The future that never was

PALEO FUTURE is a site that displays the prognostication of bygone days, from 1870 to the 1990s. Below, an ad from Hughes Aircraft Co., touting the videophone in your future.

Saturday Morning Cartoons.

"Doesn’t he look sweet and crunchy, Agatha?"

Sunglasses in Parliament?

All Odious Oda needs is a black Gibson 335 dot neck, and she's ready for Halloween . . .

Future imperfect . . .

MAKE ROOM! MAKE ROOM! is an SF novel by the American ex-pat, Harry Harrison, published in 1966, that became the SF classic flick, "Soylent Green", where the world is running out of food.

Well, we might have a soylent future ahead of us. According to Alasdair Wilkins at io9, in an article, "Can humanity survive a population of over 10 billion people?", 2011 is the year that world population hits 7,000,000,000. Yup, seven BILLION people.

By the end of this year, the human population is expected to reach seven billion people, just twelve years after we hit the six billion milestone. But how much more crowded is our planet going to get? Will we keep on expanding indefinitely, or are we approaching the upper limit? The current consensus is that we'll reach our maximum population by around 2050 and then start to slowly decline...but that might be based on two critically flawed assumptions.

But life has its surprises, and maybe things might get crunchy a lot sooner for a lot of people. Why? Because we are fishing the world's oceans to the point of extermination of major food species. Kerry Sheridan, at the Sydney Morning Herald, has an article, "Food supply threat from overfishing, study finds", which points out that

Fewer big predatory fish are swimming in the oceans because of overfishing, leaving smaller species to thrive and double in force over the past 100 years, scientists say.

Big fish such as cod, tuna, and grouper have declined worldwide by two-thirds while numbers of anchovies, sardines and capelin have surged in their absence, University of British Columbia researchers said.

People around the world are fishing more and coming up with the same or fewer numbers in their catch, indicating that humans may have reached the limit of the oceans' capacity to provide food.

Sure am glad I happen to like anchovies . . .

Maple Syrup Revolution Redux

Join Dr.Dawg and I tonight at 8 pm EST/ 5 pm PST for a hour of discussing Canadian politics. We will have a live virtual audience in Second Life in addition to broadcasting live on Blog Talk Radio (where the program will also be archived for you later listening pleasure)

Following Virtually Speaking Sunday: the Maple Syrup edition, the regular VSS program this week features Susie Madrak and Stuart Zechman. There will be snark; there will be critical thinking. Listen at http://www.blogtalkradio.com/virtuallyspeaking/2011/02/21/virtually-speaking-sundays

Visit Virtually Speaking at: http://virtuallyspeaking.ning.com/?xg_source=msg_mes_network




And as if that wasn't enough, tonight the Glorious People's Cinema Project presents The Canadian Conspiracy!





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Perspectives . . .

"A Caligula can rule a long time, while the best men hesitate to do what is necessary to stop him, and the worst ones take advantage."

— Aral Vorkosigan, "Cordelia's Honor", by Lois McMaster Bujold

Iggy, what are you going to do about it? Does anybody in the Liberal party have the balls? Doesn't look like it.

Fighting back . . .

THE CONSUMERIST has a delightful tale on one guy's effort to "stick it to the man". It seems that the Wells Fargo bank is not the easiest institution to deal with. Finally, Patrick Rodgers (below) had enough, so he "foreclosed" his local branch of Wells Fargo. That got the behemoth's attention . . .

Perspectives . . .

Starring someone I know very well

Tune in via Blogtalk Radio or join the live virtual audience in Second Life

THURSDAY Feb 17 - 6pm pacific |9 pm eastern

DAHLIA LITHWICK @ VIRTUALLY SPEAKING w/ Jay Ackroyd
Interviews with scholars, authors, pundits and public officials: an eclectic sampling of established and emerging voices representing progressive thought in the contemporary, public conversation. DAHLIA LITHWICK , senior editor and legal correspondent for Slate, writes "Supreme Court Dispatches." She covered the Microsoft trial and other legal issues. Dahlia and Jay talk about Obama health care decisions, and the effect of partisanship on the current Court.

SATURDAY -  Feb 19 - 2pm pacific |5pm eastern
Virtually Speaking Liberally: What We Believe with Jay Ackroyd & Stuart Zechman discuss the nature of modern liberalism. Features include a 'this week in liberalism' segment;  statements of purpose and principle; and conversations about liberalism. 

SUNDAY FEB 20 - 5pm pacific | 8pm eastern
VIRTUALLY SPEAKING SUNDAY | MAPLE SYRUP EDITION

Canadian journalist Kevin Wood talks with bloggers, academics and other commentators, bringing a distinctively Northern progressive perspective and more than a little snark to North American and global politics among other topics.

Kevin Wood blogs at the Woodshed and the Galloping Beaver under the pseudonym Rev. Paperboy. A veteran print journalist, recently returned to Canada after a decade working in Tokyo for the world's largest daily newspaper, he has worked in the community press across southern Ontario. Rumours that he is the illegitimate son of Pierre Trudeau are entirely unfounded. His favorite spectator sport is U.S. politics, which is as fast and bloody as hockey or bullfighting, but without the zambonis or tight matador pants.

This week blogger, academic and union activist John Baglow aka Dr. Dawg joins Kevin as they examine the current state of Parliament. Listen on BlogTalkRadio.


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SUNDAY FEB 20 - 6pm pacific | 9pm eastern
VIRTUALLY SPEAKING SUNDAYS - A Counterpoint to the Sunday Morning Talking Heads - The Gasbag atrocities are documented. Various news stories that arise during the Sunday shows are considered. There is often mockery, always passion and compassion.

This week: Susie Madrak and Stuart Zechman. Madrak , a former award-winning journalist, a writer, musician and working-class warrior, blogs at Suburban Guerrilla and Crooks and Liars. Stuart "Centrism IS an ideology" Zachman is a provocative member of the blog commentariat, most frequently posting at TIME's Swampland, Firedoglake and Avedon Carol's Other Blog. An entrepreneur and technologist, he brings those perspectives to a New Liberal analysis of policy and politics. Listen on BlogTalkRadio.



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The liberation of Libya . . .

ACCORDING TO ALJAZEERA, "Libyan police stations torched ", "Clashes reported across the country, as security forces and government supporters confront demonstrators". Maybe, just maybe, it's Libya's turn. Khaddaffy Duck's gotta be worried . . .

The Glenn Beck Conspiracy Theory Generator

Fair and Balanced Paranoia, Delivered on Demand. Really. Lots of fun. (H/T to Helmut)

Odious Oda . . .

MACLEANS.CA has a great piece by Scott Feschuk, "Bev Oda is trying SO HARD". Apparently Bev is doing The Weasel, and Scott is not impressed:

You have to admire the grade-school panache with which Oda tried to pull this off. The little up-arrow. The word NOT all in caps. SO ADORABLE. It’s just how the climactic scene of In the Loop would have played out if the brilliant British spin doctor had been replaced by an eight-year-old boy, or a clever parakeet. (Also: it’s weirdly endearing that she wrote – or had written – only the word NOT, instead of DO NOT. I not approve of her grammar!)

Yesterday, Oda said: “The way in which this case has been handled, including by myself, has been unfortunate.”

That’s a spectacular quote. It appears to be an apology of sorts, or at least an admission of… something. It’s benign enough that at first you pass right over it, accepting it for what it seems to be. But let’s parse it a little more closely.

“The way in which this case has been handled…”

Nice use of the passive voice there. Effectively distances Oda from responsibility even as she pretends to attempt to take it. The passive voice: the official voice of those up shit’s creek!

“… including by myself…”

Here’s the money clause. By saying “including by myself,” Oda again appears to take an element of responsibility. But wait: Isn’t this “case” ENTIRELY about herself?

Valentine's Day treat

People sometime ask me why I blog, if there is any money in it, does anyone read this stuff, do I really expect to change anything and just what am I doing here anyways? To which I can only reply "I came for the waters."
Or to twist another phrase, blogging is its own reward.
Yes, I know that in political terms I am preaching to the choir. So what? The choir needs to be preached to from time to time. Put another way, you wouldn't expect the coach to give his rah-rah speech to the opposing team, would you? Okay, so maybe I'm not the coach, maybe I'm more like the fourth line left winger or seventh defenceman who only gets icetime when the score gets lopsided and they don't want to risk the marquee players getting injured, but you get the idea.
Blogging was originally a way of keeping the writing monkey off my back while I did other things for a living. Then it became a way to blow off steam and say things in a public forum that I couldn't say in my day job. As I spent more and more time blogging and reading blogs and cross commenting, I got to know people by what they wrote. We exchanged comments, sometimes even emails. I got invited to contribute to a group blog and got to know the crew there and an even wider circle of online personalities.
Many of these acquaintences became friends, a trend that gathered even more steam when I started podcasting last year. The idea of the podcast, inspired by the excellent and entertaining work of two of my regular reads, Driftglass and Blue Gal, was to chat with like-minded people about Canadian politics, maybe get off a few witty bon mots and put the whole thing online to give us all something to blog about. The tricky part was that I really connected with those like minded people and the intended 30-minute podcasts turned out to be hour-long chunks of three hour conversations that would have gone longer had it not been the wee hours of the morning for one or the other of the people involved. (Flying Spagetti Monster only knows what it will be like when we start doing it with a live virtual audience on Sunday. No, really, we will start up again THIS SUNDAY, live!)
My blogging has been somewhat reduced in length and frequency lately due to work commitments and the need to hunt up a new job, but I like to keep my hand in because its fun and, like I said, sometimes the choir needs preaching to, but also because I miss the blogging gang if I stay away too long and I don't want you all to forget about me, either. The community of the blogiverse is a pretty wonderful thing, despite the trolls and the flamewars and occasional petty disagreements.
So what does this have to do with Valentine's Day?
There is big news in our little on-line community.
Last Friday, I downloaded my usual weekly fix of the Professional Left podcast with the aforementioned Driftglass and Blue Gal and listened to it while puttering in the kitchen on Saturday afternoon. A few minutes in, I got a goofy grin and then I got verklempt and needed a tissue. See, they had a little announcement to make. Many's the time I have rolled my eyes while listening to the two of them flirt and giggle while talking politics and thought to myself "These two don't need to get a radio show, they need to get a room."
Heh, from my interior monologue to Cupid's ear.
Listening to them announce on last week's podcast that they are getting married got me a little misty-eyed.
I've never met either of them, not even talked on the phone. We've exchanged a couple of polite emails. But I  check Blue Gal's site a couple of times a week and read Driftglass on my lunch hour pretty much daily. From reading what they write over a long period of time I get the feeling that I know them better than you know your favorite professor, writer, talk show host, actor, musician or other public figure -- or indeed, most of my neighbors and co-workers. What some people won't do for a killer workshop topic at Netroots Nation. Congratulations to you both. I'm not sure which one is luckier, but I think this is one of those "greater than the sum of its parts" kinda deals.
I don't think I've ever been so happy for two nearly total strangers.
That's the thing about this whole online community shared experience. Like the man said: Shared pain is lessened; shared joy, increased — thus do we refute entropy. (that's a science fiction reference, everybody drink!)

Happy Valentine's Day to you all.


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Perspectives . . .

WASHINGTON'S BLOG declares: "The Founding Fathers Would Be Proud of the People of Egypt ... And Disgusted With the People of America". He's got a point, check out the rest of the article.

America's founding fathers stood up for their freedom, winning it from the British (with the help of the French).

The Egyptian people have stood up for their freedom, winning it from the Mubarak dictatorship (with the help of the army, which refused to fire a shot at the people, and may even have helped convince Mubarak to leave. See this and this).

The Egyptian people found their courage even when Mubarak's thugs flew fighter jets low over their heads, beat and murdered protesters, and otherwise threatened violence.

But the American people today have been cowed into passivity by an irrational fear of terrorism, laziness and mindlessness.

Ranking ranks . . .

OR IS THAT REEKS? David Segal has a fascinating article in the NYT, "The Dirty Little Secrets of Search", about the industry that has sprung up to try to game the Google search engine's rankarama, aka "Search Engine Optimization", or SEO. Outfits like BMW and J.C Penney have been caught trying to "juice" the system. Getting caught by Google has its penalties:

The company’s guidelines warn against using tricks to improve search engine rankings, including what it refers to as “link schemes.” The penalty for getting caught is a pair of virtual concrete shoes: the company sinks in Google’s results.

Often drastically. In 2006, Google announced that it had caught BMW using a black-hat strategy to bolster the company’s German Web site, BMW.de. That site was temporarily given what the BBC at the time called “the death penalty,” stating that it was “removed from search results.”

Perspectives . . .

FABIUS MAXIMUS has an article worthy of attention. "A powerful story about America’s dealings with Pakistan, and how the news media hides the facts from us" tells about mysterious murders, and shows the difference between the US press and elsewhere. The murders are like an incident in a Len Deighton novel or a George Clooney flick, it's a hell of a story.

Summary: We remain ignorant about the world because we reply on the news media for information. Recent events provide a powerful case study illustrating not only how the US news media misinforms us but why the American government has a dark reputation in much of the world.

"Bless Me, Father" - There's an App for That . . . .

But Bennie and his Jerks don't like it.

Via the New York Daily News:

Officials in Rome have declared that an app available on Apple's iPhones, iPads and the iPod touch cannot serve as a confessional.

"One cannot speak in any way of confessing via iPhone," Federico Lombardi, the Vatican's spokesman, said in a statement. "This cannot be substituted by any IT application."

_______________


It also keeps track of your sins and the time between confessions, information it keeps locked away via password protection.

Guess the Vatican figured it wouldn't aid in job security for their flock of shepherds* . . . .



*Numerous other descriptive words came to mind, but I opted to not use them. Feel free to enumerate a few in Comments . . . .

We have ways of making you talk

The Toronto Star reports that the officer involved here has pleaded guilty to uttering threats. How about armed assault? Abuse of authority? People swept up by the Toronto Police at the G8/G20 were charged with more serious crimes for a whole lot less. If soap bubbles can be considered assault, then how is this revolting threat of torture with a deadly weapon not aggravated assault?
We keep being told that Tasers are supposed to be a non-lethal alternative to guns, but again and again, we see stories of them being used as compliance weapons or torture tools.
As for the officer in question, he will be sentenced in June. Until then, he is on paid suspension and departmental disciplinary measures will not be decided until after the sentencing. As far as I'm concerned, the conviction should see him automatically dismissed from the police force and barred from doing any kind of security work.
The one bright spot I see in this case is that this gross misconduct came to light because another officer who was reviewing the in-car videos on another matter reported the offending officer to the department's professional standards branch, which handed the file over to the courts. Its about time the police started putting professional standards and proper respect for the law ahead of the unofficial thin-blue-line omerta that allows so much abuse to go on.
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Street perspectives . . .

Vivian Maier (1926-2009)

VIVIAN MAIER WAS A STREET PHOTOGRAPHER, who photographed life in Chicago from the 1950's to the 1990's. Vivian's work was discovered at an auction here in Chicago where she resided most of her life. Her discovered work includes over 100,000 mostly medium format negatives, thousands of prints, and countless undeveloped rolls of film. John Maloof has a delightful tribute to her work here, as does Jeff Goldstein, who has a site devoted to her work here. (H/T to cousin Herb.)

Driven by her sequestered, private motivations, Vivian Maier captured our cities, suburbs and rural towns. A nanny for many years, herself childless, Maier revealed the beauties and complexities of domesticity. Her photographs demonstrate an intimate exploration of family life, as well as seemingly allegorical treatments of “home”—a space sometimes idyllic and whole, and sometimes troubled—as in her photographs of homes destroyed by tornadoes or street riots.

Hell on Earth . . .

Women meet in Port-au-Prince to discuss ways to protect themselves amid growing sexual violence. Several women's rights leaders died in the January 2010 earthquake. (Tracy Wilkinson, Los Angeles Times / February 4, 2011)

THE L.A. TIMES HAS A SAD AND DISTURBING ARTICLE by Tracy Wilkinson, "Rape flourishes in rubble of Haitian earthquake". You don't need to read quotes, you need to read it.

Perspectives . . .

IT'S NOT EASY, SOMETIMES, to be politically-correct. Being part of the vanguard of the progressives requires a certitude of righteousness that can triumph reality on occasion. It's when reality bites back, that problems arise.

John Tierney's article in the NYT, "Social Scientist Sees Bias Within" is a fascinating look at this process by which the politically-correct bludgeon those with whom they disagree.

“If a group circles around sacred values, they will evolve into a tribal-moral community,” he said. “They’ll embrace science whenever it supports their sacred values, but they’ll ditch it or distort it as soon as it threatens a sacred value.” It’s easy for social scientists to observe this process in other communities, like the fundamentalist Christians who embrace “intelligent design” while rejecting Darwinism. But academics can be selective, too, as Daniel Patrick Moynihan found in 1965 when he warned about the rise of unmarried parenthood and welfare dependency among blacks — violating the taboo against criticizing victims of racism.

“Moynihan was shunned by many of his colleagues at Harvard as racist,” Dr. Haidt said. “Open-minded inquiry into the problems of the black family was shut down for decades, precisely the decades in which it was most urgently needed. Only in the last few years have liberal sociologists begun to acknowledge that Moynihan was right all along.”

Similarly, Larry Summers, then president of Harvard, was ostracized in 2005 for wondering publicly whether the preponderance of male professors in some top math and science departments might be due partly to the larger variance in I.Q. scores among men (meaning there are more men at the very high and very low ends). “This was not a permissible hypothesis,” Dr. Haidt said. “It blamed the victims rather than the powerful. The outrage ultimately led to his resignation. We psychologists should have been outraged by the outrage. We should have defended his right to think freely.”

Instead, the taboo against discussing sex differences was reinforced, so universities and the National Science Foundation went on spending tens of millions of dollars on research and programs based on the assumption that female scientists faced discrimination and various forms of unconscious bias. But that assumption has been repeatedly contradicted, most recently in a study published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences by two Cornell psychologists, Stephen J. Ceci and Wendy M. Williams. After reviewing two decades of research, they report that a woman in academic science typically fares as well as, if not better than, a comparable man when it comes to being interviewed, hired, promoted, financed and published.

“Thus,” they conclude, “the ongoing focus on sex discrimination in reviewing, interviewing and hiring represents costly, misplaced effort.

Thetan theatrics . . .

THE ELRONISTAS ARE CHUFFED, according to Lawrence Wright's account, "The Apostate", in the New Yorker. You see, Paul Haggis doesn't believe anymore, after climbing to the top of the Elronic dogma. Paul's not your average Elron, he's a 2-time Oscar winner, and the Hollywood Elrons are chuffed. Canadian, too. For more background on Elron, do check out The Bare Faced Messiah, which is an entertaining account of how Elron became a legend in his own mind. You can read it on-line here.

Remember, according to Elron, clams got legs.

Perspective change . . .

Multi-Kulti success story

POOR OLD MULTI-KULTI. It's been a hard winter. First, in October, Angela Merkel pronounces the death of that darling of the politically-correct, and now, David Cameron has delivered England's coup de gras on M-K: "State multiculturalism has failed, says David Cameron".

According to the BBC,

At a security conference in Munich, he argued the UK needed a stronger national identity to prevent people turning to all kinds of extremism.

He also signalled a tougher stance on groups promoting Islamist extremism.

The speech angered some Muslim groups, while others queried its timing amid an English Defence League rally in the UK.

As Mr Cameron outlined his vision, he suggested there would be greater scrutiny of some Muslim groups which get public money but do little to tackle extremism.

• • •

"Let's properly judge these organisations: Do they believe in universal human rights - including for women and people of other faiths? Do they believe in equality of all before the law? Do they believe in democracy and the right of people to elect their own government? Do they encourage integration or separatism?

"These are the sorts of questions we need to ask. Fail these tests and the presumption should be not to engage with organisations," he added.

• • •

He said under the "doctrine of state multiculturalism", different cultures have been encouraged to live separate lives.
'I am a Londoner too'

"We have failed to provide a vision of society to which they feel they want to belong. We have even tolerated these segregated communities behaving in ways that run counter to our values."

Building a stronger sense of national and local identity holds "the key to achieving true cohesion" by allowing people to say "I am a Muslim, I am a Hindu, I am a Christian, but I am a Londoner... too", he said.

The knee-jerk on this is going to be delightful to watch, as the sanctimonious scolds come out of the woodwork at both ends of the political spectrum to flail and rail.

Finger-lickin' good . . .

MRE'S ARE GHASTLY, war is hell. Still life with serpent is a delight to visit, to get down to the yummy details. Be sure to check out the python; her name is Louise.

Hidden charms . . .

HAVE YOU EVER READ "The Works of the Earls of Rochester and Roscommon"? Me neither. It's an obscure volume of poetry from the 18th century — that was in-print continuously for a century. The secret of its, um, staying power, came to light with the discovery by Oxford University researcher, Dr Claudine van Hensbergen, of a series of erotic poems hidden in the back of the book.

Dr van Hensbergen said: ‘I had just finished entering details of poems typical of miscellanies of the period- satires, imitations and amatory verse, when at the end of the second volume a new title page announced the start of ‘The Cabinet of Love’.

‘To my surprise, ‘The Cabinet’ turned out to be a collection of pornographic verse about dildos. The poems include ‘Dildoides’, a poem attributed to Samuel Butler about the public burning of French-imported dildos, ‘The Delights of Venus’, a poem in which a married woman gives her younger friend an explicit account of the joys of sex, and ‘The Discovery’, a poem about a man watching a woman in bed while hiding under a table.

‘In later years, a celebratory poem about condoms was added, as well as several obscene botanically themed verses attributed to ‘a Member of a Society of Gardeners’ in which male genitalia is described as the ‘tree of life’.’

RIP, Charlie . . .

CHARLIE KAMAN just died. Thanks for the guitars, Charlie, we'll miss you. Charlie pioneered the use of composites in building musical instruments.

Gender gyre . . .

THE TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT has a fine book review by Carol Tavris, "The new neurosexism", a review of "DELUSIONS OF GENDER", by Cordelia Fine. Apparently, a lot of recent literature on the mental differences between men and women is rather suspect. Tavris points out the book's importance:

Today we look back with amusement at the efforts of nineteenth-century scientists to weigh, cut, split or dissect brains in their pursuit of finding the precise anatomical reason for female inferiority. How much more scientific and unbiased we are today, we think, with our PET scans and fMRIs and sophisticated measurements of hormone levels. Today’s scientists would never commit such a methodological faux pas as failing to have a control group or knowing the sex of the brain they are dissecting – would they? Brain scans don’t lie – do they?

Well, yes, they would and they do. As Cordelia Fine documents in Delusions of Gender, researchers change their focus, technology marches on, but sexism is eternal. Its latest incarnation is what she calls “neurosexism”, sexist bias disguised in the “neuroscientific finery” of claims about neurons, brains, hormones.

“We have been here before, so many times”, writes Fine, with a sigh. No one disputes that the sexes differ physiologically, in hormones and anatomy, or that there are sex differences in the brain related to men’s and women’s different reproductive processes. The eternal question is, and has been, so what? What, if anything, do those differences have to do with work, love, success, ambition, talent, love of sports, and who does the housework? Perhaps they do, says Fine, but “when we follow the trail of contemporary science we discover a surprising number of gaps, assumptions, inconsistencies, poor methodologies, and leaps of faith – as well as more than one echo of the insalubrious past”.

Then there's hockey . . .

ACCORDING TO BILL MAHER, football is socialist, baseball is not:

Because football is built on an economic model of fairness and opportunity, and baseball is built on a model where the rich almost always win and the poor usually have no chance. The World Series is like Real Housewives of Beverly Hills. You have to be a rich bitch just to play. The Super Bowl is like Tila Tequila. Anyone can get in.

So, you kind of have to laugh - the same angry white males who hate Obama because he's "redistributing wealth" just love football, a sport that succeeds economically because it does exactly that.

Fred's perspective . . .

FRED REED CALLS 'EM THE WAY HE SEES 'EM. His article, "Darwin Was Right" is a pithy and concise description of the chronic inability of the US to get it right.

Pondering Whither America, I reflected on a story, probably apocryphal but which I am going to believe because I like it, about catching monkeys. Tribesmen somewhere craft a heavy pot with a hole in it large enough that a monkey could insert an open hand, but not withdraw a closed fist. They then put monkey food in the pot. The monkey reaches in, grabs the food and, refusing to let go when the hunters approach, is caught and eaten.

Here we have our politics in a paragraph. The American national monkey can’t let go. The party is over, boys and girls, but we aren’t going to adapt.

The reasons are many, but Fred nails it: "The American national monkey can’t let go."