outsourcing everything

Maureen Dowd column's today is one of the few things that has genuinely shocked me in a while. She profiles James Macphereson, the founder of Pasadena Now, an online "daily magazine" for the Pasadena area that is written entirely by workers in India. Macpherson and his wife determine editorial content and direct their reporters in India to write it up.

Town meetings are attended by webcam. Interviews conducted by phone. Workers are paid by the piece, so many use it as a supplementary source of income. All of which is fine and good, but this is the model for a local newspaper? One where the writers not only don't live in the area but have never even been there? As Dowd notes by the end, this model is starting to get looked into by other papers.

"They are under P for pirates."

Apparently the Somali pirates who hijacked the Sirius Star had refused to speak with anyone, until the twelve year old daughter of a BBC reporter called them. 

secret underground lair for sale

Thursday's Times had a profile of the most interesting real estate I've ever seen: over a mile of underground tunnels underneath London, originally built as shelters and covert operations planning center during World War II and since owned by the British phone company BT. There is a bar on the premises. Asking price $7.4 million. Who's in?

your daily obama

From the Huffington Post

ladies and gentlemen, the new New York

The city's open contest to design an iconic New York City bike rack has just announced a winner! It's, umm, this thing:

Read all about it on the official blog of the contest.

More cloning!

Olivia Judson discusses issues in cloning mammoth's in her Times Blog.

Australia?!?

I have no idea why, but I found Manohla Dargis' review of this movie fascinating.

Prop 8 Boycott List

http://www.californiansagainsthate.com/dishonorRoll.html

Tibetan Government in Exile Stays With Conciliatory Approach to China

Ashwini Bhatia/Associated Press

Photo of delegates at a conference of Tibetan exiles in Dharamsala, India. Article in the Times here.

mammoth steaks!

Right after Obama winning the Presidency, wackiest news of 2008:

"Regenerating a Mammoth for $10 Million"

Imagine what we could have done with $700 billion for mammoth regeneration!

hell is... television!

The New York Times says so!

last guy on all the intertrends

I actually encountered a strip or two from the defunct comic "Perry Bible Fellowship" a while back, but yesterday a friend mentioned it to me and I found myself on the page again. Read through all of them in maybe 20 minutes? (an excellent use of time).

One of dozens of gems:

money, bikes, coke

A study indicates higher executive bonuses may actually be detrimental to performance.

Trek introduces chainless bicycles.

Apparently coke heads aren't the tree-hugging environmentalists we all thought they were:

"These people, who have good jobs and drive a hybrid car or cycle to work because they care about the environment, may go to party and do some lines of coke and they are thinking it is no problem," Francisco Santos told The Associated Press Tuesday. "They are absolutely unaware of the ecological impact of their drug taking and we want to change that."

the greatest generation

Well, the debate has been put to rest. The boomers are the greatest generation. Their parents may have overcome the Great Depression, won World War II, and established the US as the preeminent political, economic and cultural power of the 20th century, but as CNBC reports, the US government has currently spent $4.28 trillion to bail out the economy.

"That's $4,284,500,000,000 and more than what was spent on WW II, (my emphasis) if adjusted for inflation, based on our computations from a variety of estimates and sources*."

The US may have got through the 1930s and 40s through hard work, savings and sacrifice, but in true boomer fashion the US will simply buy its way out of this mess. Seems to be going great so far.

オバマ氏万歳！

Japan has traditionally been wary of Democratic Presidents and close to Republican administrations, so it wasn't a great surprise to see this Washington Post article on Japan's lukewarm reception of Obama's victory. (Aside from the town of Obama, Japan, which can't get enough of the guy. Mostly because he represents a celebrity boost, however slight, to their worn out rural economy.)

While this is an extremely complex and thorny issue, and I think the article tackles it as best it can, I can offer my own humble assessment. Although Japan has one of the largest and most well equipped military's in the world, Japan is still under the US's nuclear umbrella, and the Japanese constitution still forbids military aggression as a force of international diplomacy. In addition, Japan seems to have a hard time admitting how dependent it is on international cooperation. The country imports a large amount of its food, it relies on other countries for raw materials to keep its economy going, and while it does have somewhat of a manufacturing base, it is also heavily invested in international trade and finance.

While the article perhaps overstates anti-American sentiment in Japan, I would say that rather the country feels alone in Asia and at the mercy of the whims of the US. Since Republican presidents have generally been more congenial to Japanese interests, Democrats are viewed warily.

Which is the reaction I saw from friends of mine in Japan, whose reactions varied from ecstatic and hopeful to vaguely wary, realizing it was a milestone for the US but wondering how he would treat Japan.

brain food

Excellent Times Magazine profile on the work of writer and thinker Lewis Hyde, and his decades long examination of the meaning of art in modern society, the insanity of copyright laws, and the re-establishment of intellectual commons. His book "The Gift" mentioned in the article currently has 47 holds on it at the New York Public Library. Gerk.

Stanley Fish lays out in the clearest possible language the problems with Larry Summers as Secretary of Treasury. (Summary: it's not that he's an asshole, it's that he's an asshole who doesn't understand when and where to be an asshole.)

The New York Times continues their series on poor, poor rich folks with an article on how wealthy Mexicans require bodyguards.

how presidential (lol)

"His messages to advisers and friends, they say, are generally crisp, properly spelled and free of symbols or emoticons."

When will the media deluge of Obama porn end?

Probably when I stop reading it.

more good news?

Maybe that universal healthcare we'll (maybe) get next year can also cover this (potential) cure for AIDS.

q: how come the dust in my apartment never looks this good?

a: I don't spend hours color adjusting it for maximum impact.

NASA, via Associated Press

Red dust around the star Fomalhaut.

first tangibly good thing to come from the obama election

Sarokozy reminds Putin that unilateral aggression is going out of fashion.

make your own ipod speakers!

This is about as Generation O as you can get man: sitting at the nexus between environmentalism, DIY, and iPods are... paper cup iPod speakers!

UPDATE: Tried this yesterday. These suck as speakers.

bad news, good news

And now, from the real New York Times, the next fucking terrifying threat to civilization as we know it:

U.N. Report Sees New Pollution Threat.

The good news:

Princeton economist, New York Times columnist, Nobel laureate, and beardy icon Paul Krugman, who was one of Obama's most incisive critics in the Democratic primary battles (mostly because of his relatively moderate healthcare plan), wrote today that "there’s now a reasonable chance that universal health care will be enacted next year!" Krugman says he hears that "Obama's opposition to mandates was tactical politics," but that he may support a new bill afoot for universal healthcare!

We're gonna need it once those killer brown clouds start showing up.

lefty wet dream fantasy time

http://www.nytimes-se.com/

This is only gonna make next July 4th more sobering.

(Click on "Thomas Friedman" in the upper right hand corner.)


New York Times Special Edition Video News Release - Nov. 12, 2008 from H Schweppes on Vimeo.

Apparently it all comes from these guys.

2008 in historical context

Having turned into a bit of an online news junkie (no furreal, I am working on ways to limit the amount of time spent on news websites), I plow through all of these articles hoping for something well written, something that actually brings new light to current events. If anything, I've learned in the past year or two how amazingly facile and short sighted the bulk of the media pundits are.

They for the most part incredibly intelligent, articulate and well read people who end up more or less saying the same thing as one another. Frank Rich is all well and good, but why in the world would I read a former theater critic's opinions on the world of politics, which basically tell me things I already know?

So I was a bit leery when I came upon this Salon.com article talking about the Obama victory from a historical context. What is so refreshing about this piece by historian Michael Lind is that it outlines how material and technological changes in American history lead to policy changes, which in turn lead to changes in administrations. He is also smart enough to see that people can say and believe one thing while actually doing another: Jefferson actually expanding the power of the federal government (Lousianna Purchase). He also doesn't pretend this is a perfect or even complete theory, but an interesting new perspective on how to view American history.

I would recommend to just read the article, but in a nutshell he posits that the Bush presidency is the tail end of an American era that started with the New Deal, and that we are poised at the brink of a new era, one brought on by the communications boom, but possibly defined by some other form of technology. Again, he's smart enough not to take predictions or reasoning too far.

Also, my favorite line:

I'm talking about the material, real-world manufacturing and utility economy, not the illusory "information economy" beloved of globalization enthusiasts in the 1990s, who pretended that deindustrialization by outsourcing was a higher state of industrialism.

He's a materialist, thank god.

Best Picture I've Seen Today:

Shana Sureck for The New York Times

Connecticut issues its first gay-marriage license. What's wrong with you California voters? You got a problem with other people shouting for joy?

bingo

A little slow, but I just stumbled on this SNL imitation of Keith Olbermann, which I found much funnier than Tina Fey's Palin. Ben Affleck (?!?) absolutely nails his overblown wordiness and pomposity.

exactly

Glenn Greenwald of Salon.com has been beating the dead horse that "Republicans are hypocrites!" for ages now, producing seemingly endless and rambling posts padded with digressions. Today however, he finally busts out a live one: disquieting signs that an Obama administration and Democratic congress may not reverse the expansion of powers of the executive branch.

I can totally see the appeal of leaving them in place for Obama, the guy can wave in all the common sense legislation we've been waiting for with the flick of a pen! It's still edging closer and closer towards dictatorship though, so I'd rather go with separation of powers, thank you. Let's hope the former constitutional law professor will do the right thing. On the other hand, maybe a President-for-life Obama could make hoverboards a reality by 2015, as we were all promised.

barack obama eats dog meat

The UK Telegraph has Barack Obama Fun Facts!

i actually kind of like the new york post

Rupert Murdoch's omnipresent rag has started to grow on me recently. They're still ridiculous, but at least somewhat consistent in their knee jerk populism and phrasemaking. "Obama" has already been shortened to "Bam", (although they sometimes use the more trimmed down "O"). Also, this article on an abortive press conference with assistant Treasury Secretary Neel Kashkari, where the guy won't answer detailed questions on whats happening with our 700 billion.

word.

One super easy thing that President Obama can do that won't require major legislation to enact: shut down Guantanamo.

http://closegitmo.com/

Bill Kristol is funnier than Andy Kaufman

Ever since the Times picked him up as a columnist at the beginning of the year I've developed a weird compulsion to read right wing windbag Bill Kristol's column every Monday. At first I thought there might have been some deeper reason behind his selection than a feeling that the Times needed another conservative on its Op-ed page, but after just two or three columns the guy had completely outed himself as a political hack, obsessed with the glint and shine, and the feints and jabs of politics and not the actual engagement of ideas. At least Maureen Dowd has the good grace not to align herself with any one party or candidate, and spew her scorn pretty much everywhere.

I kept on giving the Times' editorial board the benefit of the doubt, that this guy was more than a weenie obsessed with politics as a popularity contest and actually had some kind of intellectual or ideological basis for his bullshit. Then a column in early June just blew me away, where he slammed Obama for a full column on being an elitist on the basis of a commencement speech he gave at Wesleyan. Bitteness? Guns? Clinging? Nope, Obama had extolled community service as a way to serve one's country, but hadn't mentioned the military.

Unfortunately Kristol spent his youth as neither a community organizer OR as a volunteer in the military, but at that elite-iest of East Coast elite institutions, where he received both his B.A. and his Phd. Sigh.

And as a recent New Yorker article revealed, in addition to being "Dan Quayle's brain", this guy was one of the people largely responsible for pushing Sarah Palin into the VP spot. Oh yeah, and he loves Fred Thompson.

So what would Kristol's sage advice to the conservative movement be after the electorate soundly rejected the Republican party on Tuesday? How can they now adequately reconcile the social conservatives with the fiscal conservatives and policy hawks, who all seem to be at one another's throats? How can conservative free market ideology reconcile itself to the bailout? How can conservative ideology best improve the economy and advance US foreign policy?

Any of these would be ripe topics for a column from a conservative pundit after Tuesday, but instead Bill Kristol gave us 800 or so words on why Obama's public choice of a puppy for his daughters is his greatest political coup, and may ensure Democratic dominance for eight years.

I get it. Bill Kristol is living performance meta-comedy on a level that even Andy Kaufman couldn't conceive of. He is just throwing out the most ridiculous shit ever, just waiting for someone to call him on it, just toe-ing on the inside of apparent sanity so people will take him seriously. He got me. So if you'll excuse me I think I'm gonna go read Paul Krugman's ideas on how to fix the economy.

that's what i thought!

There's a piece in yesterday's The Nation that articulates my feeling of cautious optimism about the Obama administration. Besides all the obvious good qualities of equanimity, a sense of gravity about our current situation, a clear intelligence, and a rhetoric free of personal rancor (not to mention being hot as sin with a gorgeous family), I've always though that it is the Obama campaign machine that might just give this administration real power. Politics can compromise and corrupt the smartest and most principled people, with solid organization we may stand a chance.

As Nicholas van Hoffman writes:

Obama's nationwide ground operation is the ideal instrument for making members of Congress vote the national interest, not the special interest, when major legislation needs to be enacted. It can keep the heat on in every Congressional district and every state and convince a wider public to accept unpleasant and difficult measures, such as a serious energy conservation program...

The conversion of the Obama campaign organization, which is composed of volunteers with lives of their own, into a tool of governance cannot be done with the top people sending down orders to the rank and file. For the organization to go out and sell the public on the Obama program, the people in the organization will have to be sold themselves--which means communication from the bottom up as well as the top down.

The first internet government? Dispersed funding, direct feedback from your supporters, and able to organize large groups of people at once? If we hadn't seen it during the campaign I wouldn't have believed it.

While I do agree with von Hoffman on the ability of an organization like this to effectively mobilize people (an organized left? Holy shit!?!) I am more skeptical of his apparent faith in the structure of this kind of organization to respond coherently to Obama's proposals.

Take his enthusiastic support for ethanol made from corn, a bio-fuel that sounds nice until you factor in the incredible amount of farm-land, fresh water resources and, uhh, regular fuel required to produce it. Obama has admitted supporting it because of the influence and power of the corn lobby. I know if he proposes any major energy bill that is highly dependent on ethanol I would oppose it, but what about all the Obama-maniacs we saw dancing in the streets on Tuesday night? (Okay, I danced a little.)

This does come back to the original point van Hoffman is making, which is that a strong, dynamic organization is an enormous asset to an Obama administration that tries to pass wide ranging progressive legislation, without getting bogged down by competing interests. Fingers crossed.

great non-Obama news photography

The four wives of the former king of Bhutan. Who are all sisters.

Found this incredible photo in a Times (British that is) article on the coronation of the new king of Bhutan. (To see this and other photos click on the slideshow to the right of the article.)

Obama already seizing power of key noun/verb pairs

We're still not sure what an Obama administration will look like, but I don't see how this plan for required community service can be a bad idea. This idea of a national program for community service as an alternative to military service occurred to me (and probably just about every other undergrad in the world) back in college, it is great to see it so close to becoming a reality.

And also, "change.gov"? How did Obama manage to associate himself with one of the most basic words in the English language? It's hard to say something like "oil change" or "a dollar and change" without conjuring up that omnipresent popping into your head.

Also, my friend Jim posted a link to a great series of maps that do a much better job of conveying what the electoral map should look like, adjusted for population of states. I don't really understand this one, but it sure is pretty:

Awesome.

This image neatly ties up a few of the loose strands of thinking I've had over the past two days:

Jonathan Horowitz's Obama '08 (2008).
Photo: Courtesy of Gavin Brown's Enterprise

Who'da thunk it.

let the disillusionment begin

Hey American left, remember women-aren't-as-smart-as-men-Africa-is-UNDER-polluted-ex-Treasury-Secretary-ex-Harvard-President-deregulation-cheerleader Lawrence Summers? Guy is on the short list of nominees for Obama's Treasury Secretary.

Guess everybody was too busy speculating on the choice of first puppy to notice that one.

other fallouts from november 4th

Amid all the election night hoopla you may have missed these tidbits:

My (old) district's congressman, moderate Republican Chris Shays, lost his reelection campaign, officially making New England entirely blue, with a few, umm, gray spots?

My (current) district's congresswoman, Yvette Clark,went to the same hippie-ed out little liberal arts college as me.

Michigan legalized (medical) pot. California shot down gay marriage. Al Franken is still trying to get into the Senate. No news yet if the union is getting any more perfect.

And oh yeah. Obama!

everybody!

Two years ago, while watching Japan's most contentious parliamentary elections in decades I remember telling my friends in Japan about Barack Obama, who had just announced his candidacy. They were interested but incredulous that America would elect a man with such a complicated background, so unlike the image of the US.

Well, in all the hullabaloo flying around today somehow I was most moved by the images of people all over the world celebrating an American election, and hopefully a newer, better chapter for America, and the world.




And as if we needed anymore reasons to like this guy right now, a major inside piece about both campaigns came out today, where Obama is quoted as saying:

"...we can't solve global warming because I fucking changed light bulbs in my house. It's because of something collective."

obama! is gonna! be the next president! of the united states of america!

We know. We know you love Barack Obama.

There are so freaking many songs for this guy.

kghhkjfdgkjhfadkjhfdakjhfdg!!!!

yup. barack. freaking. obama.

fingers crossed (double... triple...)

Was canvassing in West Philly today, knocking on doors in a neighborhood where I didn't see a single white face, and the reaction to Obama volunteers ranged from mild acceptance ("You guys again? I voted this morning!") to ecstatic ("It's gonna happen!") Aside from all the canvassers with clipboards there were several cars out blasting hip hop for Barack, a few sound-trucks telling people to get to the polls and at least one guy who had taken the initiative to get a megaphone and

Did not meet a single person who wasn't planning to vote.

I am really trying not to let reports like this get me down.

Landslide baby... landslide...

election day eve!

The Times says stretching is bad for you.

I'm ticked I missed this documentary about the rise and fall of Lee Atwater.

Oh, and all of these kids really want you to vote tomorrow:

we're all making do...

Thank god for the New York Times, letting us know how these hard times are touching even the highest echelons of America. Why, families of Lehman Brothers employees are having to go without baby lamb chops at their holiday parties! Not because they can't afford it, but well, how would that look?

In trying times like these it is truly heartwarming to know that while the rich may still be swimming in dough , at least they have the good manners not to rub our faces in it.