politics

Randomness for 1/28

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1) I’m not sure what to call this video clip: GUN FU HUSTLE (Bollywood version)? Whatever you call it, it’s delightfully absurd and inventive.

2) Cherie Priest: high priestess of steampunk.

3) Dear News Media: When reporting on polls, please keep in mind…

4) Louis CK — Being White. God, how I laughed.

5) UK government bans export of fake bomb detectors.

6) Ted Haggard’s wife Gayle stands by her husband/writes book. Ms. Haggard says that her husband confessed to a sexual encounter with another man early in their marriage. He asked for and received her forgiveness, sought counseling, and they moved on. Or that’s what she thought–later she discovered (along with everyone else) that he had been seeing men in secret. However, now he’s asked for and received her forgiveness, sought counseling and they’ve moved on. So that’s totally different from the previous time. (Actually, there is a difference: Ms. Haggard has a book with an Amazon.com sales ranking in three digits. I hope she’s squirreling that money away.)

7) Try to conceal your unbearable surprise, but the CIA agent who claimed in December of 2007 that waterboarding got worthwhile intelligence out of hard-core terrorists, disrupting dozens of attacks? Well, it turns out that he was lying. So much for the “It works. Period.” crowd.

Child of Fire reviews part 10 (plus health care)

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Today, I have four copies of Child of Fire wrapped up and addressed for mailing. Two are addressed to my senators, one to my congressional representative, and one is addressed to the president. Included with each book is a nearly-identical letter stating, in essence: This is my work. This is what I do. If we had decent health care reform, I could give my day job to someone else who needs it and write books full time. Pass health care reform, please.

I expect none of them will see the book or the letter, but it’s something I needed to do.

And now, the reviews: Continue reading

A quote worth reading

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According to research done by a research department of Harvard Medical School:

Lack of health insurance is associated with as many as 44789 deaths per year in the United States, more than those caused by kidney disease (n=42868).41 The increased risk of death attributable to uninsurance suggests that alternative measures of access to medical care for the uninsured, such as community health centers, do not provide the protection of private health insurance. Despite widespread acknowledgment that enacting universal coverage would be life saving, doing so remains politically thorny.

Source

Justice Kennedy: “The appearance of influence or access will not cause the electorate to lose faith in this democracy.”

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The Supreme Court has ruled that corporations and unions have the right to donate as much cash as they like to candidates, calling it free speech.

Next week, they’ll grant them the right to marry each other. Sorry, gays. Better move to Spain.

A little bit about politics

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Skip this if you’re not interested.

Conservatives and media types are already spinning Scott Brown’s senatorial win as a warning that Democrats have moved too far to the left. Even conservatives within the party are saying this. Witness Evan Bayh: “Whenever you have just the furthest left elements of the Dem party attempting to impose their will on the rest of the country — that’s not going to work too well.”

But this is, of course, a fucking fantasy. Coakley lost yesterday primarily because she was an awful, lazy, contemptuous candidate. Secondarily, she lost because her base is pissed off.

As much as the Washington media and political operatives like to tell us otherwise, polls have repeatedly shown that a majority of citizens support progressive agenda items if they’re presented without a party name attached. Once the party names are hung on them, voters switch heavily to Republicans.

Health care reform, which Bayh seems to think is progressive over-reaching? In truth it’s been stripped of most everything progressives wanted, including a public option. At this point, actual liberals in this country are angry because the legislation doesn’t go far enough–it doesn’t cover enough people, doesn’t break the poisonous connection between health insurance and employment benefits, and doesn’t actually change the health insurance situation for the great majority of Americans.

In other words, the Dems lost a seat because they weren’t progressive enough.

Now, I’m glad that the Democratic party has a big tent. The Blue Dogs might annoy me and make me roll my eyes, but I would hate to see a DINO-purging start. We ought to be able to work together–liberals, moderates, conservatives–to legislate, and that’s what the Democratic party has been doing. The results aren’t always pretty, and damn, the White House could have made the public option more of a priority, but it’s how governing is done. What’s more, I’d like to see the current reform bill reconciled and passed; we’re in for a disaster if we don’t.

But don’t try to tell me the government has been too far to the left. That’s absurd.

Randomness for 1/15

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1) Riot Shield or Sled?

2) Sushi Etiquette.

3) Crowd-sourcing: tool of evil. At some point later I may want to talk about this in more depth, but I’m not sure how I’d approach the subject. Maybe what I’d like to see in the hypothetical example is people gaming the TURK system by choosing the least likely matches–they’d earn those same pennies while giving bad information; downside: I’d hate to be the guy who looks least like the person Iranian authorities are trying to ID. Hmm.

4) Topics That Are Not, In Fact, of Inherent Interest, and Do Require Some Effort On Your Part in Order to Constitute a Successful Book. Heh.

5) Translucent concrete. So cool. That blog has a number of interesting items there. via email.

6) Run Linux without Windows?? Preposterous!!! I suspect some of you are going to look at the main URL for that link and start combing your delete folder for some emails to submit. You know who you are.

7) If I lived a different sort of life, I would already own one of these. And I would love it.

Just in case it wasn’t clear

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“I do shoot [guns], and I shoot them at things that can’t shoot back. And will continue to do that. And by that, I want to be clear, I don’t mean children.”

— Harold Ford

Randomness for 1/12

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1) Two Gentlemen of Lebowski (I realize this has been going around, but I collect these links over time, so just assume I found it first, even if I posted it last, okay?)

2) Readers send emails to writers. Heh. My recommendation: never email a grammar question to me. I’ll just copy and paste into Word and look for a green underline. Then I’ll replay with just a blank message, so you’ll think there’s something wrong with my email client.

For the record, I’ve gotten more than a few emails from readers, and they’ve been wonderful. Thank you. Someday I’ll get a snarky or nasty one, and I promise to post it on the blog, just as I include the slam reviews in my review round-up.

3) All of Great Britain cries out: “Atlantic Gulf Stream, come home! We miss you!”

4) Biosphere 2, falling into ruin. Amazing images. via James Nicoll

5) Early notes on the origin of Superman. If you’re like me, you find Jerry Siegel’s early ideas for the character fascinating. It’s so different from what it eventually became, even if he kept the “Man of Tomorrow” moniker.

6) How long will it last? Forget about Peak Oil. We appear to have reached Peak Indium already. Like the guy I snagged this from, I curious how accurate it is. It’s a bit scary, though. via mightygodking

7) How to be a class act.

It’s not “selling children”. It’s “selling parenting rights.”

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The (supposed) moral implications of selling children according to libertarians.

Having said that much, I’m sure you know exactly what you’ll find at the other end of that link.

Randomness for 12/29

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1) Tape measure superpowers. via sinboy

2) Blue Thundercats are only the most obvious uses for cgi. It’s also useful for turning sets into locations.

3) Romeo and Juliet by people who slept through English class. Hilarious. The text is fun, but listen to the audio news report, if you can. It’s not only wonderful, but it goes a little deeper than you might expect.

4) I’m supposed to be on a holiday media fast, but some things can’t be ignored: Is this Iran’s Second Revolution?

5) First link from James Nicoll: Most unsympathetic protagonist of 2009? The list is limited to protagonists who are supposed to be sympathetic, and Thomas Covenant has been awarded a lifetime achievement award and is no longer eligible.

6) Second link to James Nicoll: Rail travel in the U.S. Personally, I’d love to see more reliable, faster rail service in this country.

7) Sixth Pacific NW police officer dies of gunshot wounds in two months. First we had an office in Seattle shot to death on Halloween night. Then there were the four Lakewood officers. Now this. Law enforcement deaths are down from last year, nationally, but shooting deaths are up (most law enforcement deaths are auto-related). Condolences to his family and his fellow officers.