Wednesday, July 28, 2004

Longitudinally displaced

As of 12:50pm today I am temporarily enjoying life in a different longitude (and latitude for that matter). One distinctly closer to the Greenwich meridian and more disposessed of consuming warmer beer, fish and chips, and most importantly tea.

During this summer sojourn it is likely there will be few or even no new entries at The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul. Normal service should resume in late August.

Friday, July 23, 2004

Wasting your breath

Tonight I went to see Mike Daisey's "new" monologue "Wasting your breath". I say "new" because its actually an old one that he's warming up again with some workshop performances in Berkeley, while he's still performing "21 Dog Years: Doing time @ amazon.com".

While I enjoyed "21 Dog Years" I felt, as someone who's just recovering from four years of living and breathing the whole dot com thing, it was just wasn't fresh enough for me. It was kind of like re-telling a story that's only funny if you're in the in-crowd. Yes Agent J and I both lived and breathed dot com around the same time, and we both understood the humor, and Daisey's observations were insightful and funny but like I said, I felt it was seemed to me lacking in universal human interest. That's probably because I can now take a point of view that is outside of my actual experience - if I was still in the thick of it I think I would have a different take on Dog Years.

One thing I did take away from "21 Dog Years" was that I felt Daisey probably had a lot more to tell us and a lot more talent than I'd seen so far. Tonight's performance of "Wasting your breath" definitely exposed that hidden part of the Daisey iceberg. I was delighted to enjoy well over two hours of very personal, philosophical, funny and engaging monologue.

"Wasting your breath" is the story of Daisey's post college road trip from Maine to Seattle via LA which is cleverly interspliced with the evolution of his relationship with his long term girlfriend and the description of his native Maine. Its kind of like an early life version of Spalding Gray's "Slippery Slope" which charts a similar transitional phase of life via relationships. In fact I would go as so far to say I thought that Diasey has put together a monologue that is as good as Gray's. While Daisey admits to losing his mind at one point, he's not nearly as neurotic as Gray was making his observations and humor a lot more universal. One doesn't have to identify with a middle aged WASP to feel that ones life could easily be riding along in that car with Daisey from Maine to Seattle. Its a long and emotional journey to follow with him, but in this case the journey is the reward.

My prediction is that we'll be hearing a lot more from Daisey in the future. Now that 21 Dog Years has given him some notoriety and hopefully crowd pulling ability I think if "Wasting Your Breath" is his next touring performance he will go far. I would not be at all surprised if someone starts working on a screenplay in the not too distant future. Yes it works great as a monologue but you know how Hollywood loves a road trip movie!

Thursday, July 22, 2004

An open letter to MoveOnPac

Dear MoveOn PAC

I've contributed to several of your issue ads over the last year, and even ran a MoveOn event last weekend. However I'm contacting you to tell you I am not going to contribute to your "Debate" ad for two reasons. Firstly I feel its production quality isn't anything like on par with your other ads. Maybe this was intentional but to me frankly it looks cheesy and amateurish. Secondly and more importantly, even as a Kerry supporter I recognize the hypocrisy of painting Bush as responding to corporate interests and Kerry as someone who does not.

Kerry hasn't enjoyed anything like the populist financial support that Howard Dean got so even if its not obvious now, it is clear that he is also beholden to many "special interests", we just haven't heard much about them yet. These dependencies will no doubt show themselves sooner or later - even if only after election - and I don't think its at all appropriate to use the source of finances as a distinction between Bush and Kerry. While there may be some difference in where the money is coming from, I don't believe it is a strong enough justification for why Kerry is "better".

For many of those democrats contemplating holding their nose and voting for Kerry this November it will only serve to rub their noses in it. And if they feel that way then for those deserting Republicans and undecided voters you are hoping to attract - well this ad is almost certainly worthless and a waste of your supporters donations.

Wednesday, July 21, 2004

Why the Democrats suck and why being rich doesn't

The article Red-State America Against Itself over at AlterNet struck me as an excellent summary of why the Democrats suck so much these days. It highlights their steady decline which began in the 70's when they deserted their platform of progress by having government making life better for the lower and middle-class. Instead they adopted a policy of reform largely via increasing wealth, and hence played right into the hands of the Republicans who also appeal to the self-serving wealth seeking human nature. The Republicans had the advantage that they could lay claim to the conservative wealth seeking poor and turn a class based struggle for improved quality of life into one that was largely fought on narrow issues such as abortion, religion, guns, drugs, "family values" and good old American xenophobia. And so the battle for the historically democratic voting "working class" was lost.

Ironically it seems that the poorer and worse off people get under a Republican administration, the more likely they are to continue to vote Republican. It seems like the Republican message to the working class has exactly the same appeal as winning the lottery. The more you need it the more attractive its allure is. Not only does it have the appeal, it also has the same pay-out characteristics - the higher the prize available the lower your chances of winning it as all the fools rush in, but if you don't play you can't win right? Well that's appears to be how it works in the economics of everyday poverty and income distribution. As the upper 5% get even richer, the harder and less likely it is for someone to claw their way out of working poverty of the bottom 20%, and working mediocrity of the bottom 80%.

To illustrate this point United For a Fair Economy have some great graphs illustrating US wealth distribution and income distribution and how they have changed over time. The three charts derived from US Census Bureau historical income data are most alarming to me. They show that during the 32 year period between 1947 and 1979, pre-tax income growth was pretty balanced. It was roughly the same within plus or minus 10% across all income ranges - the top 5% of income earners actually seeing their income growing the least with an increase of 86%. However, in the 22 year period between 1979 and 2001 the income of the bottom 20% of wage earners has grown by just 3%, the top 20% by 53%, and the top 5% by a whopping 81%!

But wait, it gets worse! When you look at after-tax income you see that the tax breaks enacted since 1979 have compounded the effect. Since 1979 the after-tax income of the bottom 20% grew by just 9%, the top 20% by 68% and the top 5% by an enormous 201%! So not only do the super-rich enjoy massive increase in real income setting them even further apart from the remaining 95%, they also get tax breaks that compound that increase by an additional 120%. Thus in the last twenty years the top 5% of income earners have seen their after-tax income more than triple! Does anything about that strike you as wrong there?

And the sad thing is that many people not in that top 5%, or even top 20% will still say "No". Its just like adding a bonus ball to the lottery jackpot - it just makes striking it rich even more attractive! If you're already in poverty (in 2001 that lower 20% were earning a mean income of $14,021 and a good half of them were in poverty) then what does an extra 9% increase in disposable income over 22 years make? Bugger all, that's how much. So you might just as well fixate on the prize, or to put it another way: learn to stop worrying about being poor and love the rich, because one day you might just win the lottery and be one of them.

Guest post: Political traffic

Here is another guest post by The Tin Man.

I've noticed there are 2 types of vehicles you don't want to be following.

One type is obvious -- the oversized SUV like an Excursion, Navigator, etc. Not only are they slow, but when you're behind a 4 wheeled homage to Old Ironsides, you can't see anything but. Heck, you can hardly tell if it's night or day, the view is blocked so completely.

The other vehicle you don't want to follow is, curiously, on the opposite side of the political spectrum. Economy cars with a bumper sticker that says "War is Not the Answer". People who drive those cars just plod along, never in a hurry. You can't help but tailgate them. It doesn't do any good though -- the closer you get, the more effectively they're getting out the message. They're not gonna speed up or move over. When you've got somewhere to go, "War is Not the Answer" is even more unwelcome than "Student Driver".

There's no relief in sight -- as the country gets more politically polarized, traffic is just gonna get worse. :-)

Saturday, July 17, 2004

The Control Room

Since the US media has demonstrably proved itself unable to offer balanced and unbiased reporting of the actions of the US and its "foreign policy" you owe it to yourself on the other sides perspective. That can conveniently be done by popping along to your local screening of The Control Room as Agent J and myself did this evening.

"The Control Room" follows the reporting of the US invasion of Iraq by Al Jazeeras. From Bush's ultimatum to Saddam, to the occupation of Baghdad and the infamous "Mission Accomplished" speech it shows there are always two sides to a news story. This documentary gives us a perspective that wasn't written by the winner, and is much closer to the real people involved in the invasion than that told by the American "shock and awe" military propaganda machine.

If nothing else "The Control Room" gives a fascinating incite to the media side show that is laid on by US central command for the benefit of the worlds press, but there is certainly more to be learned. The people who speak, from Al Jazeeras staff (one who is subsequently killed in US targeting of Al Jazeeras offices in Baghdad) to American press office Lt John Rushing do so candidly and often with amazing clarity of the situation they are in. Won cannot help but see the entire operation as one that was planned and directed from start to finish and the actual people are inconsequential compared to the objectives.

We are reminded over and over by Rumsfeld how Al Jazeeras dogged reporting of the humanist side of the conflict is viewed as propaganda by the USA. Ironically with 18 months to contemplate history Rumsfeld's words frequently come back to bite him and reveal the government position to be entirely vacuous, if not downright pious. With such hindsight we can see the bitter irony in comments from Bush like "we hope the American prisoners are treated humanely", Rumsfeld chastising Al Jazeera from "breaching the Geneva convention" by filming American dead and prisoners, and a rant about how disgusting its persistent lies are and that truth would ultimately catch up with them.

An import subtext that runs through "The Control Room" is the question of America's involvement in the Palestinian-Isreali conflict and contempt with which America is held in the Arab world for holding such duplicative standards for "freedom" of Arab peoples. This is an important issue to bear in mind when we see how people who agree that Saddam is a bad and evil person can be reduced to complete shock, confusion and resentment when the supposed "good guys" (that's America) ride into town guns a blazing apparently to defend Arabs when they have demonstrably failed to do so for over thirty years. One hardly blame them for being suspicious and for refusing to just regurgitate the military's propaganda in lieu of just straight facts of civilians dying and chaos ruling.

So do yourself a favour, add "The Control Room" to your must see list of 2004. Its right up there with "Fahrenheit 9/11", "Outfoxed", "The Corporation" and "The Fog of War". I promise you they will free your mind.

Friday, July 16, 2004

Outfoxed

Having watched Robert Greenwald's "Outfoxed" today I can report it is no Fahrenheit 9/11 however it is worth seeing. For those that don't know "Outfoxed" is a harsh attack on the "fair and balanced" label that Fox News attaches to their reporting. I think most of us know that Fox News is anything but fair and balanced and has always towed the political line of Fox's owner - Rupert Murdoch.

While "Outfoxed" surely exposes this purported "news" channel to be all that it is - a 24/7 propaganda outlet for the Republican's, somehow I didn't feel it will have the impact desired. I think it dwells too deeply on some specific shows such as O'Reilly's ridiculously and if not obscenely biased show "The O'Reilly Factor". He's the kind of flag waving mindless patriot that would whip the living daylights out of anyone who dare challenge the government line, so long as it was his kind of government and his kind of patriotism.

Yes such stuff is sickening and elicits a good gut reaction form the viewer, but they do miss a chance to be more rigorous and objective in their analysis of just how biased Fox is. Maybe its so obvious it doesn't deserve such treatment? I think for some reason I was expecting something a bit more "scientific" than Michael Moore's in your face shock revelations of Fahrenheit.

The most convincing parts of "Outfoxed" are its interviews with many ex-Fox people who testify to its impartiality and to being coerced to follow the corporate line, and chastised for not following it. They certainly paint a picture of Fox as being a well oiled propaganda machine with only one objective - deceive the viewer with biased "reporting" without letting them know it. They also point out that such surreptitiously delivered propaganda is all the more effective for it, somewhat like subliminal advertising. Indeed what Fox does reminds me of the quote: "the greatest trick the devil ever played was convincing the world he doesn't exist".

I'm given to wonder, if Fox News is so ridiculously biased does it really matter? Shouldn't the right be allowed to have a channel that reports "their news" and shamelessly attacks everything those meddling liberals say? Well, in the interests of the First amendment - yes - but wait a minute, why should the first amendment apply to a corporation? Doesn't corporate speech have a debt to truthfulness? But wait, the First Amendment also says something about the freedom of the press, so that's how they do it - if you can convince yourself that Fox News is worthy of the label "Press" that is. Fox News, from a news and "fair and balanced reporting" perspective is simply pure Republican entertainment masquerading as news. One usually gets the bad with the good (or mediocre) - like tabloid newspapers that print mostly made up stories, lies and salacisous trash. On the idiot box (TV) Fox News nicely fills that gap.

Ultimately I think "Outfoxed" is really doing us all a favor and stating the obvious and allowing "freedom of the press" to go both ways. Maybe for some it isn't obvious, but it seems likely that those most in need of enlightenment are those must unlikely to receive it. Anyone who does watch it can hardly fail to conclude it is biased - whether they care or not will be up to their political persuasion. One imagines that Bush loving Republican voters wont give two hoots, but perhaps some naive undecideds might see the error of their ways.

So far I've discovered a few stories about "Outfoxed" on Fox's web site. There's Liberals Bashing FOX News... Again that makes the usual right wingnut claim that 80% of all media is biased to the left. There's Brian Wilson's Beltway Beat — Friday, July 16 that can only cite The Washington Post to help its bashing efforts and use its funding by Moveon that well know "ultra-liberal" organization to discredit it. Then there's a Fox 411 who also cites the Washington Post and says "I will let others debate the merits and faults of this film, which looks like it was made for two cents and has a confusing array of talking heads." He then launches into a ridiculous rant about use of "Layla" music and how the drummer is serving time for murder will get royalties every time Outfoxed is sold. Had he bothered to watch the rest of the DVD he would have know that the piece was donated for use in the movie to Greenwald completely royalty free. But its immaterial, has he no better criticism to add?

Fox News has issued information on four of the former Fox employee's who speaking in Outfoxed, basically claiming their status at Fox News was misrepresented and two never even worked for Fox News, just Fox affiliates before Fox News channel was launched. If true it is unfortunate that "Outfox" misrepresented them, however Fox has not yet refuted any of the specific information these people supplied. Indeed they have resorted to some childish name calling and "I dare you" type challenges. In their official statement about "Outfoxed" they say:

"If any news organizations decide to make this an anti-FOX News story, then all of their material becomes fodder immediately for possible out of context and biased documentaries."

I'm guessing that the New York Times already managed to piss them off because they say:

"The New York Times corrupts the journalistic process by taking orders from a George Soros-funded web site – Soros is a left-wing billionaire currency speculator who funds many liberal efforts. This is the real story.

As a final ultimatum they challenge any news organization to publish 100% of their internal memos and in return they will publish all of theirs. Yeah right - look mummy, there's a flying pig in the sky...

Oil and the Dollar

Today's Reuters story about the price of oil and the strength of the dollar reminded me of a theory I previously written about relating to the Iraq war and the dollar vs the euro. Briefly the theory postulated that invading Iraq was mostly about using Iraq oil reserves to bully OPEC into not pricing their oil in euros instead of dollars (something they have previously considered doing). The effect of them doing so would be devastating for the dollar and hence the USA. Countries around the world that hold very large reserves of dollars to purchase oil would then dump them and go to euros causing a massive devaluation of the dollar.

The thing is that compared to three years ago the dollar has already had a global devaluation of 30% or so against a basket of currencies (32% against the Euro) , something I've also written about before, and guess what? The price of oil has steadily increased from the mid $20 range to $40-something in the same time period. Obviously that's more than a 30% increase and many other factors like the invasion of Iraq would be having an influence, but I would not be at all surprised if there is at least some correlation. Maybe I just haven't been paying much attention but I haven't noticed anyone else relating the price of oil to the declining value of the dollar. Until today that is.

If as the Reuters article suggests, the value of the dollar really is a determining factor in the price of oil then it shows that OPEC is already at least partially pricing their oil based on other non-dollar currencies. Otherwise the value of the dollar would have no effect on the price of oil, right? Perhaps someone should be graphing the price of oil per barrel vs. the dollar-euro exchange rate and seeing what the degree of correlation between them is.

Wednesday, July 14, 2004

Top 10 Weapons of mass distraction

The list of the "Top 10 Weapons of mass distraction" (listen: Real, Windows) from today's Tavis Smiley show caught my ear. From corporate show trials to homeland security alerts, they all make perfect sense to me. Here's the summary:

  • 10. Corporate show trials
  • 9. Donald Trump in "The Apprentice"
  • 8. Anti-gay marriage amendment
  • 7. Tom Ridge terror alerts
  • 6. Rush Limbaugh
  • 5. Tax cuts
  • 4. Ralph Nader
  • 3. Cult of celebrity and entertainment
  • 2. Invasion of Iraq
  • 1. Republican convention line up

Read more from its author Connie Rice at the Advancement Project.

Tuesday, July 13, 2004

Big SUV - big bird

For a long time now Agent J and I have been letting out various exclamations every time we spot a Hummer on the road. Not that you ever see one "off road" - heaven forbid it might get dirty! Agent J is also known to flip them a "Loser!" L-sign - raise right hand in front of you, point thumb horizontally and index finger vertically (its backwards to you, but not from the front).

So it was with more than a little delight that we discovered, thanks to Chicken Or Beef, that there is a entire website devoted to such "gut reactions" caused by the obscenity of seeing a Hummer being proudly driven as a street vehicle.

Yes it's somewhat childish, but deep down it satisfies me to know that I'm not the only one sickened by its wretched excess and the knowledge that a massive tax credit would make this symbol of consumerism gone wild sell like hot cakes, and meanwhile its also exempt of CAFE fuel consumption standards that apply to other SUVs.

Having read much of the hate mail at the FUH2 website I have the feeling many Hummer drivers or wannabe drivers feel like the act of driving one is exactly a "F**k you!" to all us "tree huggin' liberals". In that case I think flipping the bird at a Hummer is a completely appropriate response since one's right to the pursuit of life, liberty and happiness does not extend to actions that infringe on everyone elses rights to do the same. The United States spends hundreds of billions of dollars to defend foreign oil supplies, and thousands of people have died in wars that would never have been fought if the countries concerned hadn't been a part of the axis of oil. So on reflection flipping the bird at a Hummer actually seems more like a gross under reaction to me.

Monday, July 12, 2004

Bush lies?

David Corn (see previous post) also wrote a recent article "White (House) Lies" about George Bush and lies. It covers some useful ground including how the perception of constant flow of lies from George's lips has literally driven the liberal left and now even mainstream Democrats crazy with rage, anger and venom.

Corn's article concludes that even if (or when), by presenting ill-researched or blatantly vacuous "evidence", Bush wasn't out and out lying, his failure to actually seek out the truth and consider contrarian evidence was as bad as, if not worse than lying. As even kids learn, ignorance of the law is not a valid defense, similarly ignorance of the truth is not an excuse for George Bush to use when as Fox Molder would say, "the truth is out there". In one case the truth was conveniently at hand in the 90 page National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq - unfortunately Bush never even bothered to look at it before making his statements about how necessary it was to invade. So Bush is either a liar, or grossly incompetent and unqualified to be Chief in Command and President, or even both.

Corn's follow up article "The Semantics of Lying" also provides a good discussion about the fallacy of letting Bush off with a lesser sentence of being "a classic truth-stretcher." (which probably applies to all politicians). In discussing the semantics of lying and using my favourite tactic of pulling out the dictionary to define "lie", Corn asks why it is so wrong to call someone who deceives and gives false information a liar when that is the very dictionary definition? Apparently some believe it is to inflamatory to use such a word against Bush and that Bush haters, liberals and democrats alike should restrain themselves to simply presenting the facts in a "Bush said this, but this happened, or this is the truth, so ...." where the blanks .... are left to the reader to fill in.

Maybe there is a point. "Liar!" is one of those things one is apat to spit out on a school playground in a fit of rage, and "you lied" is something that is usually dragged into court for rigorous analysis and proof before being allowed to stick. So I guess if its just another argument over a name you can take your pick - BushLies.com or Misleader.org, but the conclusion is the same - we need a new President.

9/11 conspiracy theories

This morning I spent several hours digging through a bunch of sites dealing with 9/11 conspiracy theories and creating a response to a reader's question about whether I believed the official story behind the 9/11 attacks. In short: I do.

In a slightly longer answer: while its depressing to acknowledge that such a phenomenal chain of errors occurred in the systems designed to prevent such a catastrophe, I believe that kind of thing happens all the time - albeit with far less severe consequences. Think about it: almost all "human error" disasters are diagnosed to be the consequence of a system that failed in an unpredicted way, or through a chain of errors that "should never have occurred". Occam's razor predicts that a cascade of human errors or cascading systematic failures is far more likely to be the cause than hundreds of government agents working in concert and absolute secrecy to pull of the same outcome and succeeding with no discernible trace.

While looking at counter 9/11 conspiracy opinions I found an article by David Corn that basically said the same thing. He also echoed my opinion that basically when it comes to complex covert plots the government has been demonstrably incompetent and it far rather prefers simple schemes like funding foreign dictators and insurgents to do its dirty work for real. Could the US government have secretly funded Al Qaeda to carry out the plots? Well it undoubtedly did fund Al Qaeda at one time, that's an undisputed matter of fact. That it lead to blowback against the USA, well they should know better, but apparently they never learn from dozens of prior blowback cases. Put that down to repetitive stupidity disorder. Did they deliberately engage Saudi's to destroy the WTC and a wing of the Pentagon? It's just possible, but very, very improbable. So much so that I don't intend to spend any time worrying about it.

If there's anything I worry about as a consequence of 9/11 its the important questions it raised regarding the structural failure following fire of the WTC buildings (North and South towers, and WTC 7) that deserve much more thorough investigation for the safety of all people living in steel frame buildings. Similarly I worry about the failure of systems to extinguish the fires, correctly inform and evacuate the building of people, and failure to correctly deal with the pollution consequences following the collapses. With more and more of these buildings being constructed its only a matter of time before more WTC like events occur whether triggered by natural or external causes. I personally believe that its only a question money saving that leads to insufficient provision for safe and effective egress systems for people trapped in skyscrapers.

Sunday, July 11, 2004

Countermentary and antiganda

I just finished reading an article from Time Magazine about Michael Moore and the new phenomenon they dubbed "poli-tainment". They basically crown Moore as the king and creator of the political but entertaining documentary genre. Although they mention a few other politically focused documentaries circulating now (such as "The Hunting of the President") given the way Hollywood works one can certainly expect a plethora of "me too" poli-tainment flicks to be on their way to a screen near you any day soon.

My prediction is that most of them will be miserable flops and truly deserving of the label "propaganda". The reason is I think their raison detre (reason for existence) will be to make big bucks which is completely the opposite to that behind Fahrenheit 9/11. A cash inspired Fahrenheit wannabe will surely be an empty and hollow vessel that will draw so much derision from all sides that it will sully the genre with a bad name.

Although I have previously 'fessed up to agreeing with the label of propaganda for Moore's flick, I think that it would actually be more deserving of a description such as "antiganada", "counterganda" or "countermentary". The reason is I think that Moore would never had made Fahrenheit had our media at large being even close to balanced, or possessed the high standards of investigatory and critical reporting that so many lambasted him for neglecting in Fahrenheit. His cunning was to decide that if he can't get the establishment to fix the prevailing mediocrity of the media in reporting what is really going on he could at least address and challenge public apathy by generating a harsh "antiganada" (propaganda deliberately designed to counter the prevailing propaganda) to balance things out. Think of it like trying to put out an oil well fire - the fire makes it too hot to get to the spigot to turn off the oil. One can't put out the fire by convential means - one simply cannot pour the water or whatever on fast enough. Instead one must resort to massive blast of high explosive that literally blows the fire out. Fahrenheit was Moore's high explosive counterspin blast.

Moore went on to make a flick that paid very close attention to factual accuracy, setting such a high standard that he has even talked about a $10,000 reward for anyone who uncovers a factual error in the movie. He then went on to juxtapose the facts in such a way as to create a very provocative message and one that just happened to counter the prevailing spin that has followed the Bush White House ever since 9/11. He reminds us of how it was before, he shows us stunning footage of the Bush election that was quietly side-lined or left on the cutting room floor by the media at that time. He digs up incriminating facts that were censored by the White House to protect the president's credibility. He reminds us how different things were even two years ago and reminds us how quickly we forget and adapt to the latest prevailing spin and propaganda from the White House and media.

I truly believe there wont be any Hollywood inspired me-too's that come close to Fahrenheit in their impact and credibility, they will always be in a different league. After all, if you look and listen closely you'll find that Fahrenheit's central thesis is "Wake up America - the system is broken, it's time to change!". Even if you're not listening and seeing that message, it's still there, subliminally, which is why it gets to people, even the ones that don't want to hear it. They are forced to respond in some way. Why would Hollywood, which is for the most part so much a cog of that very system take part in creating movies with such a message? They wont.

Hollywood may weigh in long after the fight is over, making movies about lies and dirty tricks by tobacco and power companies but only long after they have been tried and convicted in court. They may make realistic and or heart rending movies about the Holocaust, Vietnam, and Somalia but long after the wars are over and the dead are buried. Its simply never been Hollywood's place or desire or cash incentive to weigh in on current events. Perhaps they worry that to present movie goers with an alternating diet of fact and fiction, fantasy and reality will be too much for them? But in a world whereeverything you see on the TV news, read in the paper or even in a secret government report, is taken literally as fact without a second thought, why do they worry - the battle is over and people are already dazed and confused, unable to distinguish truth from fiction, unable to apply any standard of critical thinking to what they read and see.

So go ahead Hollywood, start making some summer blockbuster documentaries, so long as you throw in a happy ending, some villains and heroes, a few tens of millions in marketing and plush dolls for the kids to buy at McDonald's you're sure of at least a one or two thumbs up from Joe Public.

Gay marriage

Hot Abercrombie Chick! makes a good point that the fight over gay marriage is really just about a name*. Well, of course I know there is a sizeable proportion of the American population who would like to outlaw anything relating to homosexuality, but fortunately that isn't (yet) going to happen any time soon. So currently, as HAC points out, those same people just want to win the fight to keep the noun "marriage" to mean something exclusively between a man and a woman.

But what is that something?

Well it sure isn't a religious thing - for a long time now you can't just go to a church and get married, in this country and most others in the world you'll need a marriage certificate. And what is that? Well basically its a legally binding contract that you'll sign and get notarized by some qualified person. Without the signed marriage certificate your marriage in the church is worth zip.

Why should there be some special kind of contract with special privileges that only a man and a woman can enter into? I really don't know. Any rational thinking shows all the arguments that same sex marriage will "damage the family" is clearly bunk. What about all those heterosexual couples that marry and never have kids, and never ever intended to have them? Or those that are physically incapable of having them? Do we prevent them marrying because they will "damage the family"? Of course not. I can only assume there's a subtext in the "damage the family" argument that it actually legitimizes immoral activity that will damage family values. However I'm afraid that must also be hogwash. What people do within their marriage is none of the business of the government, something that has very recently been endorsed by the Supreme Court when it struck down the Texas sodomy law.

So even if those supporters of the ban on gay marriage feel this way I'm afraid they are SOL. They have to recognize that the law should let any get married and raise, or not raise children as the case may be. Indeed its often a mystery to many who choose not to raise children that the law does let just about anyone raise them in almost whatever way they please. Furthermore the US pretty much leads the world with more than 50% of all marriages ending in divorce. So why is it that anyone would believe the government should endorse an institution that more often than not leads to single parents raising children - just what the heck does that do for the good of families? Is the next step to ban divorce because that's bad for families. And then have an amendment that says that poor people can't have children because they can't afford to raise them in a healthy environment with two cars, four TVs and cable? And then how about an amendment that permits only "arranged marriages" sanctioned by consenting parents which are best for their family interests (i.e. preservation of capital) just like in the good old days. Is permitting constitutional control over marriage under the guise of "protecting the family" just a step onto the slippery slope toward a society that allows only state controlled breeding?

I have to believe not at this moment even though I do think some things dangerously like eugenics will be upon us soon thanks to genetic engineering and cloning. These will ultimately lead to calls for the government to intervene in the breeding process and take the opportunity to exert some control over who can and can't reproduce.

So ultimately, at the current time I agree with the notion that its really just about the name. They (supporters of the ban) just don't want their notion of the word marriage being sullied by its application to someone else's notion. Its basically a trademark issue. The straight upstanding churchgoers or bible bashers (and lets face it, they almost always are, or at least would claim to be) don't want to get "married" in white on a Sunday when any deviant homosexual couple can waltz or sashay into city hall on Monday and do it too.

In a way I can sort of see their point, but only if I was sitting on the church side of the fence. I mean the church laid its claim on marriage a long long time ago, for all I know it may have even invented the concept, or at least its monogamous "till death do us part" manifestation. I'm not a historian but I wouldn't be surprised if that was true - please contact me if you have a good reference on the history of marriage. But as I already pointed out the separation of marriage from the ceremony that happens in a church occurred a long time ago and since that time civil weddings without a hint of religion have lead to an identical state of marriage.

So here is my solution: I say we should divorce the government recognized concept of marriage from the word "marriage". All our government documents should be changed to remove the words "marry", "marriage" and "married" and replace them with "civil union" (or alternatively "domestic partner" if that's a better name for it). Then civil union should be made open to any couple and recognized in all states via a civil union amendment. Marriage would then resort to applying only to a ceremony which occurs in a church and that is not recognized by the government, period. If people want to get married and have a civil union at the same time then fine - but they had better bring along and sign a civil union certificate at the same time.

At this point I think the fight would be over - the religious people get back the control of their word "marriage" and their churches get to continue to discriminate in whatever way they wish. It'll then be between the church members and church leaders to fight it out just like with the current fight over ordination of openly gay ministers in the Baptist and other churches.

Of course if churches want to surrender "marriage" and redefine "their thing" as "Holy matrimony" or something like that then that's fine. But personally I'm much happier with abolition of government use of a term like marriage that is so sullied with religious connotations. At this point I'd much rather have a civil union or commit to a domestic partnership than get married.

* Link courtesy of Net Politik

Saturday, July 10, 2004

SNAFU in Florida

Thanks to GuvWurld for pointing out this article in the NY Times about how Florida is up to its usual tricks when "purging" felons from its electoral role. Magically out of 48,000 Florida residents purged only 61 were Hispanic but 22,000 were African-American. Flordia officials claim it was a simple mistake and the criteria for building the list were reviewed by many people.

Yet again I wonder why no official body in Florida decided to use higher standards to check this list given the proven errors (or downright fraud) in constructing the list for the 2000 election. Fortunately some outside party bothered to double check on the people's behalf and was able to spot this "error". From my point of view its clear that these kinds of errors don't happen by chance, at best its a systematic failure by Florida to ensure fairness in their elections, at worst its out and out fraud to bias the purge lists in the favour of the Republicans.

Friday, July 09, 2004

A higher standard

Should today's revelations about misleading of country by the intelligence community come as a surprise to anyone? Or how about the fact that the summary of the report on WMD they produced ommitted all the caveats and dissenting opinions in the main report, and of course no one in congress even bothered to read the actual report, just the summary, before voting to go to war? And what the hell is this "group think" they have dreamed up as an excuse for their errors? Why don't they just call it what it was - deliberate massaging of the facts, deliberate omission of contrary information, and deliberate misleading of the country to meet George W. Bush's desire to go to war with Iraq. Basically the intelligence community turned into a giant propoganda machine and a company of yes men who were too afraid to tell Bush where to stick his WMD.

If there is one thing the Kerry is saying now that I agree with, is that he wont send American troops to war unless it is absolutely necessary. I believe there has to be the highest of standards to define "absolutely necessary" and that no super secret intelligence report that hasn't been thoroughily analysed and challenged for validity will do. Any politician that failed to challenge the validity of such information before voting owes the world an apology and can feel ashamed to have the responsibility for Iraqi and American blood on their hands. As such I think Kerry should be apologizing for being mislead so easily, and he should be calling for Bush to be impeached for instigating this disgusting deceit. Similarly the US media should be resigning en-masse for their complete failure to critically challenge the information coming from the Whitehouse.

I guess we can sit back and wait for Bush to blame "bad eggs" for the bad intelligence. But once again this is something he simply cannot blame on his minions. It was clear that the desire to supress information and massage what there was to be favorable towards Bush's desires came straight from the top. Think about it, this country sends people to death when their guilt is beyond a reasonable doubt, and yet it still makes mistakes. Why should we invade another country on any less a standard, should we not require a higher standard than that used to execute one person?

What would comprise such a standard? Well how about if Saddam had been parading long range missiles up and down through the streets of Baghdad, launching a few into the desert for good measure, and issuing daily decrees of "I'm gonna git yer Uncle Sam". Maybe that would comprise the a clear and present danger... maybe.

Leveraged to the max

General Glut's Globblog has laid out some interesting statistics about the current housing bubble. Is it a bubble or perfectly normal effervescence? Well as he points out things are certainly getting frothy, and he also notes that those blaming the phenomenon on low interest rates are mistaken because in reality the real interest rate (which is the nominal rate adjusted for inflation) has been very steady.

While I agree with the later point in principle I would say that I believe the average person does not think, or even know, about things like nominal vs. real interest rates. They just see that APR figure and think "Crikey, that's low" and off they go and refinance or buy property. They also do not think about such things when trying to figure out if they should make extra payments against their capital.

More frightening to me are the statistics the General presents about the massive increase in people using adjustable rate mortgages (ARMs) to finance their home purchases, and the increase in loan to value ratios. I first learned about this in the late nineties when a friend of mine gave me doom and gloom predictions about people using ARMs and then getting into trouble or even foreclosed after the initial ARM fixed rate expired and rates went up through the roof. Typical ARM periods are five, three or even on years so that would have meant someone refinancing at the end of the dot com bubble years would have already or would be about to have this problem.

However since then nominal rates have collapsed and almost anyone who can will have refinanced to a significantly lower rate. For instance my first mortgage in May 2000 was a 7 7/8 percent 5-year ARM, but now I have a 5 1/4 fixed rate. But I do know a good many people who never took the chance to switch to a fixed rate and was sucked into another ARM in the last year netting rates down to 4% or below.

The really scary thing is that its pretty much unthinkable that nominal rates will ever be lower than they have been in the last year. So in one, three or five years if people have not sold their properties will find themselves adjusting up to significantly higher rates. Sure inflation may be higher then which means they will have more money in their pockets and more interest income to offset the increases, but isn't it a chicken and egg problem? Even if inflation isn't higher then if interest rates are higher that will surely drive up the cost of housing and rents and cause cost-push inflation?

My trusty mortgage calculator over at bankrate.com tells me that if I had a Bay Area typical $400,000 jumbo 5/1 ARM mortgage at 4.25% (about the lowest it got in the last two years) I'd be paying $1967 a month. In five years say the rate adjusts up to 6.5% (significantly less than its peak in the bubble years), now I'd be paying something like $2528 a month - at 29% increase in monthly payments. Ouch. That would also be the increase in monthly payments if I had to sell my house and by another house with similar loan size.

With such a scenario one had better hope that either mortgage interest rates either stay low or that wages have increase sufficiently beyond inflation to provide enough extra cash to make the higher payments when ARMs start adjusting. And I don't even want to think about what will happen if property values are lower than they are now in three to five years. Then people who leveraged to the max with ARMs may well find themselves with sharply higher payments to make and in a negative equity situation. In such a scenario there will be no borrowing against property value to make payments and no selling to buy a cheaper property. People will just have to sit tight and scrimp and scrape to make payments, or find themselves facing foreclosure and possibly bankruptcy. Neither of which is good for the economy and certainly not condusive of such Republican miracles of recovery as euphoric consumer spending and blind faith credit binges...

Thursday, July 08, 2004

Advertised to death

According to The Economist last week, in a recent study by Yankelovich Partners:

65% of people now feel "constantly bombarded" by ad messages and that 59% feel that ads have very little relevance to them. Almost 70% said they would be interested in products or services that would help them avoid marketing pitches.

Frankly I'm not at all surprised and I am definitely in that 65% of people who feel "constantly bombarded".

Tuesday, July 06, 2004

Fahrenheit 9/11 - take two

Well Fahrenheit 9/11 certainly didn't beat the record for second weekend take of $19,755 - by current estimates its took $12,985 per theater. However the number of theaters it was showing in had doubled to 1725 for a second weekend gross of over $22M and a gross to date of $61M. So that's pretty impressive - with double of the number of theaters and up against the competition of Hollywood blockbuster Spider-Man 2 it still managed to pull in 94% of its opening weekend gross. That seems to pour cold water on any argument that all the movie's supporters would have seen it on the first weekend and the second weekend would be a bust.

Even better, Fahrenheit 9/11 also managed to maintain its spot at #2 highest gross per theater on its opening weekend because Spider-Man 2 came in with a relatively weak showing of $21,266 per theater this weekend.

Saturday, July 03, 2004

The Magic of Roundabouts, in a roundabout way

So I was vainly checking my ecosystem status at The Truth Laid Bear when I notice I'd picked up a new referrer - Dock of the Bay by Adelaide blogger Kent Inverarity. So as one does, I perused his blog for a bit and noticed a reference to a movie called "The Gods Must Be Crazy" which I dutifully looked up on IMDB, chase down a few reviews for and then add to my NetFlix queue. Mmmmmm, movies...

While I'm at IMDB I check out what movie it was I heard Robbie Williams would be in and I remember its "De-lovely" the new movie based on the life of the famous 1920's singer and songwriter, Cole Porter. But then I also notice that Robbie Williams will also be providing the voice for Dougal in "The Magic Roundabout". Wait a minute, what was that? Yes, holy crap, there's going to be a movie of "The Magic Roundabout".

I think it would probably take way to long to describe "The Magic Roundabout" adequately. Suffice to say it was one of the earliest TV programmes I remember watching - a five minute animation that played at 5:40pm every day, and right afterwards, until "I got older" at least, I had to go to bed. I'll tell you, getting older sure took a long time back then. So yes, it kinda takes me back - way back.

Oh and it helped that this show was originally a French show called "Le Manège Enchanté" featuring bizarre characters like a sugar cube eating dog that looked like a toilet brush, a permanently stoned rabbit called Dylan, a dumb as a post cow called Ermintrude, and mistachioed bed time enforcer called Zebedee who seemed to have evolved from a slinky and a glove puppet. A photo probably does the menagerie better justice.

It seems as if the Pathe remake will feature most of the old characters lovingly re-rendered in CGI and with voices of minor celebrities such as Tom Baker, Joanna Lumley, Kylie Minogue and the aforementioned Robbie Williams. It will apparently debute sometime in 2004 and will be accompanied by a marketing campaign bringing plush dolls, clothing, cards, calendars, games, and tableware. So all you 30-something Brits, get ready for The Magic Roundabout to suddenly be cool again and grab your wallets for some nostalgia. In the mean time you can check out the story synopsis and concept movie posters which I managed to dig up thanks to Google.

By the way, if you go Googling for the Magic Roundabout you'll soon find that #1 entry is actually a real roundabout in Swindon that was named after show due to its mind boggling bizarre layout of mini roundabouts all around one big roundabout. The signpost that announces it strikes fear into any lesser mortals mind and would cause any American to drive right of the road for good. Yes, you really need pictures to believe it.

Friday, July 02, 2004

There's oil in them drains!

If San Francisco has so much trouble from dumped oil and grease clogging up its drains imagine what the size of the problem countrywide (or even worldwide) is?

Why doesn't San Francisco do something radical like funding a program to produce its own bio-diesel fuel from this waste and then selling it? If the city can shut restaurants down for clogging drains then it can surely offer to take the offending material of a resturant's hands for a small fee, process it and then sell it for a profit?

Remember kids, maybe there are still a few environmental problems with bio-diesel emissions, but it's still the greenest way to power a car next to electricity or hydrogen generated from renewable energy. Just why is there a huge business of drilling oil from the ground when you can just grow it in the fields?