A blog about societal, cultural, and civilizational collapse, and how to stave it off or survive it. Named after the legendary character "Crazy Eddie" in Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle's "The Mote in God's Eye." Expect news and views about culture, politics, economics, technology, and science fiction.
On Friday, a federal judge in Michigan ruled that the state’s ban on same-sex marriage is unconstitutional. Much like other recent rulings in states with similar bans, US District Judge Bernard Friedman cited the Supreme Court’s rejection last June of parts of the Defense of Marriage Act while also pointing to the 14th Amendment.
As the votes are announced in the New Zealand Parliament that affirm the Definition of Marriage Amendment (allowing equal marriage rights for the gay community), spectators in the gallery break into a Maori love song which most of the Members of Parliament then join in with. Quite touching.
For my American chums who want to know more about the song being sung: "Pokarekare ana." Unofficially it is New Zealand's second national anthem. It is believed to have been communally written by Maori soldiers in training camp during World War I.
White House Death Star petition is a no-go Petition urging building of Star Wars-style weapon system rejected as 'administration does not support blowing up planets' Conal Urquhart and agencies guardian.co.uk, Saturday 12 January 2013 07.16 EST
Paul Shawcross, the head of the science and space branch at the White House Office of Management and Budget, outlined the reasons why the White House was not planning to build a Death Star, an artificial planet used with devastating consequences in the Star Wars films.
He said the estimated cost of $850 quadrillion would not help deficit reduction plans and asked: "Why would we spend countless taxpayer dollars on a Death Star with a fundamental flaw that can be exploited by a one-man starship?"
The original has a clever title, This Isn't the Petition Response You're Looking For, which I thought was one of the best things about the reply, along with a listing of all the science and space accomplishments of the Administration and a burnishing of Obama's nerd credentials.
As for the cost the official response cited, it came from Centives, a blog written at the time by a couple of economics undergraduates at Lehigh University. It turns out to be a severe underestimate, as the figure is for just the steel. One reader noted in comments that the total cost of modern warships is ten times that of the steel alone. Add cost overruns, and the price would be about one sextillion dollars. That's one followed by eighteen zeros. No wonder the people at The Monkey Cage blog wrote Death Star? No thank you.
The story didn't end there. Fast Company as republished in Scientific American reported the next reaction by the Obama Administration.
Want an official response from the government? You'll need to collect at least 100,000 signatures. ... Under its We the People initiative, anyone is able to submit a petition on any topic, and if it receives enough signatures, the White House staff pledges an official response. At first, that number was 5,000. Then it rose to 25,000. But after a recent petition asking the administration to build a Death Star from Star Wars forced a (hilarious) official response, the bar now's been raised to 100,000 signatures.
In Fiscal Cliff is holding up Farm Bill and holding down consumer confidence, I mentioned one of the issues that had been swept up in the Fiscal Cliff Bluff AKA the Austerity Bomb, the expiration of the Farm Bill and the possibility that the price of milk and other dairy products would double. That was taken care of in the deal, as Politicus USA notes (emphasis mine).
Some on the left are already griping that the White House gave up too much by raising the income limit on the Bush tax cuts to $400,000-450,000, but here is what the president got in return for his minor concession:
– A permanent rise in tax rates to the Clinton era levels for all individuals making over $400,000 a year.
– A return to the Clinton era rates on capital gains.
– The Estate Tax will be set at 40% for those at $400,000 threshold with a $5 million exemption.
– A 5 year extension of the Earned Income Tax Credit, the Child Tax Credit, and the American Opportunity Tax Credit for low income Americans.
– All Obama small business tax breaks extended for another year.
– A full year extension of unemployment benefits.
– A nine month Farm Bill.
– A permanent patch for the Alternative Minimum tax.
Democrats got a one-year extension of unemployment benefits, the elimination of some tax deductions on those making over $250,000, the extension of some business tax breaks, like for wind energy.
In other words, the good news I mentioned in Blogging as professional development: energy and air pollution, that 46.2 percent of new electricity generating capacity added in the U.S. during the past year was renewable, will continue to be the case in 2013.
And, yes, the House passed the Senate bill as is in a vote of 257-167, with 85 Republicans joining 172 Democrats in voting for it. True, in two months, it will be time for another serving of Satan Sandwich, but tonight it's time for Professor Farnsworth!
"That was the weirdest thing I've ever seen at a political convention in my entire life, and it will be the weirdest thing I've ever seen if I live to be 100," she said.
Weird as it was, it revealed a deeper truth. Eastwood made the perfect metaphor for what Republicans have been doing all along--attacking an imaginary Obama who doesn't exist. I bet Eastwood had no idea how revealing that stunt would be, but about conservatives, not Obama. They can't help projecting.
It's the end of the month, which means it's time to serve up leftovers. Here is a collection of links on a common theme that I've been sitting on this month, waiting for me to post them.
First up, an article from Alternet which looks like conspiracy theory at first, but I thought worth considering. After all, we live in weird times, and as Hunter S. Thompson famously said, when the going gets weird, the weird turn pro.
One of the most popular catchphrases for expressing disappoinment in the lack of technological progress during the 21st Century is "Where's my flying car?" It's so common that Google retrieves 188,000 hits for the phrase. Flying cars aren't alone among examples of things Americans thought we'd have by now; Popular Science has an entire slideshow of technologies people expected would exist by now, including personal jetpacks, nuclear fusion, and robot armies, along with reasons why they haven't appeared. Too bad, as nuclear fusion would come in very handy right now. However, that 2008 slideshow included an image of a prototype of a flying car, one that has actually been developed and flies.
Well-heeled travelers tired of airport lines have some good news today from Terrafugia.
The maker of the Transition flying car said that a production prototype, the D2, made its first flight earlier in March, a step toward what it hopes will be commercial availability within the next year. Company engineers took the Transition for an eight-minute flight around Plattsburgh International Airport in Plattsburgh, N.Y.
The Transition is two-seat personal aircraft that is legal to drive on streets and highways and that runs, both in the air and on the road, on unleaded gasoline. The wings fold up to make the plane about six feet tall, seven and a half feet wide, and 19 feet long when driving.
Not everyone will get a flying car, though. Not only will this thing be an energy hog, it is expected to cost $279,000. Even so, people are putting down $10,000 deposits on them.
Of course, anything that is equal parts cool and ridiculous will get the attention of Next Media Animation. The Terrafugia Transition already has.
While the text accompanying the video doesn't use the catchphrase, it sidles right up next to it.
Promised in sci-fi shows and movies of the past, people have long expected flying cars to be part of their everyday lives at some point in the future. Personal flying saucers are standard issue in the Jetsons cartoon, which takes place in the still well-off year of 2062. The flying cars of Back to the Future Part II are a little more within reach. Doc Brown and Marty McFly cruise the skyways in 2015, just three years from now.
Sorry, the future in Back to the Future isn't happening, even if the rich are getting their flying cars.*
Last night, Rachel Maddow teased her viewers with a political news story about Michigan that she claimed was a scoop. I thought it might be something about the Emergency Manager Law or another attempt to recall Governor Snyder based on a tip from Chris Savage over at Eclectablog. Instead, what she presented in the final segment of her show was even bigger and Eclectablog wasn't mentioned. Watch "Autocratic for the People."
The oft-dismissed sportscaster and political commentator lost another job, as today he was fired by Current TV and . In response, Keith Olbermann has threatened to sue. In the comments to the Politico articles linked above, conservatives gloat while trolling Keith's fans. The exchanges are very wanky.
I'm disappointed but not terribly surprised. I've been a fan of Keith's since he was the sports anchor for KTLA TV 5 in Los Angeles almost 25 years ago, which means I remember when the station fired him after less than a year. Therefore, his being let go from Current is just par for the course, although I'd been hoping he'd last longer than he did. As for what this means to me, my wife and I switched from cable to Direct TV just so we could watch Current. Now that Olbermann is no longer working for the station, we have no reason to renew our contract. After it expires, we will go back to the cable company.
My Facebook status yesterday was "As far as I'm concerned, today is Buy Nothing Day." It was the most popular status update I can ever remember posting, with 21 likes and three additional people commenting. Based on how American shoppers behaved, I'm glad I didn't venture off my property to buy anything yesterday!
Black Friday sales turned into a shopping frenzy in the US. 20 people were left injured after a woman sprayed pepper spray in a bid to get a bargain. Report by Melanie Hill.
ITN wasn't the only British news source that reported yesterday's appalling behavior. BBC chimed in with US Black Friday marred by shootings, pepper-sprayings, which is currently the most popular news item of the week for North America on the site. In addition to the incidents described in the ITN video above, BBC listed the following.
A man was reportedly detained for resisting arrest after a fight at the jewellery counter in the early hours at a Walmart in Kissimmee, Florida
Police are looking for two suspects after gunfire erupted early on Friday at a shopping centre in Fayetteville, North Carolina; there were no reports of injuries
Security workers reportedly used pepper spray on shoppers who began grabbing at goods before they were unloaded from pallets at a Walmart in Kinston, North Carolina
A woman was shot in the foot by a robber as she loaded her purchases into her car in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina; the gunman fled as one of the victim's companions brandished a revolver and fired warning shots
Obviously, there’s a difference between police using pepper spray against dangerous elements in a crowd and a citizen using it to gain the upper hand at a Black Friday Sale, but just where do they think she got the idea?
Just like the constant drum beat for “second amendment remedies” by conservatives in the press leaks into the subconscious of the unstable, so too do the constant stories of police using pepper spray on citizens leak into the national consciousness.
And let’s not forget that too many times, police have used pepper spray on Occupy protesters who were not dangerous, were sitting still, were already kettled, and/or were not escalating violence.
Customers using pepper spray on other customers, robberies, and shootings are not things that have been seen at Occupy Wall Street protests. Republicans told us that it was patriotic to shop after 9/11, and these same people have demonized OWS, but what we have seen is that the corporate giants like Walmart and the shoppers who get whipped into a frenzy by their charms are more dangerous than Occupy Wall Street.
...
Thanks, Occupy Police. You just ratcheted up the level of general insanity another notch.
Speaking of the juxtaposition of the Occupy Movement and Black Friday, what did they do yesterday? Huffington Post has the story.
It's an Associated Press story, which means I don't quote it on general principles, but it does describe how the Occupiers in San Francisco and Sacramento told shoppers to not shop yesterday, especially at the large corporate-owned chain store, but instead shop at the locally owned stores today (Saturday).*
More Occupy activism can be expected on the day following Thanksgiving. The Detroit chapter of Occupy the Hood, a wing of the Occupy Movement focused on people of color, is calling for a boycott on Black Friday, the biggest retal sales day of the year that traditionally launches the Christmas shopping season.
"Black Friday is one of the busiest, biggest days for corporations," said Ife Johari Uhuru, a founder of Occupy the Hood who lives in Detroit.
Occupy the Hood's request to refrain from shopping joins a long tradition of post-Thanksgiving activism. Adbusters, the magazine that originally called for the Occupy Wall Street protests, has been organizing Black Friday boycotts and pranks for 20 years. They are celebrating this year's anniversary of the effort, which they call "Buy Nothing Day," with a new campaign called "Occupy Christmas."
...
Occupy Detroit also plans to support the Black Friday boycott.
"We are coordinating with Occupy the Hood. We will be working together to carry out [actions on Friday]," Teed said. "We want a lot of people at multiple shopping venues to hear our message."
Teed echoed Uhuru's focus on education, saying that Occupiers hope to contrast predicted sales figures with statistics about Detroit's debt and wages of Walmart executives with those of employees.
She hopes the call to boycott will inspire people to stay at home, or to spend their money with local businesses.
"Hopefully with more energy and involvement around Occupy, we can build that into a bigger thing next year," Teed said.
I did something in solidarity with Occupy Detroit, and I didn't even have to leave the house!
As for what else I think of Black Friday, may a picture truly be worth 1000 words.
*Small Business Saturday should be the subject of the next post.
I'd write the macro as "If you don't know who this is, but know who this is, you're part of the problem," but what do I know about writing? I just am a former journalist and English teacher (yes, really). Besides, I shouldn't look a gift macro horse in the mouth.
This season “Food Revolution” is filming in Los Angeles, even though the Los Angeles Unified School District refused Oliver and his show access.
They knew exactly who he was. I'm not surprised, since this is Los Angeles, my old hometown. The place is very show-business savvy, and knows the power of entertainers. I should know, I grew up around them. My little sister's husband is an actor. Her ex-husband is a film editor. Her best friends growing up were daughters of directors and talent agents. Oh, and my 12th grade English teacher was a scriptwriter who was later the mayor of Malibu, twice.
But enough about my growing up in an outer borough of Tinsel Town. Back to the story.
But today, just one day after the premier of Jamie’s show, the LAUSD suddenly announced a new menu.
Why do I have a feeling that the school board read the channel listings and planned this in advance?
Since he wasn’t allowed access, Oliver had the parents bring the school food to him for the first episode of his LA show. The school food was a disgusting blend of what looked like “airplane” or prison food wrapped and cooked in plastic, off site. Oliver demonstrated how ammonia is added to ground beef that our children eat in schools, but doesn’t need to be listed as an ingredient because it’s used as part of a “process” and not an actual ingredient, per the USDA. Lord knows we wouldn’t want the government to tell us what to eat.
My student told me about "red slime." It was disgusting.
Today, LA Times blog reports that, “LAUSD fired back with a revamped menu that officials won’t attribute to Oliver’s pressure but instead said has been in the works for some time. Among the new entrees, beginning next school year, will be Salvadorean beef stew, chicken tandoori, Asian pad thai, California sushi roll and teriyaki beef and broccoli with brown rice.”
Sounds yummy and very in keeping with the diverse student bodies of my old home town.
It should be noted that the LAUSD has a new superintendent, but they denied that Food Revolution had anything to do with the changes.
Yeah, right.
Let’s just say that the sunshine of Food Revolution’s cameras didn’t hurt.
