One thing that many Republicans were wondering over the last few weeks is this - why hasn't John McCain come out swinging against Obama with regards to Freddie/Fannie? I think I know why - it is because John McCain always puts country above politics.
Before the bailout bill was passed John McCain suspended his campaign, and worked with anyone and everyone he could to come up with a good bailout bill. There were almost no attacks during this time on Obama and his role in it from McCain. In fact, I think the only ones that were made were from the RNC and not from the McCain campaign. Now that the bailout bill has passed and is signed, McCain has indicated that he is going to start attacking Obama for the situation with Fannie and Freddie.
More than being president, John McCain wants the country to work. He is willing to sacrifice his presidency to do what he believes is best for the country. This is the same situation with the troop surge. John McCain lobbied for it even when it was a politically bad move, because he thought it was right for the country. John McCain allowed himself to be shot at time and time again with no response while working for the bailout. Why? Because getting the country working again was his most important task.
Now that McCain's duty has been fulfilled, he is ready to fight Obama.
That's exactly what we want in a leader. I am actually in awe of McCain's leadership. Now if only he hadn't just used his awe-inspiring leadership qualities wasting $700 Billion, I would be a lot happier.
Several of my friends sent this video to me. A good summary.
Most people are familiar with the mother-of-all-bailouts being pondered by Congress. Nearly $1 Trillion dollars in debt being purchased by the government. However, watching the debates, interviews with the candidates, and the pundits, I was awestruck that few of the members of the mainstream media ever looked into the over-arching causes of the financial meltdown.
Many members of the media criticized McCain because he deregulated the banks. And, using mainstream media logic, this means that the loans failed because of lack of regulation.
In fact, the opposite was true - the loans failed because the government was over-involved. Why was the government involved? Because of the race-baiters.
Let me give you a generalized sequence of events as I understand them:
For those of you who want to read more, here are some conservative commentators who have shed light on the problem:
And we'll end with a nice parable from Michelle Malkin.
Our current crisis is simply the natural result of what happens when government tries to do the market's job, especially responding to phony problems from race-baiters. I fear the result of what congress will do. As Sowell pointed out, the 1987 Wall Street crash was just as big as the 1929 one. However, the government didn't do anything about the 1987 crash, and so we got a decade of growth. The government tried to "fix" the 1929 crash, and we got the Great Depression.
It will be bad for congress to do nothing. It will be worse if they do something.
Essayist Tim Wise just wrote a piece on white privilege in the campaign. Let's look at what he says:
White privilege is when you can get pregnant at seventeen like Bristol Palin and everyone is quick to insist that your life and that of your family is a personal matter, and that no one has a right to judge you or your parents, because “every family has challenges,” even as black and Latino families with similar “challenges” are regularly typified as irresponsible, pathological and arbiters of social decay.
This has multiple mischaracterizations. First of all, I think we all can agree that the fact that we have a culture in which kids are having lots of sex before marriage is an arbiter of social decay. This includes Bristol. The question is whether or not the Palin family is unusual in this respect. The answer is - they are. Bristol is having, not aborting, the baby, and marrying the father. This isn't an ideal situation, but it's an ideal response to the situation. No one - I repeat - NO ONE - is criticizing Obama's mother for having Obama out of wedlock. They are being treated equally.
White privilege is when you can call yourself a “fuckin’ redneck,” like Bristol Palin’s boyfriend does, and talk about how if anyone messes with you, you'll “kick their fuckin' ass,” and talk about how you like to “shoot shit” for fun, and still be viewed as a responsible, all-American boy (and a great son-in-law to be) rather than a thug.
In a crowded city environment, it is always wrong to fire weapons. In the open country it is not. This is no different than if inner-city white kids would say the same thing. It has nothing to do with white or black, but the location where it occurs. I don't know anything about Levi, perhaps he is an evil person. But I think this is quite the over-reaction.
White privilege is when you can attend four different colleges in six years like Sarah Palin did (one of which you basically failed out of, then returned to after making up some coursework at a community college), and no one questions your intelligence or commitment to achievement, whereas a person of color who did this would be viewed as unfit for college, and probably someone who only got in in the first place because of affirmative action.
I don't know anything about Sarah's academic qualifications - but her intelligence has certainly been questioned many times. To imply that it hasn't is simple ignorance. From what I've seen, I don't like Sarah for being smart (she's not the brightest one on some things) but for fighting corruption. Let's also look at that last statement - "probably someone who only got in in the first place because of affirmative action" - that's exactly the problem with affirmative action! This is specifically one of the reasons it has been criticized - it leaves the class of people being "affirmed" being continually looked down upon no matter what their achievement is, because no one knows if they really achieved it or not!
White privilege is when you can claim that being mayor of a town smaller than most medium-sized colleges, and then Governor of a state with about the same number of people as the lower fifth of the island of Manhattan, makes you ready to potentially be president, and people don’t all piss on themselves with laughter, while being a black U.S. Senator, two-term state Senator, and constitutional law scholar, means you’re “untested.”
The question is about executive experience. Palin has more executive experience than the other three players combined. In America, we have a history of electing governors rather than senators for office. And, even in her short tenure, she has, from what I've heard, a record for cleaning up politics. This preference for governors has been near-universal for the last half-century, so this isn't race, it's American politics - we have, with or without the issue of race, always considered governorships to be more prepertory for president than other positions.
White privilege is being able to say that you support the words “under God” in the pledge of allegiance because “if it was good enough for the founding fathers, it’s good enough for me,” and not be immediately disqualified from holding office--since, after all, the pledge was written in the late 1800s and the “under God” part wasn’t added until the 1950s--while believing that reading accused criminals and terrorists their rights (because, ya know, the Constitution, which you used to teach at a prestigious law school requires it), is a dangerous and silly idea only supported by mushy liberals.
I don't disagree that this was a gaffe, but my guess is that most citizens don't know the history of "under God" in the constitution - but that is what most people like about Sarah - she's a citizen-politician, not a politician-politician. It would be great if she knew more about the history of some of our traditions, but it isn't disqualifying that she doesn't. And, she doesn't think that reading accused criminals their rights is dangerous. This is simply a misrepresentation.
White privilege is being able to be a gun enthusiast and not make people immediately scared of you.
This is idiotic.
White privilege is being able to have a husband who was a member of an extremist political party that wants your state to secede from the Union, and whose motto was “Alaska first,” and no one questions your patriotism or that of your family, while if you're black and your spouse merely fails to come to a 9/11 memorial so she can be home with her kids on the first day of school, people immediately think she’s being disrespectful.
This is actually funny, especially considering that Todd isn't white, he's Indian. Since when are race-baiting liberals against Indians who want their own land? Oh, that's right, when they're conservative. As a state's rights supporter, I'm actually fairly sympathetic with AIP (don't read too much about them - I know only what's in the paragraph above + Wikipedia). They actually aren't, as a party, for Alaskan independence, but rather that Alaska be presented with all of the choices, which also include becoming a U.S. territory again, or a U.S. commonwealth, as well as remaining a U.S. state. As to the reference to Michelle, if there is any problem with it, I don't think it has to do with race, but rather conservative bias towards democrats. However, I do know that the day before she was speaking in Toronto (I think) in support of Obama, so it's not likely that she's just staying home to be with her kids like everyone tries to make it out. It's possible, but not likely.
White privilege is being able to make fun of community organizers and the work they do--like, among other things, fight for the right of women to vote, or for civil rights, or the 8-hour workday, or an end to child labor--and people think you’re being pithy and tough, but if you merely question the experience of a small town mayor and 18-month governor with no foreign policy expertise beyond a class she took in college--you’re somehow being mean, or even sexist.
No one is making fun of community organizers. This is simply a misrepresentation. Obama put out "community organizer" as an instance of executive experience, not of being a good person. No one was criticizing his goodness, only whether or not it qualifies as executive.
White privilege is being able to convince white women who don’t even agree with you on any substantive issue to vote for you and your running mate anyway, because all of a sudden your presence on the ticket has inspired confidence in these same white women, and made them give your party a “second look.”
You don't think this would happen with any woman on the ticket? Would you also be complaining if this happened with Hillary?
White privilege is being able to fire people who didn’t support your political campaigns and not be accused of abusing your power or being a typical politician who engages in favoritism, while being black and merely knowing some folks from the old-line political machines in Chicago means you must be corrupt.
Hmmm... Palin ran as a reformer who was going to remove corrupt people from power. Who do you think opposed her? Maybe corrupt people? And Obama didn't "merely know" these people, these were the people who launched his career.
White privilege is being able to attend churches over the years whose pastors say that people who voted for John Kerry or merely criticize George W. Bush are going to hell, and that the U.S. is an explicitly Christian nation and the job of Christians is to bring Christian theological principles into government, and who bring in speakers who say the conflict in the Middle East is God’s punishment on Jews for rejecting Jesus, and everyone can still think you’re just a good church-going Christian, but if you’re black and friends with a black pastor who has noted (as have Colin Powell and the U.S. Department of Defense) that terrorist attacks are often the result of U.S. foreign policy and who talks about the history of racism and its effect on black people, you’re an extremist who probably hates America.
This is probably the one legit claim he has, if it is true. I've seen Palin misquoted many times about what she says about religion, and this is possibly another instance. But if it's not, it will be the lone valid claim on the list.
White privilege is not knowing what the Bush Doctrine is when asked by a reporter, and then people get angry at the reporter for asking you such a “trick question,” while being black and merely refusing to give one-word answers to the queries of Bill O’Reilly means you’re dodging the question, or trying to seem overly intellectual and nuanced.
I haven't seen or heard about the Bill O'Reilly interview, but I know O'Reilly criticizes everyone. As for the Bush Doctrine question, I don't disagree that the failure to know the Doctrine is a failing on her part, but I also think that she rightly perceived it as a trick question. Any agreement with the Bush doctrine would have been viewed as automatic agreement with everything Bush has done.
White privilege is being able to claim your experience as a POW has anything at all to do with your fitness for president, while being black and experiencing racism is, as Sarah Palin has referred to it a “light” burden.
I haven't seen these claims, but I would say that in comparison McCain's burden was greater. McCain, however, does not say he should be a President because of his POW status, rather he shows how being a POW has shaped his moral development, which is a different issue altogether. In his convention address he shows how being a POW changed his attitude towards love of country and others, not how it qualified him for president.
And finally, white privilege is the only thing that could possibly allow someone to become president when he has voted with George W. Bush 90 percent of the time, even as unemployment is skyrocketing, people are losing their homes, inflation is rising, and the U.S. is increasingly isolated from world opinion, just because white voters aren’t sure about that whole “change” thing. Ya know, it’s just too vague and ill-defined, unlike, say, four more years of the same, which is very concrete and certain…
What on earth does that have to do with race? This article isn't about Racism, it's just using Racism as an excuse to do mindless Republican-bashing, and be praised for it.
Some people just can't take the idea that American's simply don't care what the color of Obama's skin is, and we tend to vote conservative. But that's just too much for the Race-baiters to handle.
I had no idea that you could use economic theory to help you write poetry, but it appears that you can.
HT to YORF for this one. It appears that medical researchers have begun looking into the side-effects of sword swallowing. This authors must have been laughing hysterically as they wrote the paper:
We excluded cases in which injury was related to swallowing items other than swords, such as glass, neon tubes, spear guns, or jack hammers.
Ouch.
Some let the sword fall abruptly, a manoeuvre known as "the drop," controlling the fall of the sword with the muscles of the pharynx, and some invite members of the audience to move the sword.
Shivers. I don't think I'll take that up as a hobby.
On a more serious note, there was a comment on the paper which I thought was very interesting for medical science:
Having recently undergone an extremely uncomfortable endoscopic exploration of my own oesophagus and stomach I have learned that I have a small hiatus hernia. This perhaps explains why I still have ‘the worst’ acid reflux despite my religious use of esomeprazole 40mg and an array of ‘lifestyle’ measures. I read the sword- swallowing article with great interest especially the discussion on how sword swallowers must train themselves to voluntarily exert control over normally involuntarily controlled sphincters. I wonder if sword swallowers could teach GORD (gastrooesophageal reflux disease) sufferers to control their lower oesophageal sphincter thereby giving themselves relief of sometimes very resistant symptoms?
Very interesting indeed.
If you're going to make a digital microfiche scanner to use with a computer, you should at least be kind enough to make it work at a high enough resolution to actually read the text!
Bartlett Publishing has just launched a project called Evolving Algorithms to determine the limits and requirements of evolutionary algorithms in computer science.
This project is essentially created to be a little like Avida, except with a much narrower focus. Avida attempts to be several things at once, and winds up not being very good at any of them. It attempts to model biology by making the organism self-replicating and using lots of biology metaphors in its production, it attempts to model cost theory through its use of environmental limits, and it attempts to model the possibility of evolution by mutating programs and seeing if they can evolve new algorithms de novo.
The problem is that it doesn't do any of these things well. Despite the fact that Avida is a Turing-complete system, it can't even detect the evolution of an algorithm that requires those constructs! The only construct that requires looping is the copy loop, and that is precoded in the original organism! So, for instance, it can't even in theory give selection value to, say, a factorial function. I was greatly disappointed when I found this out. Likewise, it doesn't model biological cost theory well, because it gives an inordinate fitness advantage to new functions (for a good model of cost theory, see Mendel's Accountant).
Don't get me wrong, Avida was a great system to spur interest in this field. This program probably wouldn't exist without Avida - we probably wouldn't have thought of it on our own. However, the problem is that many view Avida as being able to answer their questions (which it generally can't - especially on cost theory or evolvability) instead of simply being the first iteration of a dynamic series of research questions.
So, what we would like to research are the prerequisites for evolving new algorithms, not just logic functions. Therefore, we are starting this project in order to determine what is required in order to do this. We are chucking cost theory, non-teleology. We know we are including teleologial concepts into evolution, because the question we want to answer is, in order to solve problem X, what prerequisites are required in order to construct a solution?
Therefore, the new project will have an easily-modifiable instruction set, a more flexible machine model, and a probably more teleological method of defining fit/unfit organisms.
Again, the new project is at http://code.google.com/p/evolving-algorithms/
This is the first post of a series on the book Moral Politics: How Liberals and Conservatives Think. I am blogging as I read, so parts of this may wind up being different than where the author is ultimately going. In any case, the discussions in Moral Politics provide a good springboard for discussions.
The main idea in Moral Politics is to identify how conservatives and liberals process their political beliefs cognitively, and what the difference is. This is not problematic, per se, except that I think that the author is overgeneralizing the words we use to describe politics to the way we really think about politics, and along the way is missing some important distinctions.
The fundamental thesis is that conservatives think in terms of a "Strict Father" morality - one that is based on discipline and self-reliance, while the liberals think in terms of a "Nurturing Parent" morality - one that is based on mutual respect and providing for others' needs.
Now, there are several causes for our political beliefs. I think the three most important are:
Now, when communicating with others (i.e. rhetoric), the most important thing is to establish a common frame of reference. If I were communicating with physicists, I might try using analogies from the laws of thermodynamics. If I am communicating with computer scientists, I might use analogies related to data gathering or representation. However, in all these cases, the analogies are used to explain the ideology using a common reference point, not as a substitute for the ideology.
The fundamental problem with Moral Politics seems to be that the author is approaching rhetoric as being able to identify the fundamental causes of politics. I think that is fundamentally erroneous.
The reason why family is often used as a metaphor for political action is that everyone is the product of some sort of family. Therefore, the most inclusive type of analogy that can be used is that of family. The author seems to want to be using family structure as the core of political belief, and then specifying the branches and alternatives as modifiers within the scope of the notion of family structure. Instead, while the examination of family morality rhetoric may be interesting and useful, I think that thinking of it as fundamental is a non-starter. This is more useful information if you want to know how to convince a group of people to believe in your political ideology - you need to know what sorts of analogies make sense to them - but it is not quite so useful in determining either the source of an ideology nor whether or not it should be followed.
The real difference between conservatives and liberals in America is secular verses theistic models of government. And, interestingly, you actually find that as far as generative models go, liberals are closer to libertarians thaneither one is to conservatives. But we'll save that for later.
Ancient Hebrew Poetry is taking on Obama - both literally and figuratively. Read and follow the links therein. The LA Times comes to the following conclusion:
Obama's pilgrimage abroad points to a larger truth: In the midst of a bitter political year, a loose bipartisan consensus on the Mideast may be emerging. And, irony of ironies, the consensus, seemingly embraced by Obama, seems closer to Bush's views than to those of the antiwar activists who propelled the Illinois senator to the nomination.
Very interesting indeed.