proposing a massively expensive healthcare overhaul during a nasty recession, or bailing out failed enterprises including auto companies and badly run banks like so much crack to crackheads, he is mostly the victim of bad timing. Republican antipathy toward Obama is misplaced for the most part. Every conversation I’ve witnessed degenerates into “Obama’s socialist policies are spending us into hell,” followed by, “Well, Bush caused the problem in the first place with an unnecessary war and no bank regulation.”
Truth is, both are accurate. Developed nations have been living like there’s an infinite tomorrow and no limits to what the great machine of capitalism can achieve. Our country is experiencing a massive let-down. For many, the bitterness is transparent. They thought the gravy train would eventually reach their lives. Now, the gravy’s gone and people are pissed.
Good News, Bad News on Economic Recovery
One bit of good news is that Americans are awesomely responsible when they need to be. According to the AP, the personal savings rate “fell steadily from 9.59 percent in the 1970s to 2.68 percent in the easy-money era from 2000 to 2008; from 2005 to 2007, it averaged 1.83 percent. Today, that trend is in reverse. From April to June, Americans’ personal savings rate was 5 percent, and it could go higher if the unemployment rate keeps rising.”
The bad news is that the machine needs capital to churn out GDP growth. Banks are keeping more and refusing to lend (good news for recovery, bad news for business and consumers) despite all those bailout dollars. And unemployment is creeping higher as a result.
Can the US Stay on Top?
One huge question when I look at all the debt represented in the graphic is to whom is all the debt owed? And of course, the answer is to each other, so what does that mean? Here’s where my understanding of global finance breaks down. Naively, I assume that it will all work itself out since everyone owes money to everyone else, therefore, can’t we all just call it roughly even? Fact is, the answer could be radically different. Maybe when all the debt is accounted for, new countries will be left at the top of the heap. Like China. Or India. And the US will be left struggling under a burden caused by too many years of fiscal irresponsibility.
This is where we need to take President Obama to task. Yes, he is the victim of bad timing. The bottom line is, blame can’t fix the economy and reduce the debt. Fiscal responsibility will. Our leaders need to rein in the spend-like-there’s-no-tomorrow habit. A weakness of democracy is the constant chasing after public popularity. When times call for painful policies, Congress and the President need to see past the short term pain and lack of popularity and do what’s right for the country. The country needs to stop expecting handouts and do its part, too.
And About that Healthcare Reform…
A final note, if healthcare reform really does have cost control as its main thrust, I’m for it. If healthcare reform has more coverage to more people as its goal, we can’t afford it. Right now, the message is that both goals are covered. I’m having trouble buying that.
Pesticides Are Not Our Friends
We’ve recently gone gluten-free in our house leading to a very great improvement in our health. I’ve read anecdotal reports that gluten-allergy is becoming increasingly common, and being the conspiracy-minded individual I am, I started thinking about all of the factors that could lead to increased wheat-sensitivity in the general public. Which, of course, made me wonder what kinds of pesticides are used on crops, not to mention anti-fungal and pesticide treatments for grain held in storage or during transport. And I found out LOTS of nasty chemicals are used to keep grain bug-free, mold-free, and ready for processing into the myriad wheat products we consume. Click here for the Top 50 Pesticides Used on Wheat in California in 2007. What a yummy list.
In fact, after my brief foray into unpronounceable pesticide studies, I have concluded that if you’re not eating organic, it’s no freakin wonder you’re suffering from all kinds of unpleasant effects including cancer, early puberty(not just overseas, but here in the US, too), reactive airways syndrome, asthma, migraines, and chronic sinus problems. One article I found in PubMed (which I cannot read in full since they charge about $600 per article) from the Laboratory of Toxicology, Department of Pharmacological Sciences, University of Milan, stated:
Epidemiological evidence from Western countries indicates that the prevalence of diseases associated with alterations in the immune response, such as asthma, certain autoimmune diseases and cancer, are increasing to such an extent that it cannot be attributed to improved diagnostics alone. There is some concern that this trend could be, at least, partially attributable to new or modified patterns of exposures to chemicals, including pesticides.
In other words, industrialized food production and its accompanying increase in widespread pesticide and chemical use is probably causing all kinds of human maladies that we are not yet aware of. Celiac disease, aka gluten-allergy, is one such autoimmune response that may be caused or exacerbated by these chemicals.
What to do? Buy organic when you can, and make yourself aware of what you’re exposed to when you can’t. Cook your own food, not from a box. Read the ingredient labels. Are there additives in there that you can’t pronounce? Whip out that Blackberry or iPhone and look it up before you eat it. To get educated in general, here are four cool resources:
- First, a book called In Defense of Food by Michael Pollan, which you’ve probably heard of. (Also worth reading, the Omnivore’s Dilemma.) Not so much about pesticides per se, and more about the contortion of original food into industrialized, marketable, processed uh, crap. That we eat.
- Second, a new website called What’s On My Food? gives consumers some idea of commonly found pesticide residues found on non-organic produce. This site is published by the very good-looking and awesome Pesticide Action Network, which I don’t know much about, but will soon.
- Third, another website called the Ethicurian educates on industrial food politics and practices, encouraging consumers to “chew the right thing.”
- And yet a fourth website, Hungry for Change, comes from the film Food Inc. and also seeks to educate the public about food production issues.
It’s taken an investment in time and energy to figure out what’s good food, and to really know what we’re eating. So completely worth it. Health is too important to let marketing decide for you.
Need to recover deleted photos?
This is not the kind of thing I’d usually post about, but I just recovered over 400 deleted photos from my camera’s sim card. Yeehaw!
So it all started when I returned from a gloriously beautiful vacation in the Sierras and proceeded to download my photos the way I always do, using Adobe Photoshop Elements photo downloader. I even went out to Explorer to confirm that the files were on my hard drive before deleting them off my camera. Yup, check, they were there.
Or so I thought. Somehow the photos I saw must’ve been some kind of temp file preview. Photoshop Elements died mid-stream and the photos were no longer on my hard drive. I was mystified and very bummed!
So, I went searching on the Internet. Tried one free program that didn’t work (Asoftech photo recovery). Then found a review for PhotoRescue that claimed this software could recover deleted photos off my camera’s sim card. I had to go buy a card reader at Radio Shack ($12).
I plugged in the card reader and ran PhotoRescue and . . . YES, BROTHER! There they were. All my vacation photos. Too awesome. I love technology sometimes!
This is a cool model, too. First, you run the trial version of the software to see if it can find your files. If it does, you then go buy a reg-key ($29) and complete the process to download the photos. You only pay if it works. We wouldn’t need healthcare reform if the medical establishment followed this model.
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