Cobb

Respectability

Once Bitten

Once Bitten

McClintock Watch

Checking out McClintock's campaign website, I find some respite from the ArnoldS juggernaut. McClintock has a three pronged approach. Lower the car tax, void energy contracts, reform workman's comp.

He looks like a lifer in politics, but not one who has any number of stellar achievements in his belt. At least he doesn't appear to be the blowhard that Bill Simon is. On the minus column, he was a leading proponent of Valley secession, which I opposed.

McClintock Watch

Checking out McClintock's campaign website, I find some respite from the ArnoldS juggernaut. McClintock has a three pronged approach. Lower the car tax, void energy contracts, reform workman's comp.

He looks like a lifer in politics, but not one who has any number of stellar achievements in his belt. At least he doesn't appear to be the blowhard that Bill Simon is. On the minus column, he was a leading proponent of Valley secession, which I opposed.

Return to the Blogosphere

Return to the Blogosphere

The Return of Cobb's Neighborhood

Once again my potential employer has left me with too much time on my hands. And so I will now begin to update the blog with all of the cartooning that I did during the war. Also I'll be creating new ones as well. I think it will help me deal with the days in which I am just too snarky to write any essays worth thinking about. I owe a debt of gratitude to Chris Muir for reminding me how excellent the art form can be. Plus he actually draws his own stuff.

The Return of Cobb's Neighborhood

Once again my potential employer has left me with too much time on my hands. And so I will now begin to update the blog with all of the cartooning that I did during the war. Also I'll be creating new ones as well. I think it will help me deal with the days in which I am just too snarky to write any essays worth thinking about. I owe a debt of gratitude to Chris Muir for reminding me how excellent the art form can be. Plus he actually draws his own stuff.

The Veteran

The Veteran

That African Thang

JCP writes:

We seemed to be engaged in a curious dance while in Africa. Every African speaker referred to the Americans as lost brothers and the Americans played the role of lost children come home to Africa. To my knowledge, the delicate subject of African complicity in the slave trade raised its ugly head one time and that was in Nigeria and only briefly. During one of the small discussion sessions on education, an American panelist, speaking about the contemporary life of Historically Black Colleges and Universities, made a reference to the sons and daughters of slaves. Later, an African gentleman stood up and took exception to the imagery. "Others are free to call my parents what they wish," he stressed. "However, I would never refer to my own parents as 'slaves.'"

I really like JC and I understand exactly where he's coming from even though I think his argument about the nature of the slave trade might be some of the same illness as those who find it ennobling.

An unsentimental view of West Africa will nonetheless leave one impressed with the place and its people for many reasons, some of which JC mentioned. I don't beleive that they are our brothers for any more or less reason than we are brothers with anyone. It is part of our humanity, once realized, generously shared. I can forge brotherhood anywhere.

Still, there is always something in me that goes back to Richard Pryor. There is a latent desire to live among Africans and see them as they are, not as corruptions of America society designates. Since Pryor delivered his monologue, we have all at one point or another wished to wake up in Africa and suddenly discover that we are not surround by niggers, but Africans. And yet if could even do so here wouldn't that be something. Moreover if we could do so anywhere and see people for who they really are, that would be a revolution. Yet in the end it is a revolution of self-discovery.

I know a lot of people have gotten there already, and some who have yet to get to that beloved place called home. This can happen with or without going to West Africa, but it's good to know that some who actually do, are keeping it right.

That African Thang

JCP writes:

We seemed to be engaged in a curious dance while in Africa. Every African speaker referred to the Americans as lost brothers and the Americans played the role of lost children come home to Africa. To my knowledge, the delicate subject of African complicity in the slave trade raised its ugly head one time and that was in Nigeria and only briefly. During one of the small discussion sessions on education, an American panelist, speaking about the contemporary life of Historically Black Colleges and Universities, made a reference to the sons and daughters of slaves. Later, an African gentleman stood up and took exception to the imagery. "Others are free to call my parents what they wish," he stressed. "However, I would never refer to my own parents as 'slaves.'"

I really like JC and I understand exactly where he's coming from even though I think his argument about the nature of the slave trade might be some of the same illness as those who find it ennobling.

An unsentimental view of West Africa will nonetheless leave one impressed with the place and its people for many reasons, some of which JC mentioned. I don't beleive that they are our brothers for any more or less reason than we are brothers with anyone. It is part of our humanity, once realized, generously shared. I can forge brotherhood anywhere.

Still, there is always something in me that goes back to Richard Pryor. There is a latent desire to live among Africans and see them as they are, not as corruptions of America society designates. Since Pryor delivered his monologue, we have all at one point or another wished to wake up in Africa and suddenly discover that we are not surround by niggers, but Africans. And yet if could even do so here wouldn't that be something. Moreover if we could do so anywhere and see people for who they really are, that would be a revolution. Yet in the end it is a revolution of self-discovery.

I know a lot of people have gotten there already, and some who have yet to get to that beloved place called home. This can happen with or without going to West Africa, but it's good to know that some who actually do, are keeping it right.

Check Your Head on 54

Again, I find myself screaming into the wind. At least Yglesias sees things as I do.

I believe that many folks are stupefied by the distinctions between racial identification, racial discrimination and racist discrimination. For them, it is all of a piece and anyone who claims that it is not is a liar. So for them, the obvious solution is to eliminate race, to deracinate the law and the language and thereby deprive the world of the terms and tools it might use to do evil.

If I was a history student, or perhaps one of Orwell, I could succinctly describe by analogy precisely how fallacious such thinking is. But all I can do is speak directly to the subject.

One has to have faith that it is possible to be anti-racist. But I think these same confused people are those who believe that 'everybody is racist' as if race were original sin itself. They submit to the essentialist idea which is that people, given racial identity, will of necessity conflict. It is an expression of the belief that Races are naturally antagonistic. And it is this false idea that causes them to believe that any government of the [naturally racist and antagonistic] people, armed with tools of racial identification will inevitably degenerate into a racial spoils system. People are bad, disarm them.

The belief that one can be anti-racist inevitably forces one into figuring out how and looking for examples. This requires disciplined thought and study, which we can presume that the electorate will not do. But for thinking people to suggest that racial discrimination for the purposes of assistance is the same as racial discrminiation for the purposes of exclusion is tantamount to saying that arrest of a suspect is the same as kidnapping. Moreover they presume that every racially conscious law ever made or followed in the United States of America is indeed racist. Is this logical?

Colorblindness is an ethos appropriate to a great deal of American life, but it is not appropriate to the law so long as racial disparities exist which might be evidence of exclusion. When there are no longer claims of racial injustice, the law needn't deal with it.

Who can show that there are no racial hate crimes? Such is one burden of proof of those who would blind the law to racial distinctions. More importantly the burden of those who refuse to acknowledge race is that they are more fair and just than those who do. Both I think are burdens they are incapable of bearing.

Check Your Head on 54

Again, I find myself screaming into the wind. At least Yglesias sees things as I do.

I believe that many folks are stupefied by the distinctions between racial identification, racial discrimination and racist discrimination. For them, it is all of a piece and anyone who claims that it is not is a liar. So for them, the obvious solution is to eliminate race, to deracinate the law and the language and thereby deprive the world of the terms and tools it might use to do evil.

If I was a history student, or perhaps one of Orwell, I could succinctly describe by analogy precisely how fallacious such thinking is. But all I can do is speak directly to the subject.

One has to have faith that it is possible to be anti-racist. But I think these same confused people are those who believe that 'everybody is racist' as if race were original sin itself. They submit to the essentialist idea which is that people, given racial identity, will of necessity conflict. It is an expression of the belief that Races are naturally antagonistic. And it is this false idea that causes them to believe that any government of the [naturally racist and antagonistic] people, armed with tools of racial identification will inevitably degenerate into a racial spoils system. People are bad, disarm them.

The belief that one can be anti-racist inevitably forces one into figuring out how and looking for examples. This requires disciplined thought and study, which we can presume that the electorate will not do. But for thinking people to suggest that racial discrimination for the purposes of assistance is the same as racial discrminiation for the purposes of exclusion is tantamount to saying that arrest of a suspect is the same as kidnapping. Moreover they presume that every racially conscious law ever made or followed in the United States of America is indeed racist. Is this logical?

Colorblindness is an ethos appropriate to a great deal of American life, but it is not appropriate to the law so long as racial disparities exist which might be evidence of exclusion. When there are no longer claims of racial injustice, the law needn't deal with it.

Who can show that there are no racial hate crimes? Such is one burden of proof of those who would blind the law to racial distinctions. More importantly the burden of those who refuse to acknowledge race is that they are more fair and just than those who do. Both I think are burdens they are incapable of bearing.

Day By Day

I just discovered a very cool comic site. Do check it. You can guess which character I like most, even if he is a bit young.

Day By Day

I just discovered a very cool comic site. Do check it. You can guess which character I like most, even if he is a bit young.

Peter Camejo

I listened to this guy rant on Larry Mantle's show this morning. He's in command of some interesting facts if not his senses. Having grown up on the moral side of things, I was vaguely stirred by his rants on taxation. In fact, I rather like the way he dismissively suggests that California has all the tax base it needs to handle immigrant education. I believe he is right. It was quite interesting to hear him tell that we are ranked 33rd in the nation with regard to property tax and 20th in educational spending to quickly debunk the notion bandied about by others that California isn't good for business. He didn't say it but I would. If your business cannot see the value of doing business in California, maybe you ought to stay in Arkansas.(No offense to my friends in Conway).

But then Camejo made a sharp left turn that left him babbling. He suggested, rather cavalierly I might add, that he would have gotten 'the people' to force pension fund managers to toss out 'the criminal' corporate boards of directors of the energy companies. I'm rather certain that this doesn't happen in the real world. Not because it shouldn't but perhaps because men like Camejo don't understand or respect the laws governing such matters. Neither do I understand them, but then I'm not running for governor, but it seems to me that even if one were to decapitate boards, one would have to appoint new management to change the direction of a corporation. Since when do governors do that?

Camejo probably has reasons to believe that fund managers have untapped powers. But I think he would be much better served trying some of that slamdancing on the State Legislature. Maybe he could get his own self appointed.

Peter Camejo

I listened to this guy rant on Larry Mantle's show this morning. He's in command of some interesting facts if not his senses. Having grown up on the moral side of things, I was vaguely stirred by his rants on taxation. In fact, I rather like the way he dismissively suggests that California has all the tax base it needs to handle immigrant education. I believe he is right. It was quite interesting to hear him tell that we are ranked 33rd in the nation with regard to property tax and 20th in educational spending to quickly debunk the notion bandied about by others that California isn't good for business. He didn't say it but I would. If your business cannot see the value of doing business in California, maybe you ought to stay in Arkansas.(No offense to my friends in Conway).

But then Camejo made a sharp left turn that left him babbling. He suggested, rather cavalierly I might add, that he would have gotten 'the people' to force pension fund managers to toss out 'the criminal' corporate boards of directors of the energy companies. I'm rather certain that this doesn't happen in the real world. Not because it shouldn't but perhaps because men like Camejo don't understand or respect the laws governing such matters. Neither do I understand them, but then I'm not running for governor, but it seems to me that even if one were to decapitate boards, one would have to appoint new management to change the direction of a corporation. Since when do governors do that?

Camejo probably has reasons to believe that fund managers have untapped powers. But I think he would be much better served trying some of that slamdancing on the State Legislature. Maybe he could get his own self appointed.

Love & Hell

Cette mémoire est un cri dehors à ma fille à Brooklyn. J'espère ceci suffit. .

The closest I have been to Hell was Sunday Nights at 9pm during the long dark days of being unleashed and single. Sunday night was the time when I would have excess energy and ask myself why I didn't have enough fun this weekend.

I used to play beach volleyball and cycle 70 miles a week. I was the picture of health, and my body was all twitchy with energy. I used to get upset with the lack of sexual energy of most of my babeage, but every once in a while things would work out two or three times and I could sleep soundly on Sunday night. Most of the time it didn't. I made a promise to myself which was never to date a woman who couldn't keep up with me on my $700 custom road bike. You know, the one on the roof rack of my BMW. Are you getting the picture of what kind of arrogant jackass I was?

Love & Hell

Cette mémoire est un cri dehors à ma fille à Brooklyn. J'espère ceci suffit. .

The closest I have been to Hell was Sunday Nights at 9pm during the long dark days of being unleashed and single. Sunday night was the time when I would have excess energy and ask myself why I didn't have enough fun this weekend.

I used to play beach volleyball and cycle 70 miles a week. I was the picture of health, and my body was all twitchy with energy. I used to get upset with the lack of sexual energy of most of my babeage, but every once in a while things would work out two or three times and I could sleep soundly on Sunday night. Most of the time it didn't. I made a promise to myself which was never to date a woman who couldn't keep up with me on my $700 custom road bike. You know, the one on the roof rack of my BMW. Are you getting the picture of what kind of arrogant jackass I was?

Who You Callin' Hostile!?

So I take this idiotic test:

Cynicism Score: 8 • If your score is 0 to 3, your Cynicism level is very low. • If your score is 4 to 6, your Cynicism level is probably high enough to be of some concern. • If your score is 7 or more, your Cynicism level is very high.

Yeah right. They're just trying to get me to buy their stupid book.

Who You Callin' Hostile!?

So I take this idiotic test:

Cynicism Score: 8 • If your score is 0 to 3, your Cynicism level is very low. • If your score is 4 to 6, your Cynicism level is probably high enough to be of some concern. • If your score is 7 or more, your Cynicism level is very high.

Yeah right. They're just trying to get me to buy their stupid book.

Last Nation-Builder Standing

The RAND executive summary, for your reference.

As Table S.1 summarizes, what principally distinguishes Germany, Japan, Bosnia, and Kosovo from Somalia, Haiti, and Afghanistan are not their levels of Western culture, economic development, or cultural homogeneity. Rather it is the level of effort the United States and the international community put into their democratic transformations. Nation-building, as this study illustrates, is a time- and resource-consuming effort. The United States and its allies have put 25 times more money and 50 times more troops, on a per capita basis, into postconflict Kosovo than into postconflict Afghanistan. This higher level of input accounts in significant measure for the higher level of output measured in the development of democratic institutions and economic growth.

So I've Been Told

Fight Club!


What movie Do you Belong in?(many different outcomes!)
brought to you by Quizilla

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So I've Been Told

Fight Club!


What movie Do you Belong in?(many different outcomes!)
brought to you by Quizilla

---

S.Q.A.T.

Sucky, Quiet and Terrible

Of course I am an action film fan. For me, the whole point of going to the theatre is to be blown away by the sound and lights, to have your emotional response echoed by the crowd and to eat sour gummies, but mostly the blowing away part.

I went to watch SWAT and I fell asleep. This has got to be the lamest action film I've seen in a long time. Even the one with Chris Rock as a spy was better than this. My recommendation, even if you are a big fan of all the stars, is wait for HBO; it's not even worth PPV.

I kept waiting for the good stuff and I realized that all the good stuff was in another movie. If you want Sam Jackson as a kick ass, then you have to go see Basic. If you want to see Los Angeles as a treacherous place, then go see Swordfish. If you want to see interestingly different chase scenes, go do The Italian Job again.

There's one redeeming quality about this movie, well at least the part I was awake for. That is that they used Leo's Barbecue on Crenshaw in a scene. Other than that? Pht.

S.Q.A.T.

Sucky, Quiet and Terrible

Of course I am an action film fan. For me, the whole point of going to the theatre is to be blown away by the sound and lights, to have your emotional response echoed by the crowd and to eat sour gummies, but mostly the blowing away part.

I went to watch SWAT and I fell asleep. This has got to be the lamest action film I've seen in a long time. Even the one with Chris Rock as a spy was better than this. My recommendation, even if you are a big fan of all the stars, is wait for HBO; it's not even worth PPV.

I kept waiting for the good stuff and I realized that all the good stuff was in another movie. If you want Sam Jackson as a kick ass, then you have to go see Basic. If you want to see Los Angeles as a treacherous place, then go see Swordfish. If you want to see interestingly different chase scenes, go do The Italian Job again.

There's one redeeming quality about this movie, well at least the part I was awake for. That is that they used Leo's Barbecue on Crenshaw in a scene. Other than that? Pht.

Mumbai Mumbling

I've been invited, for the second time in as many months, to apply for work in B'lore. I'm not going, of course, but the irony is a bit thick. As an American IT worker to be recruited to work for what I presume are peanuts in India is a role reversal. But it's just another sign that American jobs are going to India in high tech, and that's got a lot of people pretty mad.

Many folks I have not been paying attention to are up in arms over IBM's decision to outsource some sections of its workforce to India. For those of you just rubbing your eyes, Indians are the 'Asians' that black and white Americans have been bashed over the head with, what with our inferior math and study skills. Here is Affirmative Action backlash blowback. Is it racial? Yes. Is it economic? Yes. Is it ugly? Not as ugly as it can and probably will get.

There is a dirty little secret in the high tech industry. It's that Indian immigrants do a lot of the nitty gritty technical work and that whitefolks do a lot of the sales. So while you have Indians with PhDs doing work as members of technical staff earning a not-too-shabby 85-105k per year as developers, you have whites with BAs doing all the handshaking and collecting fat commissions as sales reps and business development managers. Lesson #1. Every successful piece of software is sold by somebody to somebody. It's very difficult to pierce the veil of geek-centric journalism and the internet's own communications channels of geeks themselves to get to this story. The fact of the matter is that the white guys are still making the business end happen. Of course I know exceptions to this rule and I'm exaggerating to make a point, but I'm not going to qualify this assertion. I'll leave it to somebody who would bother to do research, like those journalists who have not yet reported on this racial gap. Chances are that in a few months, the balanced story will come out. When it does, trackback to this blog.

More Dysfunctional Asians

This is Hong Kong, and Chinese people are not sensitive about Nazism. If you grab 10 young people from the street and ask them if they know what Nazism is, I bet you none of them would answer 'yes'. People should not be too sensitive. It is simply the creative work of a very politically ignorant and insensitive designer. We're not sure that this issue is so serious that we have to have the whole thing pulled. It would cost millions of dollars to replace the line. Most of the complaints are from foreigners, but our customer base is local Chinese. Even the local [Chinese-language] papers didn't make a big deal out of this. Chinese do not have such strong feelings about these issues as the Germans and Jews. -- Deborah Cheng, Marketing Manager: Izzue, August 2003

So much for the globalism.

Big White Guy has details from ground zero.

UPDATE: VDL seriously harshes their mellow.

More Dysfunctional Asians

This is Hong Kong, and Chinese people are not sensitive about Nazism. If you grab 10 young people from the street and ask them if they know what Nazism is, I bet you none of them would answer 'yes'. People should not be too sensitive. It is simply the creative work of a very politically ignorant and insensitive designer. We're not sure that this issue is so serious that we have to have the whole thing pulled. It would cost millions of dollars to replace the line. Most of the complaints are from foreigners, but our customer base is local Chinese. Even the local [Chinese-language] papers didn't make a big deal out of this. Chinese do not have such strong feelings about these issues as the Germans and Jews. -- Deborah Cheng, Marketing Manager: Izzue, August 2003

So much for the globalism.

Big White Guy has details from ground zero.

UPDATE: VDL seriously harshes their mellow.

A Full Deck for Liberia

The case against Charles Taylor is made plain. I momentarily lost my mind yesterday in thinking much of Liberia's pain might not be at his foot, but are circumstantial. That doesn't change the fact, whether or not Taylor said so in his exit speech, that America will have to step up its committment to West Africa.

I have to admit that Rummy's idea for a deck of cards listing the top bad guys in Iraq was a stroke of PR genius. It goes to illustrate the necessity of communicating to the American public how important it is that we round them up. We know their names and we know what horrendous things they have done. So too, we should have a full deck any time we are involved in peacekeeping and regime change, even if it is nothing more than a Carterian audit of free and fair elections.

If there is a possibility that Charles Taylor Jr might have some hand in Liberia's future under Blah, then we will have failed their people, and indeed Taylor may be prophetic in his promise to be back. The international community needs to be able to reign in the thugs with equal efficiency as their bosses.

Introvertster

Too many Friendsterfriends? Scale-free network
theory models generated an overabundance of
comrades? Try Introvertster:
http://www.gregstorey.com/airbag/introvertster/

More on Nozick

The following from Richard Epstein on Nozick:

In writing Anarchy, State and Utopia, Nozick followed the pattern of inquiry adopted by many great legal and political writers from Hobbes to the present day. His exploration into the theories of private rights and duties was done in order to give us purchase on the grand question of why it was that any ordinary individual owed allegiance to the state. On this question, I think it's fair to say that Nozick was not quite able to close the circle. He ingeniously was able to show how individuals for security would become members of extended protective organizations. He was less successful in showing how these repeated voluntary maneuvers were able to generate a single protective association that would exercise the monopoly power over force that marks the distinctive role of the state. In my case, his influence was again profound, because it made it necessary to find the missing piece of the puzzle to explain why principles of justice in acquisition and transfer were not quite enough, even with their repeated application, to create the state. Nozick himself resisted the use of hypothetical or social contracts, claiming that these were not worth the paper they weren't written on. My own solution, put forward first in Takings in 1985 was to argue that we had to rely on these tricky strategies in order to explain why each person could be compelled to surrender his rights to liberty and receive in exchange the security that only a well-constructed state could provide. Forced exchanges, which he ruled categorically out of bound, were the key, so long as they worked for the benefit of those subject to the coercion.

I would argue simply that people will, of necessity have multiple loyalties. The question of whether or not a single well-constructed state has the imperative for monopoly in regulating exchanges depends almost singly on the viability of the exchange. Which is to say the breadth and depth of markets the state can market is a function of the material capacity of that state.

From this perspective, black markets are equally just. There is no less value in the pricing of goods and services in the voluntary exchange of contraband than there is in above-board markets. When a state determines to outlaw a particular set of transactions, it essentially refuses to provide protection for that market. Yet black markets thrive precisely because criminal enterprises take over that role.

Why would street kids express loyalty to their gangs? Because they are protected in their exchanges, outside of the interest of the state. Some such actors have no need for the state. There is a conflict of loyalties.

I believe that the material capacity for the state to enable exchanges are under pressure from the increasing capacities of corporations and individuals. But this is precisely why states must expand or be undermined. This is where the rubber of multiculturalism meets the road of politics. If previously excluded people find that their transactions are not protected, they will find few reasons to be loyal despite the ability of the state to provide protection. In that regard, the state may need to be affirmatively proactive.

Rawls vs Nozick?

Somebody needs to give me a thumbnail sketch of this battle because it seems to be key to understanding the consistency of Michael Walzer the man who wrote the following:

But my critique of French and German policy doesn't have much to do with just war theory. It is a much more general moral/political critique, having to do with hypocrisy and irresponsibility rather than with injustice. France and Germany did not refuse to fight or wrongly resist a just war; they refused to provide what was in their power to provide: a serious alternative to an unjust war. I continue to believe, even at this late date, that had France and Germany (and Russia too) been willing to support, and had the UN Security Council been willing to authorise, a strongly coercive containment regime for Iraq, the war would have been, first, unnecessary, and second, politically impossible for the American government to fight. But this would have involved giving up the notion that force was a 'last resort,' as the French said, or morally impermissible, as the Germans said. For containment depended on force from the beginning: the no-fly zones and the embargo required forceful actions every day, and the restoration of the inspection regime depended on a credible American threat to use force. Now imagine the no-fly zones expanded to include the whole country; imagine the very porous embargo replaced by 'smart sanctions,' which actually shut down the import of military equipment (while permitting materials needed by the civilian population); imagine the inspectors strengthened by UN troops, who could patrol installations once they had been inspected, and by unannounced surveillance flights. Given all that, it would have been very difficult to make a case that Iraq was still a threat to its neighbours or to world peace. But the US did not want a regime of that sort, having settled on war early on; and France and Germany were not willing to support anything close to this: they had, in fact, decided that the appeasement of Saddam was the best policy.

Later he suggests that a 'multilateral empire' is best, admitting and understanding as he says above, that force is required to subdue brutal regimes. Yet he has serious reservations that the values of any single country, multicultural that it may be, can protect the world. Again this suggests that the internal empire is more likely than the external.

My gut tells me that Rawls is wrong (heh). We cannot reject our natural endowments in developing our moral philosophies. The planet is fine, but we need to take care of our needs. Computers will tell us about themselves quite completely, and we won't care that much. It will be the morality of humanity that matters most and if it comes to a fight between us and the machines, the humans should and will win.

Factoid: California Power Plants

According to Art Torres, part of the reason for the current California budget deficit (somewhere around $38 Billion) is that in 17 years, no California governor built a single powerplant.

From a Democratic source in May of 2001:

By signing a bill by Sen. John Burton, D-San Francisco,
Davis created the California Consumer Power and Conservation
Financing Authority -- a new state agency that can
issue up to $5 billion in revenue bonds to build, purchase,
lease or operate power plants.

Plants financed b y the authority will provide cost-based
electricity to California consumers, Davis said, which will
help stabilize the state’s volatile energy market.

The power authority is modeled after one in New York,
which has 10 power plants, 1,400 miles of transmission lines
and produces about 25 percent of the state’s power. Nebraska
also has a power authority, which created a market in
which residents pay 22 percent less than the national average,
Burton said.

An increase in the number of power plants down for
repairs this year “is strong evidence that people are manipulating
the market by withholding power,” Davis said.

“The only way we can fight back against this type of price
gouging and manipulation is to build more plants,” he said
at the bill-signing ceremony in front of a Sacramento Municipal
Utility District power plant.

I'm taking the Democratic side of the power argument because in my estimation it was the power issue that turned the political tables against Davis. Davis is a moderate and he handily defeated Bill Simon in the last election. The California Republicans screwed themselves by letting Simon off the chain, and the Riordan clique is now suffering.

I specifically remember that there were no blackouts in Los Angeles, because the DWP owned its own power and therefore couldn't get snookered by the sharps who ran energy spot markets.

Let's see when Arnold starts talking about this.

BTW, Bill Simon should sue to get rid of these squatters.

Between Doe and Blah

It seems only yesterday that Charles Taylor was near the top of the list of bad guys to be deposed. Call me an idiot, but I'm beginning to wonder if this was not circumstantial. I'm searching now for a complete text of his departure speech, but the little piece I heard today on NPR, completely absent as it was from the NYT's piece, made me consider the broader scenario.

A Moral Dilemma in Retrospect

I once wrote in a missive against the war in Iraq:

two minutes ago, i got an email with a fuzzy focused picture of a puppy with the caption: i know god won't give me more than i can handle; i just wish he didn't trust me so much.

why i am against the war, this time, is because although i like gwbush like a puppy, i don't trust him that much.

part of the problem of coming from 90016 in the 70s is that there are palm trees and thugs. on one of the many occasions that moms sent me to the market for staples, i found, after the recent santa ana winds, some lengths of palm fronds with wicked thorns. i grabbed one, in the alley just west of crenshaw heading south to exposition. i ground off enough thorns to make a handle by using a pink cinderblock which had fallen off the wall which separated houses from the alley. in my hand it felt like an awesome sword, and suddenly i had the most evil weapon i could think of. i started to walk more slowly through this alley. i couldn't wait for somebody to try to jump me and take my money. i had a big stick.

skinny kids with glasses ought not to act like skinny kids with glasses, because they're more likely pick up weapons instead of going to the gym and getting lasik surgery. living well is a better revenge. likewise provincial rich kids ought not act out their stereotype because they'll eventually surround themselves with worldly types, like henry kissinger. and although this is an exercise in amateur psychology, let us not forget that this president ran his campaign on one word, and that word was 'character'.

I later amended my ways in consideration of the fact that the needs of the Iraqi people to be free of tyranny was greater than the sum total of blame that could be placed at the foot of GWBush. As that blame (and our federal deficit) grows, and his mendacious tactics are revealed, I feel a growing sense of regret. Not for America lending it's hand to the Iraqis, but for lending my hand to this man as emperor. He is singularly unworthy.

Often, many billions are discussed in the total cost of this war. I am reminded that the largest costs, that of the care and feeding of many tens of thousands of troops, are already sunken into our defense infrastructure. We did not go hire an entirely new army to fight in Iraq, we just deployed the one we already had. The cost of the war is incremental, ordnance, fuel and materiel. Still, there are hard figures to be reconciled with the freedom we have purchased for the Iraqis much of it in opportunity costs at home.

I understand that this is selfish. I want a safer, freer world, but I also want an America that functions properly. The worse things get over here, the more uncomfortable I get with our expenditures over there. Perhaps this malaise was predictable, but not because I feel bad about spending money on war, but because I feel bad about trusting GWBush to tell the straight truth.

As Yglesias puts it:

I think this is perfectly consistent with the case against the Bush administration. The whole point, in fact, is that the Bushies (and many of their supporters) never really cared about the case for war they outlined. They had decided for independent reasons that it was necessary to go to war, and in order to go to war it was necessary to build public support for war. In order to build public support, it was necessary to lie. The point of exposing the lies is twofold. One is to persuade the group of people — the small but electorally-crucial group of folks in the middle — who were swung by the case that they now ought to swing back. The other is to expose the fact that the administration is basically full of liars.

I will cop to supporting war for reasons independent of Bush's case and most others as well. I also believe that in the long run the prospects are as good for Iraq as they are for Yugoslavia, Bosnia and Northern Ireland. But that doesn't stop me from being angry with GWBush, again.

Dat Phan & The New Dysfunctional Asian

Dat Phan is not funny, but he is Asian.

Anytime an Asian can get on stage and make fun of his parents' accents, you've got a winner. It's about time that Asians got comically bashed in mainstream society. These are the days of Affirmative Action Backlash Blowback. For the many years that stereotypes about Asians were used to beat up stereotypes of blacks and latinos, Asians must have been saying to themselves, one of these days the jig is going to be up. They certainly knew that they were not superhuman.

It has fallen to comics to break out the topic for public discussion. With AABB gaining momentum, Asians are going to have to brake the fall of their honorary whiteness. Margaret Cho will have to devastate the 'me so horny' idea by doing it her fat-assed self, as a bisexual. Dat Phan will have to deconstruct the 'kung fu nobility' idea by doing it himself and then saying WTF like a loser.

Americans, especially younger ones, are needing to see Asians express the same dysfunctions, social perversions and moral disintegration as the trashiest of their trailer park cousins. We're all headed for leaner times, and if Asians are not coming with us, they'll be in for real bashing at the hands of the positive stereotypes they cosigned at the beginning of the age of the Pacific Rim. So these young Americans who grew up on the porno that is television are needing to see their Asian buds portrayed in the contexts they find themselves in. Blacks and latinos are already there, hiphop has assured that the degenerate profile has institutional infrastructure.

Dat Phan will be the man to watch. He will not be able to be Eddie Murphy for another generation. He will have to be Richard Pryor, or even Redd Foxx for the time being. He cannot become outwardly rich and famous, he will have to air all the dirty laundry of his and his parents generation. America won't let him be Jet Li, he will have to be the anti-hero. His confidence in his delivery, his discipline will all be in service of a wack personna. If he doesn't, America will chew him up, spit him out and ignore him, just as we have done to his parents.

Dat Phan, as a Vietnamese, will have to take down Chinese and Japanese. He will have to combat Philipinos and bring the Hmong out of obscurity. If he is to be truly large, this will be his task. He will have to be as Vietnamese as Paul Rodriguez is Mexican, as John Leguizama is Puerto Rican. But in that, Dat Phan has a very large problem, which is that he doesn't appear nearly as talented. This is the crux of the issue.

I was surprised that he won the competition. I didn't think he was that funny. I was much more impressed with Ralphie May's schtick as well as that of the older professional comics. But it was one of those very comics, Vos, who uttered the key phrase. "I didn't know you could get over just by ragging on your mother for five minutes." That's exactly why, if you're Asian. It's what America needs and wants to hear.

This need may pose as a desire for colorblindness, but we are too much the pattern-making creatures for that lame figleaf. The need stems from the desire to pin other kinds of archtypes, stereotypes and associations on Asians. Other meaning, laugh at yourself kind of associations, rather than compete with the ethnic minority kind of associations. That is all good and I think it is honestly reflective of the desires of the young audiences drawn to such venal reality shows.

Let us see whether or not Dat Phan understands all this and holds up his end of the bargain.

UPDATE: Model Minority on Dat Phan.
Flamewars & deleted posts at DatPhan's Blog

What is Genius?

i think of genius as a frantic state of creativity. what genius is is a polyphonic kind of continual expression and combination of intelligences. an individual possesed of (by) genius has a desparate need to make something happen in a way that combines things that are not obvious to the outside observer. genius always draws on a big pool of knowledge but does so in a way that makes its expression appear spontaneous. a genius develops a cross-functional vocabulary through a galaxy of shortcuts. genius is about the energetic orchestration of rapidly assimilated concepts. genius reinvents a domain in its own idiom, and thus genius defies translations. intellect parses genius one step at a time trying to understand the modus operandi.

penn jillette.

as i say this i am trying to think of criminal genius and deviant genius, the controlled pathology. genius is not methodological, it is searching. perhaps genius that is pathological doesn't understand how others don't understand, and doesn't care. madness is genius that doesn't seek transforming public expression - only observation and assimilation.

henry kissinger.

a genius tries to do gravitate all meaning to his inventions. they interpret life through their twisted prisms. the genius is disabused when they try to explain too much, overloading their creation with meaning. they need another breakthrough. the genius destroys himself if he is unsuccessful.

richard pryor.

a genius must attain mastery. he perfects and re-perfects. he throws it all away and starts over. he spins off a million tangents and throws them away. a genius plays with large dangerous tools. a genius gambles using tells too subtle for the untrained eye. the genius throws himself in the garbage just to test his own genius. he pushes the limits and pretends to be immortal just to see if he can, and finally he achieves.

jackson pollack.

after the genius, if they are recognized in their own time, they change the paradigm. suddenly it all becomes obvious - the dots are connected. the elemental genius of the connection becomes commodified. the public overdoses. pretenders and hacks rip off. earlier works are scrutinized.

woody allen.

we expect that the genius knows about life. maybe they do, but they probably look at the world as if they were an alien race. ordinary comforts don't suffice. genius has no peace. thus they must simplify their own life, discipline it - or throw it into extremes. they reject the free life, they spend too much time attending to the demands of their talents.

billie holiday.

genius is hungry and predatory. its talent doesn't save until it is manifest universally. the genius aims for the globe

napoleon.

genius evokes a vast sense of loss and disintegration when it is suddenly missing. on the passing of genius it is always felt that it will take several generations to find and recover what genius has discovered. one wonders how the world would have been different were it not for the genius in our presence. we are contrite for not paying it the mind we should have, we wish we had another chance to appreciate it all over again. but it is too late.

gregory hines.

Taps

Gregory Hines is dead. A moment of silence.

Head. Wall. Bang.

At this moment I feel as though I have to turn my whole blog into a diatribe about Black Republicans. It would be the only thing that would generate enough gravity to get people who appear to be so conflicted and confused to start recognizing that it's not suicide.

Take the following from Blunted on Reality:

Like I said, the concern is not that blacks will start voting Republican. All the J.C. Watts, Clarernce Thomases and Ward Connerlys in the world cannot convince the black electorate to join in the beliefs of Newt Gingrich, Strom Thurmond and George W. Bush... but enough indifference might convince them that the Democratic party isn't worth their time, effort, or vote either.

I am crouched in the middle of the street in Manhattan. I stand slowly, raise my hands to the sky and scream. My voice echoes supernaturally and the camera zooms backward so the entire city is visible. AAAAARRGHHH!

What kills me is that if Denzel Washington declared himself a Republican tomorrow, you'd get millions of blackfolks out of the closet and idiotic neutrality. Oh well.

P6 is right that black is the noun and Republican is the adjective, not the other way around. Republican is synonymous with effective and Democrat is its antonym.

Sex & Sin

FMarsden writes:

The Church is a hospital for sinners, not a museum for saints, so anyone wrestling with sexual temptation but trying to live a holy life is welcome. The question is whether homosexual sex - or indeed heterosexual fornication or adultery - can ever be pleasing to God. The Scriptures and 3000 years of Judaeo-Christian tradition reveal that this is not possible. In St Paul's own words, those who indulge in these acts unrepentantly cannot inherit the Kingdom of Heaven. I am sorry to see the Anglican Church abandoning the teaching of Holy Scripture. At the so-called Reformation it criticised the Catholic Church for allegedly covering up the true meaning of the Scriptures. Now some Episcopalians are deserting Scripture as the guide for their lives and behaviour.

Point taken, halfway. Given that people have sex different ways and for different reasons, one should use some judgement. True, we have scripture as a guide, but we also have our our own minds. If we were only given scripture to follow in prescribing the paths of righteousness, then free will would be rather optional. Free will is not simply binary.

Secondly, I interpret the call to be Christlike one of maturity and learning. Which means it is not sufficient simply to sacrifice, but to understand why. God may say, take the cup, but are we to take the cup without knowing why? Does God require that our obedience be blind? I believe not. The trials and tribulations of life are not simple mindgames and tests God places before us in order for us to earn brownie points for Heaven's gate. Scripture is not a crib sheet. God expects us to grow and learn and take responsibilities. We are moral animals and we must exercise that facility.

So I ask, what is sinful about adultery or fornication or sodomy? If one says, they are wrong simply because scripture says so, that is not using our minds. I will simply offer my understanding.

Adultery is treacherous.
Fornication is foolish.
Sodomy is selfish and perverse.

Dark Blue

If you live long enough, you see everything, but only if you are looking. If you were around during the Riot of 1992, you most certainly have seen plenty.

There will be many stories about Los Angeles, most of which won't be told to the masses. They will be told father to son, mother to daughter, piece by piece. Some will be told with cold, bitter tears, some with shudders of fear, some with hesitation. Dark Blue tells it as I've never imagined it would be told in a film.

I've long ago run out of steam talking about Los Angeles Riots. I have been healed, and I think the city has as well. I know people from my old neighborhood and their friends did some of their healing with hugs and acknowledgements. Brothers have graduated from slapping fives and complex dap to grips and embraces, and that has spread nationwide. The cures have been slower in coming, as usual, but rebuilding has happened. With Bratton as Chief and Parks leading the 10th District the institution of the LAPD has a good chance for completing its reforms. It may appear foolish to make much of films, but the perspective that Dark Blue has taken shows that maturity is real. It too should reflect the history of this city.

As a film, I would have liked to see a bit more departmental intrigue between Rhames' character and the brass. That third leg of the action, heightened by the approaching doom of the riot would have balanced the rogue cop's downfall streets and the corrupt boss' manipulations. I was expecting a great deal more risk and crusading by Rhames, but he seemed never to be on the screen at all.

The Old School

One of the most impressive books I ever read was by Ernest J. Gaines entitled 'A Gathering of Old Men'. If somebody asked me what I was all about being Old School, I would say read that book.

I don't take politics for granted. I am conservative but not 'a Conservative'. I expect that as the man I am that my opinion counts informed as it is from life, refined as a writer. But I don't go to Conservative Central to check my ideology with the master pundits. They will change their minds because they have confused people to win over. I'm not confused. I'm not playing partisan one-upsmanship.

It is difficult for me to summarize 'what I am' other than intensely subjective as a writer. I'll just take things as they come.

This Los Angeles

"Humankind still lives in prehistory everywhere, indeed everything awaits the creation of the world as a genuine one... if human beings have grasped themselves, and what is theirs, without depersonalization and alienation, founded in real democracy, then something comes into being in the world that shines into everyone's childhood and where no one has yet been -- home."

--Ernest Bloch

This afternoon's trek to the Getty was something indeed. It made me think a bit about this cosmopolis.

The Getty crowd is youngish yet variant, and not all chinoed and whitebread. A stern reddish blond women quickly stifles her grandchild. A young latino kid stares off into the distant Pacific with a twotone gold handheld device to his ear. A large swarthy man in a loud orange shirt waddles quickly over to his large framed wife and daughters perspiring and talking excitedly about 'urns and statues and stuff'. A short docent with an Italian accent and a slight grey stubble on his head compliments me about my haircut with a smile. A tall girl with large brown locks gestures descriptively to her boyfriend about the particular angle of an Eggleston picture. A mother wearing Stevie Wonder style braids stands in line for iced tea and hands a program guide to her daughter. A middle aged sandy haired dad and his son in identical polo shirts wearing aviator sunglasses and expensive sandals talk about software. A belly out girl smiles briefly at me as I make one of the few eye contacts of the day. A young boy who looks like the kid from The Princess Bride stares at Van Gogh's Irises as he listens to the prerecorded tour on blue headphones. Security guards on break laugh and joke.

So on to the art. The big attraction right now is supposed to be this Illuminating the Renaissance thing. How shall I say it? If you've seen one hugely ornate calligraphic sacred text, you've seen 'em all. I found them a lot less inspiring than I expected although they were certainly impressive. There was only one, in the four rooms dedicated to the exhibit that I found mildy inspiring and that was the rather thick one with the tiny script. I couldn't get the idea of monks scribbling away in Old French locked away in their monasteries on these books for months and years on end out of my head. For me personally, that is a very tired metaphor of computer programming. I've used it for almost 20 years now. So I was essentially looking at the equivalent of 15th century Flemish websites. Now that I'm restyling the blog a little bit, maybe I'll put some flourishes and blots on the archive template, but that's all. Perhaps I should have read all the captioning to catch the flavor of the dynamic of the period, but I was only interested in looking. But this was just the first exhibit. I was just getting the snarky city grime washed off me.

Looking was rewarded later as I ventured to the South building in which was housed a black and white photography exhibit from the American 60s. Although Arbus clearly stole the show, both Winogrand and Eggleston had fine points. Winogrand's portraiture has a spontaneous yet documentary style. He catches people in the middle of doing nothing in particular in settings that reveal as much about the period as they do about the subjects. Eggleston's Memphis work in contrast are more striking for their symmetries and complex compositions, yet they are stark, vacant and distant conveying dramatically a sense of alienation he surely saw characterizing Southern life.

Arbus gets her freaks on with striking intimacy. I've read much about her work and it doesn't disappoint. The cruel irony of her portraits are unavoidable and drew a great deal of murmuring from the assembled crowds.

I buzzed out of that joint and headed towards the marble sculptures. I continue to be endlessly fascinated by the ability of sculptors working with stone. Folds in dresses, the curly hair of Roman Emperors, the delicate fingers of nymphs, the kneecaps and navels showing through flowing robes, the separation of toes. Marvelous.

Finally, I headed up to see the Impressionists. Two paintings were the highlight of my day. The first was a portrait by a cat named Millet. The subject was a young girl with arms folded and left forward fingers split over her right forearm. Half of her face is in shadow and there is a perfect shaped symmetry in the shadow under her chin and above her slight breast. It was truly an amazing piece of work.

The other was by Monet. It was of a French Cathredral in Rouen in the foggy morning sun. I found it truly haunting. It held my attention for quite some time. As is my habit with Impressionists, I came up close to it after a period and viewed it from the side and let my jaw drop at its scabby patchwork surface.

The crowning moment of my visit came near the end, as I tired of the galleries and swooping through the light crowds. I took in the breathtaking panorama of this city, this Los Angeles from the Getty's hilltop. I could see all the peaks from Baldy to Wilson. I could count all the towers downtown, at the airport, in Santa Monica and Century City. I could not quite make out the Vincent Thomas Bridge and Catalina wasn't clear, but it was a magnificent vista ('magnificent vista'?). It was very cool.

Still I got the feeling that the city is strange and different. It is not my Los Angeles, so much as it is this vast world class city which has lost its intimacy for me. It took me an hour to reach the Getty from Redondo Beach, which is more like New York driving time. I found myself wishing for a subway train to the South Bay that I could take instead of the 405 and I realize that there is one. I've just never bothered to use it. Some time ago the buses turned red and started using CNG. The RTD is no more. Now the Gold Line goes to Pasadena and beyond. I used to live in the San Gabriel Valley only 20 months ago. It seems like a lifetime.

Here in the hills above the Westside, the richness of the foliage and greenery stand in stark contrast to the rusty brown hills under the dusky haze of Baldwin Hills and Westchester. The fine tiled roofs next door in Bel Air are more than two worlds away from the simple stuccos 5 miles southeast off Venice Boulevard. Far to the east are other worlds, behind me the Valley, like a recalcitrant Confederacy, unable to secede.

Who knows who runs this place? People with names like Ueberroth and Bustamante want to, but I wonder if they'll manage. Over to my right in the distance is the world's largest marina. Over to my left are tall triangular buildings full of entertainment lawyers, nearby is a cemetary full of soldier's headstones. Across the way a million people are all trying to get home or get away from home moving at 10 miles per hour. How does it ever happen? How do they hold this place together? Is Los Angeles even together at all?

The only thing that's clear is that up here, among the 16,000 tons roughly hewn travertine stones, Los Angeles can be viewed, if not comprehended, all at once. To a sensitive and thoughtful soul, it is overwhelming.

It is hard, on days like these when it is so inspiring to know the efforts put forth evident in this fine museum, to imagine that we are at war. And yet a moment's consideration at the broad variety of humanity and the complexity and idiosyncracies of their works, creations and desires makes one pause at the miracle we don't fly apart all at once. It is, in the end, the desire to reach out, to inspire others and to retain our ability to be inspired that draws us together in our endless fascination for each other. Our willingness to be surprised and find something good in the person and works of others binds us each to our common humanity. It may be a quirk of the human mind that makes patterns out of chaos, but for that quirk all we would know, and then only partially so, would be ourselves.

If we would not be at war without ourselves, this city, and maybe this world, might become our shared home and happy familiarity available to us all.

Fudging P2P

Several weeks ago I had an excellent discussion about the principles of music sharing with an adversary who kept bringing me back to matters of theft. I wish he had done it in the blog. I think I was right in arguing that the pro RIAA side are bigger thieves, but I have changed my behavior.

I reconfigured off my file sharing mechanisms to avoid the subpoenas now being served by the legal henchmen of the recording industry. It was clear to me that they were going after suppliers of substance. I am no longer a supplier at all. If somebody hacks my system and takes what I have, I wonder if that makes me a supplier? I have mixed feelings about changing.

Yesterday, I did a bit of thinking about how the economics of distribution are factored into the creation of recorded content. I have satisfied myself that type of distribution not only affects the curve of the revenue stream and therefore the type of consumption patterns expected, but changes what kind of intellectual property it is. There is a material difference between a film which is created to be a summer blockbuster and one that is supposed to be an arthouse release. Certain kinds of content are to be consumed certain ways, which means that different kinds of controls can be applied to their use which are not unilaterally the same. What prompted this thinking was a Life & Times spot on Dianne Watson who is putting together a new legislative agenda.

A few years back, my boss sent me to Century City to cover the now defunct Webnoize Conference. My task was to meet up with the Digital Rights Management (DRM) guys at IBM and Bertelsmann and show them how analytical software could help them create realistic business models. You know, for that little thing called profit. I was so excited about a group of guys called Reciprocal that I almost made a dog's breakfast of everything else. Unfortunately, they were pretty broke at the time, but they are still alive. Note that they are intent on creating end-to-end control. This is what the industry wants.

If I get my new gig, I will be in a firsthand position to speak with some authority on how entertainment content revenue streams work based on calculations the industry calls 'ultimate valuation'. What the big content distributors hate and fear is 'superdistribution' which is essentially that area when their content hits the internet and peer networks, markets which are now completely beyond their control. They view superdistribution essentially as a bootleggers paradise. In some ways they are right.

The industry claims lost revenue due to all of the unauthorized use of their products, and they assert intellectual property claims on all superdistributed product. Part of the problem I see is that they have refused to come up with a model that prices appropriately for this market. They have had to contend with free, and this is what burns them up, causing them to go for their legal guns. There is clearly is a way the music industry to run a profitable business buy selling music digitally online as Apple and BuyMusic are proving. But the entertainment giants don't want a price war, they want a legal war. As far as we can tell, their business models tell them that a CD's content is worth $19, period, no matter where it goes. Which is why they seek to employ DRM technology to enforce control of distribution and set prices independently of superdistribution enablers like Kazaa, et al.

I believe most people would not mind indelible digital watermarks, for example, to guarantee that it was indeed a particular artist they were listening to. If the recording industry were not bent on control of superdistribution, such matters would not be controversial. It's all in the difference between building a music player that plays digitally certified music and one that does so only with the permission of the recording company. It's the difference between a passive player and one that reports the number of times you play a song to the recording company. In its search for control of superdistribution, the recording industry has shown that it is willing to flex its legal muscles to make any DRM enabled playing devices illegal if they do not report usage to the industry.

In film, this is probably more pronounced since it is the industry which grew up simply on theatrical release only. Today it is finding the subsequent releases in the home video and rental markets more profitable. But inherent in the way certain film titles are marketed and managed are the seeds for defeating the basis of their current legal battle. This is my point. There are movies that are created today with the express knowledge that they will bring in more revenue in certain distributions than in others. Finessing the timing of such things and determining how much to spend marketing to which distribution channel, I would imagine to be the genius of Hollywood.

The Hollywood argument is at its strongest now because all of the bootlegging that exists is at its peak. There are few offererings aside from eMusic, Apple and BuyMusic (does anyone use PressPlay?) that are not free. Free has the biggest superdistribution market share. Anything that cuts into that market is a revenue stream for the industry. The industry thus must offer, choice, quality, price. This is how they compete.

Getty

I'm going to the Getty today. See ya later.

AOL's Blogging, Ya Herd?

Yglesias [reports that Steve Dunn ]suggests that AOL's entry into the Blogosphere will death blows to the superior gravity of Instapundit and AndrewSullivan. I beg to differ, simply.

One. I never read either of them and I don't miss a trick. It has been a very rare occasion when the second-order blogs [like Matt] on my list have deferred totally to their style of writing. Instapundit and Sullivan are provocateurs only of reader's habit.

Two. The last thing AOL 'revolutionized' was the browser world. Before that, it was USENET. You can judge the results for yourself.

The AOL herd is of bovine proportions and intellectual substance. In general, they live on the feed lot. Every once in a while, AOL will add a new technology that gives them a bit more freedom to roam the open plains of the Internet. They stampede a pre-trailblazed path into minivan navigability. That's a good thing because AOL supplies enough heads to justify non-niche marketing and that validates keeping the Internet alive for unprincipled capitalists and others late to the cluetrain. But ain't no siren calls coming out of that herd.

We will see a whole lot of stuff that will look like the first generation of Blogger, but with shiny buttons. YKYMF

Ed. Thanks to ZM

Going Local

I am 80% confident that I will take my next permanent job here in the LA area. I've been bouncing around quite a bit, but I am really looking forward to settling down. It is with my eye on that prospect that I am preparing to actually start caring a bit more about local politics and the goings on here in Los Angeles County. So here's the new category Local Deeds.

My doppleganger on Nemesis, the clone of Earth on the other side of the sun is not a database architect like me. He is an urban planner. We vibe every once in a while. So as implied in the category title, I will be looking at neighborhoods, and the geography of this place as well as the political activity.

Our first stop, posted without comment is NKLA.