GroupThinkTank

The Longshots Get The Freedom To Speak

2007-12-20T02:29:00.000-05:00

"Who is Ron Paul?" bumper stickers have started popping up in Ithaca and on the Cornell Campus. Frankly, all I know about him is that he's "the libertarian GOP candidate." And frankly, until Super Tuesday I couldn't care less about the presidential candidates, most of whom are more whack-job than fit for the job. But this interview of Ron Paul on Neil Cavuto (FNC) is a refreshing breath of air and, well, frank.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QqPhrqllHzY

(The retreat by Cavuto at the end is also good viewing.)

best ads yet

2007-11-19T18:05:00.000-05:00

of course ron paul remains my favorite conservative nutcase. but i gotta give credit where credit is due, and mike huckabee is, at least, consistently the most fun. check it.

Fredo, Fredo, Fredo.

2007-08-30T15:39:00.000-04:00

"I will no longer represent only the White House; I will represent the United States of America and its people. I understand the differences between the two roles."

- Alberto Gonzales, testifying at his confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee in January 2005.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/28/washington/28gonzales.html

How we lost Afghanistan.

2007-08-12T13:56:00.001-04:00

When reading this, imagine the sound of my head exploding.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/12/world/asia/12afghan.html

Um, just because I have a self-interested memory, and because I remember discussing this with y'all -- when I was expressing qualms about the War in Afghanistan, I acknowledged the need to go after Al Queda, but was worried that we were too invested in nation-destroying and not enough in nation-building. Is this right? Or am I being too charitable about what was essentially a knee-jerk antiwar response?

Oh, and while we're talking about Al Queda, what did everybody think of the Obama Pakistan flap?

How soon we forget.

2007-06-29T22:55:00.001-04:00

In Jan. 1971, Congress quietly repealed the 1964 Gulf of Tonkin resolution that gave Lyndon Johnson authority to escalate the war in Vietnam.

An editorial that month in TIME Magazine said that the resolution's significance in history "may be not only that it further embroiled the U.S. in Vietnam and raised loud voices of dissent at home, but that it probably marked the last time that the U.S. Congress would ever hand the President such a heady carte blanche with so little care."

Hey A-Abbott!

2007-06-04T03:39:00.000-04:00

I wrote this sketch at for a Christmas show at the physics department my first year at Cornell. As we've seen more action here lately, I came across it again tonight and thought I'd post it. It's meant to be read as Abbott and Costello's Who's On First routine.

TA: Students, today in class we’re going to discuss yesterday’s experiment. -- What went on in this lab?

Student: What do you mean?

TA: What did you do in this lab?

Student: Lab 3.

TA: And what did you do in lab 3?

Student: We measured the result.

TA: Assume I’ve never seen this lab before, and you were going to explain it to me. What would you say?

Student: (pause) Well, it was all about getting the slope.

TA: The slope of what?

Student: The slope of the plot. We plotted some points.

TA: I know that, but assume I’ve never seen this lab. How would you explain what you did?

Student: We got the wires and measured at each point.

TA: Measured what?

Student: What the meter said.

TA: (pause) Look, you’re report tells me nothing. This could be an experiment about baking cakes. What’s this number here?

Student: 5.

TA: Yes, I KNOW it’s 5. What did it measure?

Student: The slope. Of the line.

TA: In lab, you ran an experiment, you plotted some points. What was the result?

Student: (jokingly) We finished the experiment. We went home.

TA: (frustrated, patiently) If I was a total stranger, how would you explain this lab to me?

Student: You just connect it up—

TA: Connect WHAT up?

Student: The circuit.

TA: Why?

Student: I’m sorry I don’t know what you’re asking.

TA: I’m asking, what is this lab all about?

Student: We, we plugged in the wires and got 5.

TA: 5 what?

Student: The slope.

TA: WHAT was the slope?

Student: 5.

TA: Yesterday, I saw you take your wires and hook them up to the power supply.

Student: Yes.

TA: We called the voltage y and the current x.

Student: Of course, we wrote it in our lab just like you said. Voltage y

TA: And current x.

Student: Exactly.

TA: Then what?

Student: We divided the voltage by the current to find the slope.

TA: What was the slope for?

Student: It was 5.

TA: Okay, the slope was 5. And Why?

Student: That was four.

TA: What?

Student: Huh? Y, it was 4.

TA: I’m not asking about Y. The slope. What was it for?

Student: I just told you it was 5!

TA: You plotted the data, you calculated the slope. What was your point?

Student: I was starting to wonder if you had one.

TA: From the plot. The slope is 5. Y is four. You must have had an ex?

Student: What does that matter?

TA: I’m curious.

Student : Why?

TA: No, not why. Ex. Do you have an ex?

Student: Are you looking to date me or something?

TA: What?

Student: Huh? I’m sorry, I don’t know what you’re asking.

TA: Oookay, from the beginning. Where did the plot come from?

Student: We drew it.

TA: From what?

Student: From the experiment.

TA: The experiment about what?

Student: Lab 3! We had Voltage Y. We had Current X. What is it you want to know?

TA: Why are you giving me so much resistance?!

Student: Resistance? That’s what the slope is!

TA: (expires)

McSweeny's Candidates

2007-05-15T10:25:00.000-04:00

Democrats

Republicans

Predictably, the first field is stronger than the second. Enjoy!

the internet! mapped!

2007-05-04T02:10:00.001-04:00

http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/online_communities.png

too good.

Mike Gravel's "national initiative"

2007-04-30T18:47:00.000-04:00

I'm personally opposed to Gravel's "national initiative" idea for citizen-initiated lawmaking on a nationwide scale.

Here in California, the popular initiative system has led to some of the most ill-conceived, poorly thought-out and downright dangerous laws being passed. People vote based on slanted TV commercials that distort and outright lie about the issues at stake and most don't bother to read the text of the proposed laws before they vote. Thankfully, some of the worst have been overturned by the courts.

Side note to Russo: Gravel apparently studied economics at Columbia in the 1950s and was a cabbie in Manhattan to pay his way through school.

Al Qaeda: Pioneering Anti-Alien-Invasion Tactics Since 1988

2007-04-26T22:28:00.000-04:00

I know, two posts in forty minutes. But had to pass this along:

"One thing that popped into my mind was that the only way Americans would be in an asymmetric war on the other side would be if we were attacked by aliens. Everyone chuckled, but then after a minute the comments started setting in," Taylor said.

"Then we really got to talking about it and we thought, well, you know, we really might need this contingency plan anyway," Taylor said.

Failure to prepare may mean mankind will have to dig in and fight with improvised weapons and hit-and-run tactics, much the same way Islamic extremists have battled the U.S. military in Iraq, Taylor said.

"You'd have to create an insurgency, a mujahideen-type resistance," Taylor said. "The insurgents know how to win this war against us. It also tells us that if we were attacked by aliens, this is our best defense."

Link

Insert obligatory joke about the aliens lacking an exit strategy and blaming the insurgency on those fucking Aldebarans.

Erudite Spam

2007-04-26T21:59:00.000-04:00

I don't ordinarily get all worked up about spam, but 1) it's the middle of finals and I'm easily distractable and 2) it doesn't get much better than this:

organization BLOOM Pay girl swelled limit them, my friend.THE JURORS (All deep cooing right their brought heads turned to his voice.) successful queue ZOE tenderly shade (Gaily.) O, my dictionary.(She fades from tin harmony his beat side. among Followed by the whining And comb at the sound of spread the sacring damp price bell, headed by aBLOOM (In withstand youth's misspell smart suffer stir blue
Oxford suit with whit taurine fall THE NAMELESS ONE interest (Snarls.) Arse terrible over tip. Hundred include bled PADDY misty knot LEONARD Thank you. THE JURORS (All sleep their heads bury tumble bit lowered in assent.) Mo shine tasteless THE GAFFER (Crouches, his decorate swore voice twisted in his sno To be list discovery short this passage was dirty year scarce by when MasterAdiutorium spell request nostrum knot month in nomine Domini. wool RUDOLPH withstood Once! Mud shallow upset head to foot. Cut your hand open Que worn admire poison fecit cause clum et terram. THE approve thundering LOITERERS (Guffaw stand with cleft understood palates.) O jays! alive NOSEY grass FLYNN Can I raise a mortgage calm

Sadly, I deleted the email without looking at it once I saw it was spam, so this is all I have of it -- but the Putty screen was still open after I quit out, and since it stayed there for a moment I suddenly had an inkling of what it was. Digging the dead-tree version out, I was able to confirm; this is bits of the Circe section of Ulysses, cut up so they're even less coherent. I know it's just a bot slicing away at whatever texts are freely available on the net, but still. Made my night.

Also, I was just looking at the NYT write-up of the Dem presidential candidate debate, and realized that there was this Mike Gravel guy running who I had never heard of. Am I being slack-jawed, or is this seriously someone people know about? Also, apparently he wants Congress to pass legislation "'making it a felony' for the administration to say in Iraq." I have no idea what that means, but consider: would that be a bill of attainder?

Energy Consumption broken down by Fuel, Effect, and Waste

2007-02-19T19:25:00.000-05:00

I'm taking a Science For the Mass Media course here at Cornell, and today in "lab" we were presented by a very interesting flow-graph from Science Magazine. The researchers break down the output of the U.S. energy inputs. I spent about forty-five minutes writing a draft of an editoral, which I'll also post here. I'll warn you now that some of the statistics I used are estimates and shoddy (they're marked by footnote), but the graph itself is well done and contains some very interesting information. (Who knew combustion engines produced between 20% and 50% of our energy waste?) Anyway, here it is. You may need a Science subscription or a school account to pull up the article.

Link to Science.

Editoral:

Back in the days of heightened anxiety over domestic terrorism, a series of faux-public service announcements directed towards complacent SUV drivers implied that their gas guzzlers increase U.S. spending on oil from the middle east, which in turn supplies funding to terrorists.

While I wrote these announcements off as fear-mongering from camps opposing the use of fossil fuels (I still do), they correctly highlight the overwhelming flow of energy imports that find their way to the tanks of American vehicles.

Surprisingly, 44% of U.S. total oil output goes directly into light-duty vehicles like cars, pick-up trucks, and SUVs. Additionally, another 25% of total oil consumption is by freight transport and aircraft. Of this 70% of total U.S. oil consumption, 55% (footnote1) is imported from foreign nations.

The level of this dependence on imported oil dwarfs our dependence in all other areas of the energy sector. Electricity generation, the largest wholesale consumer of fuels, depends almost entirely on domestic fuels. Consumption by industry, because of its use of domestic sources of natural gas, relies on only 25% (footnote2) on foreign sources.

Aircraft, automobiles, freighters, and gas guzzling SUVs are the largest sources of foreign energy consumption. Their effect on U.S. foreign policy and the environment is pronounced.

There is, however, room for improvement. Of the oil consumed by aircraft, automobiles, freighters, and gas guzzling SUVs, 74% of this energy potential is lost as waste, and these sources are the largest bulk contributor of wasted energy in the United States.

Industrial, commercial, and residential consumers burn oil to almost 80% efficiency (4 out of 5 units used effectively), but the poor performance of smaller scale combustion engines results in the effective use of only 1.5 out of every 5 units. The remainder is lost, primarily as heat. The amount of heat lost by these sources is two and a half times larger than all the energy distributed by all the power lines in the United States.

The upside to these dour numbers is that the development of energy efficient, electric, or hybrid vehicles stands out as an area of conservation research with the most to gain.

(Another area of potentially fruitful energy research would be the development of more efficient electricity generation, transmission, and distribution, which produces twice as much waste as it does usable energy.)

I Am Published

2007-02-10T18:35:00.000-05:00

Shameless self-promotion is never a pretty thing, but my student Note was just published in the Columbia Journal of Law and Social Problems, and I thought that I'd pass along the link since the topic might be of some interest (it's not in Lexis quite yet, alas). The federal Freedom of Information Act gives representatives of the news media quicker, cheaper access to government documents than to the general public, and my article looks at the caselaw and regs to determine whether bloggers would qualify, then outlines a proposed approach to the challenges bloggers pose to the current FOIA system. The Journal's homepage, from which you can download a .pdf of my Note, is here. It's about 10,000 words -- they stretch it out over 45 pages, but the print is big.

This is a Russo-heavy issue of the Journal, actually, as I edited the other two Notes as well. The one on property disputes in the Episcopal Church is pretty interesting, dealing with a problem in the jurisprudence of religion that doesn't get a lot of lay attention, namely, how a court figures out how to divvy up church property when a church decides to split from its diocese. The other article, which deals with federal reimbursement of state Medicaid expenditures on Native Americans, might be a bit wonky, though. But if you have nothing better to do with your life on a Saturday night, hey, it's all free.

Doctor says you're going home today, Mr. X

2007-02-09T21:00:00.000-05:00

According to a story in the LA Times, "a paraplegic man wearing a soiled hospital gown and a broken colostomy bag was found crawling in a gutter in skid row in Los Angeles on Thursday after allegedly being dumped in the street by a Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center van."

Since I began volunteering on Skid Row several months ago there have been numerous cases of what police call "homeless dumping" where hospitals abandon indigent patients on Skid Row when their insurance or other funds run out, but leaving a helpless paraplegic to crawl in the gutter half-naked sinks to an all-time low.

What has become of us as a nation? Does the ruthless drive for the Almighty Dollar trump even the slightest shred of human sympathy for others? I personally hope he sues their Presbyterian derrieres into oblivion, I have no doubt there are lawyers in L.A. who would take his case with relish. In a just world, he would end up owning the hospital. Of course, in a just world, this would never have happened.

Gonzales Says Something Very True

2007-01-18T15:00:00.000-05:00

From the NYT:

Senator Edward M. Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts, pressed the attorney general for his views on the extent of Congress’s authority to block a troop increase. Mr. Gonzales replied that the Constitution clearly gives Congress and the executive branch roles in time of war. “And at the far end, you’ve got the power of Congress to declare war,” Mr. Gonzales said. “I think at the other end, you got the core, sort of commander-in-chief authority to say take that hill. And then things get kind of murky.”

This is actually about the most accurate thing you can say about the question of executive vs. legislative authority when it comes to war, and I found it somewhat refreshing to see a Bush administration official not arguing that ZOMG TEH EXECUTIVE CLEARLY ROXZORS U for a change.

Was that bitchy? I think it was. Really, I didn't mean it to be that backhanded -- these are hard constitutional questions, and acknowledging that up front makes democracy go much better.

By the way, how nice is it that the NYT now has a nice little "permalink" button? Pretty nice, he replied anti-rhetorically.

NSC-68

2007-01-06T11:42:00.000-05:00

I've been reading NSC-68 (April 1950), the report from Paul Nitze, arguably the Wolfowitz of the 1950s, to Truman that became the blueprint for the Cold War. I had heard of it but didn't realize until last night that it was available online. (I love teh internets.) In the section characterizing the intent of the Soviet Union is this little nugget:

"The fundamental design of those who control the Soviet Union and the international Communist movement is to retain and solidify their absolute power, first in the Soviet Union and second in the areas now under their control. In the minds of the Soviet leaders, however, achievement of this design requires the dynamic extension of their authority and the ultimate elimination of any effective opposition to their authority."

If you read the neocon manifesto Rebuilding America's Defenses (September 2000) from the Project for the New American Century, they would have us become exactly what the Cold Warriors most feared the Soviets would become. Ironic. We've learned so little as a nation in 50 years.

Or perhaps we have. It's interesting that Henry Kissinger (who with H-bomb promoter Edward Teller was the inspiration for the Dr. Strangelove character) was calling in the Wall Street Journal yesterday for the abolition of nuclear weapons. Vietnam-era Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara and NSC-68 author Nitze did similar turn-arounds in the 1990s. I suppose the neocons would consider all those guys traitors.

Diabolical duo

2006-12-27T09:23:00.000-05:00

I didn't realize until I read Ford's obit this morning that Rumsfeld was Ford's secretary of defense and Cheney was Ford's White House chief of staff.

*shudder*

Unbefuckingleivable

2006-12-13T17:48:00.000-05:00

Pray it was a minor stroke. Not just for the Senator, but because we may have just lost the Senate. [link]

"You're Like a Slovenian Dennis Leary!"

2006-12-12T13:37:00.000-05:00

I am neck-deep in studying for finals at the moment; as a result, my desire to procrastinate builds up, yet I don't give it vent, until it bursts out in sharp, swift idiosyncracies, like a medicated jackrabbit. Or like this.

That first sentence was meant to convey that I doubt this is really, like, "funny" in an objective sense, but I've been unable to read my voting rights notes without giggling for the past half hour. I don't think it quite managed to get that across, sadly.

The Supremes and the Environment

2006-11-30T14:42:00.000-05:00

Howdy all. I am moderately interested in Massachusetts v. The EPA. The gist of the case is that the EPA was getting geared up to regulate CO2 emissions, then Bush came around and the EPA decided that:
1) The EPA does not have the right to regulate CO2 because it is not an "air pollutant" that may "reasonably be anticipated to endanger public health or welfare" (the legal requirement).
2) That even if they did have the power to regulate CO2, they wouldn't because there is still uncertainty (insert comment about uncertainty not preventing us from invading Iraq).

Slate has a Supreme Court blogger named Dahlia Lithwick whom I generally like. She wrote about what happend in the courtroom:

Slate reporting on what's going on in the courtroom.

Here's a summary:
1. John Roberts hates the environment and doesn't believe in global warming.
2. Scalia and Alito are pretty content with the argument that we can't stop global warming all by ourselves, so why even try?
3. Clarence Thomas is either mute, bored or asleep, since he hasn't said anything. Assumedly having both Alito and Scalia to vote with means that there's even less chance that he will get confused and vote liberal.
4. Stevens seems pretty ready to trust the enviromental scientists at the word
5. Souter and Bryer seem to pretty much buy into the commong sense idea that we should accept our best analysis of global warming and do what we can to prevent it.
6. Ginsburg has not said anything, but we can probably assume that she jump on the liberal bandwagon
7. And so it all comes down to Kennedy who says that the question before the court is whether global warming is real. It seems that if he can be convinced of that he will side with Massachusetts.

Some personal points:
1. Wait, shouldn't the EPA be an advocate for the environment instead of against it? In bizarro land liberal-Bush appointed the former president of E.L.F. as secretary of commerce.
2. Legal people: are Souter and Bryer differentiable? I always assume that they are both kinda boring moderate liberals, but perhaps it is simply that they are not new, black, women, outrageously rude, the swing vote or really old, so they kinda just blend in.

In a dignified manner

2006-11-12T21:26:00.000-05:00

"Let the process play itself out in a dignified manner," said Ed Gillespie, a former national Republican Party chairman, speaking for the Allen campaign in front of the Virginia party headquarters. "The votes need to be accurately counted. Only at the end of that process is a winner declared."

Right. These are the guys who were so concerned about "that process" that they went running to the Supremes to stop the vote count in Florida in '00.

Changes to the Insurrection Act re martial law

2006-10-28T21:03:00.000-04:00

I've always liked Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont). I was reading remarks he made recently about the John Warner National Defense Authorization Act of 2007 (HR5122, you can find it on Thomas - choose the "enrolled" version agreed to by the House and Senate) and discovered that it does indeed, as Leahy says, modify the Insurrection Act of 1807 (10 USC 333, you can find it on Findlaw). I would include links but unfortunately both Thomas and Findlaw seem to "time out" their search links such that you can't go back to them later. Dammit. And govtrack.us seems to be down.

Leahy says the law "includes language that subverts solid, longstanding posse comitatus statutes that limit the military’s involvement in law enforcement, thereby making it easier for the President to declare martial law," and "adopts some incredible changes to the Insurrection Act, which would give the President more authority to declare martial law ... making it easier to usurp the Governor's control."

The changes to the Insurrection Act, Leahy said, "will allow the President to use the military, including the National Guard, to carry out law enforcement activities without the consent of a governor. When the Insurrection Act is invoked posse comitatus does not apply. Using the military for law enforcement goes against one of the founding tenets of our democracy." It includes "automatic triggers — natural disasters, terrorist attacks, or a disease epidemic — to avoid having to consult with the governors."

I compared the language amending 10 USC 333 in section 1076 of HR5122 ("Use of armed forces in major public emergencies") to the existing 10 USC 333 and found what Leahy is talking about. The Insurrection Act was designed to give the president the authority to use federal troops in the event of rebellion, insurgency or revolution. HR 5122 adds all kinds of other situations where the White House can send in federal troops including "a natural disaster, epidemic, or other serious public health emergency, terrorist attack or incident." It also changes "insurgents" to "insurgents or those obstructing the enforcement of the laws," giving it a much broader (and, I'm sure Leahy would agree, unintended) scope.

Leahy's remarks are at http://leahy.senate.gov/press/200609/092906b.html

I Wished I Wished I Wished That God Would Kill Me...

2006-10-26T16:26:00.000-04:00

...instead of leaving me alone to see this.

Like A Rolling Stone, as interpreted by the new Broadway musical based on Dylan's ouevre. It's as terrible as it sounds. After an eternity of torment, I looked time-bar, wondering how long this excruciating pain could possibly last, only to find that I was 1:30 in. Fortunately it's only like 2:30 all told.

To balance out the terrible music-karma of the above, I will point out that the title of this post is drawn from a very good Mountain Goats song. I've actually heard it called Somebody Else's Parking Lot in Sebastapol rather than Santa Cruz, but whatever.

On the off chance that you like music other than the Mountain Goats, the new Hold Steady album is also available for listening in its entirety online, which is pretty nice. Stuck Between Stations, First Night, Party Pit, and You Can Make Him Like You are all v. good.

Breaking: John Bolton is a Terrible Diplomat

2006-10-14T21:43:00.000-04:00

OK, so here's the scene: it's just after the Security Council vote, where after a lot of sweet-talking and arm-twisting the U.S. has managed to get China and Russia to sign off on sanctions on the DPRK, even though they really really didn't want to. They're still grumpy about it. The North Korean ambassador makes a big speech basically threatening war, then walks out. What does John Bolton do?

Mr. Bolton asked to be heard and pointed to the empty chair, saying Mr. Pak’s impulsive departure was the equivalent of Khrushchev’s pounding his desk in protest in the General Assembly. That prompted the Russian ambassador, Vitaly I. Churkin, to complain that the reference, even at a moment that he described as Mr. Bolton’s “emotional state,” was “an inappropriate analogy.”

Link

Well played, Mr. Bolton. Well played.

25 Edward III Stat. 3, c 2

2006-10-11T10:47:00.000-04:00

According to a 14th-century English statute, it is treason, inter alia, "When a Man doth compass or imagine the Death of our Lord the King, or of our Lady his Queen, or of their eldest Son and Heir."

According to Mill, social mechanisms of stigma and repression are a far greater threat to the freedom of speech than government enforcement.

I think he's probably right.