We're All Gonna ... Nevermind: Jan. 26, 2012 Edition

Caption: Not today, nor tomorrow.

Image credit: Screenshot of television series Faces Of Earth by Cujo359

There's another one that's not quite going to hit us, as Space.com explains:

A small asteroid will make an extremely close pass by Earth Friday (Jan. 27), coming much nearer than the moon, but the space rock poses no danger of impacting our planet, NASA scientists say.

The newfound asteroid 2012 BX34, which is about the size of a city bus, will pass within 36,750 miles (59,044 kilometers) of Earth at about 10:30 a.m. EST (1530 GMT) Friday, astronomers with NASA's Asteroid Watch program announced[.]

http://www.space.com/14373-asteroid-2012-bx34-earth-flyby.html

We dodged another one.

Caption: A screenshot of the Space.com video of asteroid 2012 BX34's path over the next few days. How far is 7.0E-4 astronomical units? Not far enough, that's for sure.

Image credit: Screenshot of the Space.com video by Cujo359

As with the last bus-sized bit of bad I wrote about, the experts think that even if this thing had been headed for a landing here on Earth, it would have burned up in the atmosphere.

So why write about it?

One day, one of these things won't be a near miss. If they're a little bigger, say a few times the mass of this one, it won't burn up in the atmosphere. It will put something like this in some part of the Earth's surface, or it will produce a lot of atmospheric disturbance and tidal waves on its way to the bottom of the ocean. Right now, there's not a damn thing we can do about that.

No, correct that last sentence - there's nothing we seem to want to do about that.

I'd say this is one of three more-or-less preventable things that could destroy life as we know it here, and about which we're not doing anywhere near enough. The other two are climate change and nuclear proliferation. Ironically, all three would kill us off in the same way - by altering our climate so radically that no human could survive.

Yes, I know, only little girlie men worry about stuff like this. Like for instance, Rusty Schweickart, who never did anything more courageous than riding a 360 foot-tall pile of explosives into Earth orbit and back. Here's what he has to say on the issue:

"We have the capability — physically, technically — to protect the Earth from asteroid impacts," said former astronaut Rusty Schweickart, chairman of the B612 Foundation, a group dedicated to predicting and preventing catastrophic asteroid strikes. "We are now able to very slightly and subtly reshape the solar system in order to enhance human survival."

Deflecting Killer Asteroids Away From Earth: How We Could Do It

Yes, we are able to, but as with so many other forms of disaster prevention or preparation, we just seem to come up with all sorts of excuses for not doing it. Technologically, moving asteroids the size of the one that made Meteor Crater is nothing but an expensive and time-consuming engineering problem. As that article states, there are ways of dealing with them. Given enough time, even far larger asteroids can be deflected.

But most people would rather trust their deities to prevent this, I suppose.

Perhaps it's just an evolutionary test. Any species smart enough to prevent something like this from happening, but too stupid to try, isn't smart enough to survive.

UPDATE: Oops. Forgot the link to the first Space.com article. It's there now.

Taylor Marsh: We Need Our Own Tea Party

Caption: No, they're not terribly bright, but when it comes to understanding how politics works, they're way ahead of your average progressive.

Image credit: Look At This Teabagger


In what may become something of a trend, Taylor Marsh was given space at U.S. News And World Report to criticize the Obama Administration on progressive grounds, and she made good use of it:

The Democratic base has a passive-aggressive relationship with Obama that resembles a dysfunctional love affair. He has all the power and the base has absolutely none, unless you count the gay and lesbian contingent which was as good a model as the Tea Party on how to get it done. It's not that progressives couldn't have power; it's that they refuse to wield any.

So they cannot pressure Obama at election time because he knows his Democratic base will be there. After all, they're not the Tea Party. It doesn't matter if they're unhappy, all that matters is he's got their vote and he knows it.

Time for a Tea Party of the Left

The title of that article is telling. We don't have the equivalent of the Tea Party on the Left. I've been writing that so long that I don't even feel like finding any links for it. I wrote such an article three days ago. The fact is that the Democrats do what they do, which is to fail to live up to any of our expectations, because most progressives continue to vote for them anyway. There are many reasons for that, but when I have to summarize our current political situation in one sentence, that's it.

No, the Occupy movements are not a Tea Party of the Left. They are avowedly apolitical, and as I've discussed already at some length, there's no reason they should be. They're a hammer, not a scalpel. They're simply demanding that we do something about the problems facing us.

As someone commented over at Taylor's blog post on the article, this may be the start of a trend of right-wing news organizations giving progressives a chance to criticize the Obama Administration. I'm all for that, for two reasons.

The first reason is that no one else gives us much of a voice to do such a thing. Beyond Glenn Greenwald, I have a hard time thinking of anyone who frequently criticizes the Obama Administration from a progressive perspective in the mainstream news. Most of the truly independent progressive voices are left to find their own outlets (like this one), or are confined to big blogs like FireDogLake or Daily Kos. There's Raw Story and Rolling Stone, of course, but neither is what I'd call mainstream news. So having a voice at all is a good thing, whatever the motivations.

Second, and this is the more important one, until progressives are seen as the roadblock to power in the Democratic Party, they will continue to be ignored. I've been saying that in one way or another since I wrote this regarding the Obama Administration back in March, 2009. The writing was clearly on the wall by then, just two months into Obama's first term. Anyone who can't see that by now either isn't looking or doesn't want to see it.

To progressives who are tired of being ignored, I'd say you should try first to explain to Democrats in the only language they will listen to that you've had enough. Don't support them, and if they don't vote the way you want, don't vote for them.

Maybe the most remarkable thing about this article is that Taylor Marsh wouldn't have written it two years ago. After a lot of haranguing from folks like me who understand this particular aspect of political power, and having watched what we've predicted unfold, Taylor figured it out. She used to call herself a "Democrat", now she uses the term "liberal", because, as she figured out, those two labels are no longer the same. Sadly, she's way ahead of most progressives on this front.

If progressives want real political power, they have to demand it. It's that simple. Until enough progressives do that, we will continue to be ignored, and I find it hard to blame Democrats, or any other politicians, for doing so.

Quote Of The Day

Image credit: OWS/Tumblr

Alternet's Lynn Parramore, discussing Newt Gingrich's bona fides as a populist, in an article on the effect that Republican politics and the Occupy movements are having on each other:

The worst thing about Newt is what political economist Thomas Ferguson pointed out in a paper for the Institute for New Economic Thinking – namely that Newt was the key architect of the current pay-to-play system in Congress. More than anyone else, he is responsible for building the system in which members of Congress who bring in the most cash get the plum and powerful committee appointments. It was not always thus. Before Newt and his buddy Tom Delay saw the potential for pay-to-play, committee appointments came through seniority. But after Newt & Co. came to power, influence in Congress was nakedly up for sale. Today, both parties actually post prices for key positions, as Ferguson noted in the Financial Times.

Will the Mitt/Newt Slugfest Boost the Occupy Movement?

[links from original]

Not only has this system been a powerful source of corruption that now affects both parties, it has also been a hammer that party leaders can hold over the heads of dissenting members. It's a rare individual who can stand on his own and continue to win office without the support of his party, and the system virtually guarantees that those who don't play ball will be out on their ears.

I don't know if all this hypocritical, and largely fact-free, debating of populist economic concerns is likely to mean much to the Occupy movements. My own perception is that there are just as many people on the Right as on the Left who are looking for easy solutions, and aren't terribly interested in being told the ugly truth of things. It's far better to tell conservatives that it's the fault of immigrants, the Muslims, or the Mormons that we're in the state we're in. It's been far too easy to tell progressives that if we just find candidates who aren't "divisive", everything will be fine.

Still, Occupy movements are having an effect on the debates, and will continue to as long as they can find ways to get their message across. Changing the nature of the debate is a good first step. The next is to make sure it's at least somewhat honest.

If the recent Republican debates are any example, that's going to be a lot harder.

Thought For The Day

Caption: John B. Anderson, independent candidate for President in the 1980 election. In my first act of childish irresponsibility in presidential elections, I worked and voted for him.

Image credit: Warren K. Leffler/Wikimedia, converted to JPEG format by Cujo359

In answering a comment about yesterday's article, it occurred to me to wonder, all these years later, why I decided to vote for John Anderson for President in 1980. Wikipedia reminded me:

When questioned about which episode in their career they most regretted, none of the other candidates would answer the question, except Anderson, who cited his vote for the Gulf of Tonkin resolution. Unlike the others, he said lowering taxes, increasing defense spending, and balancing the budget was an impossible combination. In a stirring summation, Anderson invoked his father's emigration to the United States and said that we would have to make sacrifices today for a better tomorrow. For the next week, Anderson's name and face were all over the national news programs, in newspapers, and in national news magazines.

Wikipedia: John B. Anderson

He was willing to speak uncomfortable truths. In retrospect, I don't think his desire to balance the budget at the time (we were in the middle of a recession caused by the oil embargo, among other things) was a wise idea, but he was the only one of the Republican candidates of the time who was willing to admit that increasing spending, lowering taxes, and balancing the budget were not possible to do all at the same time. He also said that gun owners should be licensed, a topic that wasn't popular with the GOP faithful.

Instead of nominating someone who was honest, the Republicans nominated someone who told them fairy tales about welfare queens and morning in America. That individual was then elected President. In fact, if you added up the votes that Anderson and Jimmy Carter, the other honest guy in that election, received together, they were still far fewer than Reagan received. This, I think, is when I lost all respect for the average American voter.

Image credit: Shepard Fairey/The Village Voice

Whatever solution progressives come up with to our current situation, we are certainly up against the problem that liars make better Presidential candidates than honest people. You could see that in the primary in 2008, when Hillary Clinton, whose attitudes and faults were there for all to see, lost to someone who did his best to pretend he was something he wasn't, and that his opponent was something she wasn't. He's been lying ever since, and plenty of people have yet to catch on.

Far too many Americans want to be lied to, not because they enjoy being lied to, but because they don't want to face reality.

Quote Of The Day

Image credit: Found it here

From a few days ago, Bruce Dixon of Black Agenda Report on the idea of what constitutes a wasted vote in American politics:

This imposition of false and meaningless choices is how, in these United States, our voices are suppressed, our votes wasted and made irrelevant, with the black vote rendered most irrelevant of all.
...
This is how the game is played. This is how the legal and symbolic authority of millions of our wasted votes is hijacked every election cycle, making possible wars we do not endorse, ratifying policies we never wanted, and pretending to believe promises we know, or should know will never be kept. This is what Eugene Debs referred to a century ago, when he declared he would rather cast a meaningful vote for what did want, and not get it, than a fake and hollow one for what he didn't want, and get that.

And so, a hundred years later, the game is still the game. If we want our votes to have any meaning, it's time to reject the fake choices between the two corporate parties. It's time to wise up, to grow up and like adults, to take a view longer than dessert, or the next two or three elections.

How To Waste Your Vote In 2012

I find it hilarious that people who insist I need to vote for Democrats, because the Republicans are so much worse, consider themselves to be adults, or the responsible people. I have no such illusions about myself, but simply voting out of fear isn't an adult choice, nor do I think it particularly responsible. No candidate, and no party, is going to meet all my expectations. I am even happy to compromise a little if at least some of what I want can be passed done by a candidate or party who can win, even though someone else might do more.

However, I also believe that Eugene Debs is right. I think Ralph Nader was right when he said that when you choose the lesser of two evils, what you end up with is evil. That's what our choice was in 2008, and for the only time in my life, I voted for someone for President, Barack Obama, who I believed was unqualified for the post. Even at the time, I knew the man was a liar and unlikely to do much of anything that many voters thought they were sending him there to do.

I won't make that mistake again.

That's why I will vote for whoever best represents my attitudes about government policy, whether those people are from major parties or not. If none of the choices represent what I want in an elected official, I won't vote in that race. Simple as that. No more choosing evil. We have evil already. If the political parties want to succeed, they're going to have to do better.

When enough progressives vote that way, they will do better.

Politics is a market, and like all markets, it responds to what pays the bills. Being out of office doesn't pay the bills, regardless of what you want to accomplish.

You are welcome to disagree, but if you think that makes you the adult one, then you are also welcome to kiss my furry ass.

(h/t Joyce Arnold)

I Don't Like Ice

I don't know much about electric power utilities, but I do know that they hate ice storms. Ice storms break power lines that have weakened, and they break trees that are near power lines. What ends up happening is lots of little bits of damage that add up to no power.

All of which is a way of saying that I haven't been anywhere on the Internet the last few days.

Happily, there are some good pictures.

Image credit: All photos by Cujo359

Enjoy your weekend.

PIPA: A Change Of Heart

If you think that public pressure on an issue never has an effect on the minds of legislators, here's proof that you're wrong, courtesy of the Twitter feed of U.S. Senator Orrin Hatch:

After listening to the concerns on both sides of the debate over the PROTECT IP Act, it is simply not ready for prime time.

Twitter message from @OrrinHatch

That’s why I will not only vote against moving the bill forward next week but also remove my cosponsorship of the bill.

Twitter message from @OrrinHatch

Of course, there are a number of big players involved in this campaign, like Google, Amazon, and Microsoft. Those firms have far more influence than ordinary citizens. Still, part of any effective political strategy is to find allies, and this is no exception. Those companies' reasons for opposing the legislation are different from ours, but they benefit from a free Internet, too.

Strike!, Part Deux

The rest of the Internet is on strike, but this is what's going on in my back yard right now:

Image credit: Photo taken and processed by Cujo359

Yes, it's snowing here, and as is traditional in the Pacific Northwest, everything grinds to a halt. Going on strike from the Internet seems to be a colossal sacrifice at the moment.

I know you're not getting your fill of cute animal photos, so there you are.

Now, go sign the petition.

Strike!

Image credit: Fight For The Future

While this blog will not be "on strike" today, I fully support the aims of these Internet organizations, which are taking the day off to protest the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), and its sister legislation, the Protect Intellectual Property Act (PIPA). These two acts, the U.S. House and Senate version of the same bill, respectively, are supposedly designed to prevent copyright theft on the Internet.

This is, as the Electronic Frontier Foundation explains, a ridiculously restrictive and dangerous bill:

The "Stop Online Piracy Act"/"E-PARASITE Act" (SOPA) and "The PROTECT IP Act" (PIPA) are the latest in a series of bills which would create a procedure for creating (and censoring) a blacklist of websites. These bills are updated versions of the “Combating Online Infringements and Counterfeits Act" (COICA), which was previously blocked in the Senate. Although the bills are ostensibly aimed at reaching foreign websites dedicated to providing illegal content, their provisions would allow for removal of enormous amounts of non-infringing content including political and other speech from the Web.

The various bills define different techniques for blocking “blacklisted” sites. Each would interfere with the Internet's domain name system (DNS), which translates names like "www.eff.org" or "www.nytimes.com" into the IP addresses that computers use to communicate. SOPA would also allow rightsholders to force payment processors to cut off payments and advertising networks to cut ties with a site simply by sending a notice.

These bills are targeted at "rogue" websites that allow indiscriminate piracy, but use vague definitions that could include hosting websites such as Dropbox, MediaFire, and Rapidshare; sites that discuss piracy such as pirate-party.us, p2pnet, Torrent Freak, torproject.org, and ZeroPaid; as well as a broad range of sites for user-generated content, such as SoundCloud, Etsy, and Deviant Art. Had these bills been passed five or ten years ago, even YouTube might not exist today — in other words, the collateral damage from this legislation would be enormous.

Internet Blacklist Legislation

The potential for abuse is obvious to anyone familiar with how YouTube, for instance, has been gamed numerous times into blocking content that was wrongly alleged to be in violation of the Digital Millenium Copyright Act by people who simply wanted to make the content disappear. It would also give entertainment companies that also provide Internet presence the opportunity to censor sites that compete with it, at least on its own networks.

The Obama Administration has gone on record as being opposed to these bills:

Over the weekend, the Obama administration issued a potentially game-changing statement on the blacklist bills, saying it would oppose PIPA and SOPA as written, and drew an important line in the sand by emphasizing that it “will not support” any bill “that reduces freedom of expression, increases cybersecurity risk, or undermines the dynamic, innovative global Internet."

How PIPA and SOPA Violate White House Principles Supporting Free Speech and Innovation

Of course, counting on the Obama Administration to stand on principle is a good way to be disappointed, as we learned with the recent reverse course on the unlimited detention provisions added to the NDAA.

Intellectual property, the concept that includes ideas like patents and copyrights, is a deal that society strikes with people who have spent time and effort creating something of value. Most modern countries, including the U.S., make a deal with people who invent or create innovative work. That deal is that they have the exclusive right to sell that particular work or product for a set period. This makes the work of innovating monetarily valuable, because without it anyone could then steal the work and sell it as his own, usually at lower cost.

What has happened in recent years, though, is that these ideas have gotten out of hand. Partly thanks to the not terribly bright practice of shipping the designs of our products overseas to be manufactured by others, it is now far more difficult to control the use of the designs or works that U.S. intellectual property law is supposed to provide. Meanwhile, those protections have been extended for enormous periods, well beyond the lifetimes of the people who came up with the works in the first place. When movies that are so old that all the people who made them are dead can still be claimed as intellectual property by the corporations that own the rights, it seems to me that it's time those rights expired, too.

To try to enforce these increasingly unenforceable intellectual property rights, various corporations that own those rights and the congresspeople they've bought and paid for are determined to turn the Internet into a shopping mall. And it will be a shopping mall where the security guards can look in your bags, your purses, and your clothes any time they like, then can beat the crap out of you and throw you outside.

So, the Internet is going on strike. Not all of it, of course, but many of the things you're used to doing on the Internet today will be harder, and you'll be asked numerous times to do this:

Sign the petition to remind your congressmen that they work for all Americans, not just the ones who have enough money to hire lobbyists.

UPDATE: Here's what Raw Story has to say in support of the strike:

Raw Story is, as always, a small, privately-owned company, so we understand uniquely the problems caused by people who reprint our articles without permission or attribution, taking the intellectual property of our company and our employees without so much as a pageview in return. But our reporting has shown, time and again, that neither SOPA nor PIPA will help small companies like ours do much, if anything, to combat the theft of our intellectual property — heck, even the movie industry can’t say that its profits are actually down, despite rampant piracy. SOPA/PIPA is simply a cudgel supported by large, corporate interests who would rather spend money lobbying for outmoded legislation intended to stall the internet’s engine for change rather than learning a new way to operate in a modern world.

Announcement: Raw Story to go dark on January 18 to protest SOPA/PIPA

I'd have to agree, I don't see how this would help anyone legitimately reclaim or recover losses for stolen intellectual property. It can be used as a way for corporations that both provide content and Internet access to stifle competition, though.

Quote Of The Day

Economist Dean Baker on the Washington Post's recent whitewashing of our economic situation:

So there you have it. Don't worry about how much money Robert Rubin and Angelo Mozilo made off the housing bubble and the difficulty that you are having finding a job, paying for your health care or your kids' education. Just be thankful that you have an iPhone.

The Average 12-Year-Old is Taller Than the Average 6-Year-Old: The Post Gets Desperate in Making the Case Against an Inequality Problem

Actually, that's just the punch line. Read the rest for a good explanation of how the press lie to us about this subject these days.

It's sad when economists and others can spend so much time telling us what our nation's premier news publications get wrong about the economy, the law, and foreign affairs. Then those publications wonder why they can't find subscribers. As a friend of mine often says, I don't need to pay people to lie to me. Plenty of folks will perform that service for free.