Tuesday, September 30, 2008

I'm in

I've been sitting on a fair amount of cash and just today put a large chunk on a socially responsible index fund (DSEFX), that tracks the S&P 500 pretty closely. We'll soon see if now was the right time.

Monday, September 29, 2008

They're baaack - more credit card scammers with nonexistent global warming conferences

Inel has the goods on these credit card scammers/potential identity thieves. Same thing as before: a fake conference on global warming ("Working Group on Global Warming and Climate Change") that isn't going to happen in November in London. Presumably the same goal as before: get personal information off the registration forms, and try to get credit card numbers from a fake website pretending to be that of a real hotel.

I hope both skeptics and believers in climate change learn about and stay away from these guys. Wherever you stand on the issue, they're looking for a way to reach into your pocket.

I submitted a complaint to IC3 last time, by the way, and heard nothing. I don't think Inel did any better with the London police. I'd guess they're waiting for the problem to get bigger first.

Saturday, September 27, 2008

A Casablanca/Palin mashup needed

News item:

board includes officials from some of the largest mining interests....

About a quarter of the entities bestowing gifts on the governor are
represented by one of Alaska's most influential mining lobbyists....


Records show that 23 of the gifts were offered during Palin's
corruption scandal by passing a package of ethics reforms....

Palin has come under fire for speaking out against a statewide
initiative, Proposition 4, that would have imposed costly environmental
regulations on mining operations....

So someone with more video editing skillz than me just needs to float Palin's head on top of Claude Raine's. Maybe even blank out the last part of the audio and substitute this dialogue:

I'm shocked - shocked! - that there's corrupt gift-taking in here.

Your gifts, Governor Palin.

(Crossposted to the Obama website.)

Friday, September 26, 2008

The Oreskes-Nierenberg thingy













Monday, September 22, 2008

Start-up problems

My wife's friend operates a start-up business in Karachi. It was 100 feet from ground zero of the attack. It's totalled. Fortunately for them, though, no employees were in the office. Many others were in far worse shape.

Not the usual hazard you expect in trying to start a business.

Saturday, September 20, 2008

Even McCain's fig leaf on torture is a lie

I knew that McCain betrayed his anti-torture principles by allowing CIA to torture while prohibiting the military from doing it. I didn't know that military interrogators could be temporarily designated as CIA officers. There is nothing left of McCain's anti-torture stance.

UPDATE: Somewhat tangential issue regarding Troopergate. Palin's use of her official power to fight her ex-brother in law is unquestionably corrupt, but I had thought it had a modest level of justification in him being a rogue cop. Turns out though that many of the allegations aren't as bad as she says.

Friday, September 19, 2008

Shorter Michael Scherer: what idiot said "by their fruit ye shall know them"?

The headline above paraphrases Time Magazine's Michael Scherer, criticizing the Obama campaign for pointing out McCain's long record of opposition to alternative energy. Scherer points to promises McCain is now making and says these outweigh his record, even if the promises are vague.

Some historical figures may disagree with that analysis. See Gristmill for a different view. I'll just add one additional point, that one can look to a candidate's record for an assessment of his judgment. Even if every promise McCain now makes is sincere, his record of past mistakes is an appropriate argument for voting against him because he has bad judgment.

UPDATE: Scherer admits that examining the record is a legitimate technique, so some credit where some credit is due.

Wednesday, September 17, 2008

A question for Bob Woodward

If this new, supersecret counterinsurgency technique is so game-changing in Iraq, why hasn't it been used in Afghanistan, where things have been deteriorating for over a year?

Maybe I'm too hard on Woodward, but he seems to be the David Broder of confidential sources. Broder takes the conventional wisdom on any subject and pronounces it like an amazing revelation, or possibly something he claims to have heard from a local yokel somewhere. Woodward's books on the Iraq war does the same thing with confidential sources whose information just mirrors conventional perception of whether the war's going well or badly, whether Bush is a good or bad leader, etc.

The utility of either journalist is limited. Maybe a slight edge for Woodward in providing sources for historical analysis, long after the fact.

Monday, September 15, 2008

Brinley Evans, 1967-2008

Brinley Evans was a good friend of mine from high school. She died last week after a long battle with breast cancer. Brinley was a family and immigration lawyer in Toronto, survived by a great husband and two young children. The obituary's here.

I have nothing original to say about what a shame it is to lose touch with great friends. My main knowledge of her is as a teenager and a little bit older. She was fiercely protective and nurturing of children even when she was only a little older than a child herself. We did have occasional contact over the years, though, and I know she created a happy life for herself and her family.

Anyway, I'm thinking that when her kids are older they'll use whatever the Internet's become to learn more about their mother. Maybe they'll come across this and see how she touched people even when she was young, made them laugh, and shared the occasional feeling that high school was a parochial trap, but one that you could also escape (or outlast) with the help of your friends.

Saturday, September 13, 2008

Hope versus belief in holy war





Thursday, September 11, 2008

More McCain campaign backing away from cap-and-trade





Monday, September 08, 2008

Full remarks of Republican National Convention speakers on climate change


I dug up the two references. Here's the first:


The other reference:

But he did!


Saturday, September 06, 2008

Refuting the lying McCain-Obama comparison email that's going around

Maybe this response will help other folks that have received similar emails from their relatives or friends.

Note that the "sources" the email uses are general info about each candidates, not specific cites. They're counting on people not bothering to click the links and instead just seeing a reputable website and thinking it must be true. In other words, including a few reputable links does nothing to verify the lies.

Finally, I'm including these refutations not because I necessarily agree with the policy positions (I wish Obama supported gay marriage) but because I want to counter deliberate lies meant to elect a far worse candidate.

The text of the email I'm responding to is at the bottom of the post.

1. New offshore drilling: Obama said he would support it as part of a comprehensive plan:


2. Judicial activism: conservative judges are more likely to strike down laws and regulations than liberal judges


One can go back and forth on judicial activism forever, but basically one person's judicial activist is another person's constitutionalist.

3. Military service: they got this one right! A+!

4. Time served in US Senate: 173 days is not the number of days the US Senate has been in session since Jan. 2005 when Obama joined it, not to mention all the days of Senate Committee work. It's simply wrong. McCain's been there for 21+ years, Obama for 3+ years.

5. Socialized health care: is Medicare socialized health care? If so, then both McCain and Obama count as "yes" here. Obama's program involves insurance subsidies, mandatory responsibility of parents to get insurance coverage for children, and a Medicare-like option, not a mandate, for those under 65.

good info here:


6. Supports abortion throughout pregnancy: a lie.


7. Troops out of Iraq immediately: another lie - Obama said one or two combat brigades a month, roughly equivalent to what the Iraqi Prime Minister has also called for. Obama's left unclear whether and how many non-combat troops would stay. Obama has wanted to increase troops in Afghanistand, which is impossible unless we draw down troop levels in Iraq:


McCain, by the way, tends to always support more US military involvement - for example calling for US ground troops to intervene in Kosovo in 1999:


8. Gun rights: Obama has for years stated he believed the 2d Amendment created an individual right to gun ownership, although like McCain he supports regulation. The difference between the two is how much regulation.


A big gun nut should support McCain, but this chart shouldn't lie about the difference.

9. Gay marriage: lying liars. Obama opposes gay marriage, supports civil unions.


Granted, he opposes the Cal. Prop. 8 initiative too (the initiative would amend the California Constitution to ban gay marriage). Hard to square that position except by Obama's believing that banning gay marriage should be flexible and therefore part of state law but not part of state constitution.

10. Tax increases: see Factcheck cited below, but I'll add that both McCain and Obama would increase deficits, with McCain increasing them far more. McCain's proposed repeal of business health insurance tax deduction is a huge tax increase as Republicans usually define it.

11. Official English: mostly correct! More info here, along with info on McCain's Spanish-language website pandering:

http://thinkprogress.org/2008/05/05/giuliani-spanish-2/ (unsure what Giuliani has to do with it)

12. Social Security for illegals: both McCain and Obama supported an amnesty program that would let illegal aliens join Social Security


This is related to one of McCain's many flip flop issues, though, so hard to say where he stands now. If someone he believes to be illegal makes fun of his hair, I'm sure he'll be against it.

Okay, taxes. This nonsense has been refuted by Factcheck.org, a non-partisan organization that Cheney referred to in the 2004 debates. I'm not going to go into specifics, but they're all here:


It's all wrong, and Factcheck concludes it's a deliberate lie.

Feel free to forward this to anyone you'd like!

Backseat Driving: http://backseatdriving.blogspot.com/

lying email that's being forwarded


Favors new drilling offshore US
Will appoint judges who interpret the law not make it

Served in the US Armed Forces
Amount of time served in the US Senate
173 DAYS
Will institute a socialized national health care plan
Supports abortion throughout the pregnancy
Would pull troops out of Iraq immediately
Supports gun ownership rights
Supports homosexual marriage
Proposed programs will mean a huge tax increase
Voted against making English the official language
Voted to give Social Security benefits to illegals
15% (no change)
(no changes)
Single making 30K - tax $4,500
Single making 50K - tax $12,500
Single making 75K - tax $18,750
Married making 60K- tax $9,000
Married making 75K - tax $18,750
Married making 125K - tax $31,250
OBAMA (reversion to pre-Bush tax cuts)
Single making 30K - tax $8,400
Single making 50K - tax $14,000
Single making 75K - tax $23,250
Married making 60K - tax $16,800
Married making 75K - tax $21,000
Married making 125K - tax $38,750
Under Obama, your taxes could almost double!
- 0% (No change, Bush repealed this tax)
Restore the inheritance tax

You can verify the above at the following web sites:

Wednesday, September 03, 2008

Obama's role in McCain's veep stumbles

With months to prepare, why did McCain find out politically-relevant information about Palin only two days before the election and had met her only once face-to-face? The Post buried a nugget in the last lines of this article:



In other words, they wanted to do their vetting based in part on finding the best person to match against whoever Obama selected, and waited for the selection. Except that Obama didn't give them two weeks, delaying the announcement so that McCain only had half the time. I think it's possible that the Obama campaign had figured this out and that it played a role in the decision to delay an announcement.

It's questionable judgment on McCain's part to cut down to two weeks what should have been a much more thorough process. Still more alarming is that they apparently failed to react to the unexpected contingency of Obama's delayed announcement when they should've kicked into high gear two weeks before the announcement, regardless of what Obama did.

A little like Edward's infidelity - regardless of whether the controversy should be part of the political process, it's the underlying judgment that's at issue.

And since I don't think it's been emphasized enough, Palin is a climate change denialist who thinks Intelligent Design should be taught in schools. As Mark Kleiman points out, she has a 21% chance of temporarily or permanently acting as President due to McCain's potential for disability or death at his age.

UPDATE: I've since read that the McCains met Palin in early 2008 too, but that hardly improves the vetting process.