Archive for 2012
February 8, 2012
The grand posture of writers in liberal democracies is that they are the moral equivalents of dissidents in repressive regimes. Loud-mouthed newspaper columnists claim to ‘speak truth to power’. Novelists, artists, playwrights and comedians announce their willingness to transgress boundaries. Their publishers look for controversy like boozers look for brawls because they know that few marketing strategies beat the claim that a courageous iconoclast is challenging establishments and shattering taboos.
To maintain the illusion that they are part of some kind of radical underground, intellectuals must practise a deceit. They can never admit to their audience that fear of violent reprisals, ostracism or crippling financial penalties keeps them away from subjects that ought to concern them – and their fellow citizens.
Although it is impossible to count the books authors have abandoned, radical Islam is probably the greatest cause of self-censorship in the West today. When Ayatollah Khomeini proclaimed a fatwa against Salman Rushdie in 1989, censorship took the form of outright bans. Frightened publishers would not touch David Caute’s novel satirising the Islamist reaction to The Satanic Verses, for instance. They ran away from histories and plays about the crisis as well because they did not want a repeat of the terror Rushdie and his publishers at Penguin had experienced.
Such overt censorship continues.
Read the whole thing. And note that when you cave to such threats, you encourage more of the same.
21ST CENTURY RELATIONSHIPS: Looking For Love? There’s An App For That!
FILL ‘ER UP: Soros, T. Boone Pull Up To The Subsidy Pump.
ON NAVY WARSHIPS, the Web slows to a crawl.
ABOARD THE U.S.S. WASP — This 40,000-ton assault ship can launch deadly sea and air attacks against enemies ashore and afloat. Just don’t expect it to load a website in under three minutes.
The big-deck ship is a formidable floating base for sailors and Marines — who had better prefer to stay in limited contact with the outside world in their off-hours. The communications infrastructure onboard is a reminder that the Wasp began its service to the Navy in 1989: the flight control station has a big, black telephone with a big, black spiral cord attached. Marines temporarily stationed to the Wasp for this week’s giant Navy-Marine war game, known as Bold Alligator, sigh when they need to get online and say that the best way to get in touch with their comrades aboard is to walk the narrow metal halls until they physically find them.
But looks can be deceiving. The ship’s communications gear feels like a throwback to a pre-wired era, and it runs up against some serious bandwidth limits. But it’s also got advantages on civilian communications infrastructure: Iridium satellite hookups mean that the Wasp can sail around the globe and never encounter a dead zone.
The Wasp presents a microcosm of the strengths and the limitations of communications infrastructure aboard Navy ships. And to understand both, those serving aboard her say, it’s best to remember first what a ship is and isn’t.
Well, it’s not an Internet cafe, for one thing.
DAVID BARON, CALL YOUR OFFICE (CONT’D): Mountain lion snatches Leander boy in Big Bend; child survives. “The lion dragged Rivers Hobbs into a bush next to the walkway, Harris said. Jason Hobbs jumped on top of the lion and was hitting it while Harris gripped its hind legs; Hobbs eventually stabbed the lion’s chest with his pocketknife, Harris said. The lion dropped the boy and ran away.”
GOOD QUESTION: Why Do We Stick With Broken Social Security Model?
AT AMAZON, warehouse deals in video games.
FASTER, PLEASE: Fracture putty can heal a broken bone in days. “If we break a bone it can take weeks or even month to heal depending on the type and severity of the break. In some extreme cases the complexity of the fracture can make it impossible to heal properly. Researchers at the University of Georgia Regenerative Bioscience Center have come up with a new solution for healing broken bones that cuts recovery time to days. It relies on the use of stem cells that contain a bone generating protein.” Nice work, Georgia folks.
TWELVE WAYS THE WORLD COULD REALLY END IN 2012. “Forget the Mayan nonsense. Goofy prophecies and Mesoamerican calendars won’t bring about the end of civilization, but there are at least a dozen scientifically valid ways the apocalypse could arrive before 2012 is out.”
MORE SUPPORT FOR MY REVOLVING DOOR TAX on former government officials: “The New York Times reports that the chief of the securities fraud unit for the United States attorney’s office in Manhattan, Christopher Garcia, is leaving to become a $1.2 million-a-year white collar defense lawyer at Weil, Gotshal & Manges.”
But wait, there’s more:
The Beacon focuses on Ron Klein, a former Democratic Congressman from Florida who is a registered lobbyist for Spirit. The Holland & Knight press release announcing Mr. Klein’s hiring says, “As a member of the House Financial Services Committee and Foreign Affairs Committee, he was instrumental in drafting and passing major pieces of legislation including the Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (Dodd-Frank) and the Comprehensive Iran Sanctions Accountability and Divestment Act of 2010. Due to his background with healthcare businesses and regulation, Klein was also an active participant in the negotiation and passage of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.” It also says, “Holland & Knight is pleased to announce that former U.S. Representative Ron Klein (D-FL) has joined the firm’s Public Policy & Regulation Group as a partner. Klein will play a major role providing strategic counsel to clients in the area of government regulation and compliance in the financial services, healthcare and energy sectors.”
This is a textbook example of how the revolving door works. The congressmen pass these pieces of legislation that are so complicated and burdensome that one of the only rational ways for businesses to respond is to hire one of the people who wrote it to advise them on how to either comply with it or legally get around it.
Well, I’ve got a proposal to address this. Shared sacrifice!
LOOKS LIKE THE GRAND CANYON at 450 MPH.
DOUBLE STANDARDS ON POLYGAMY VS. INFIDELITY: What If Hugh Hefner Were Mitt Romney’s Great-Grandfather. “Why are polygamy and promiscuity treated so differently? Does it make sense that we don’t penalize a man for living with many partners, but we do if he wants to marry them? If Hefner tried to make honest women out of his bunnies, he’d go from celebrity to outlaw.”
No, he donates to the right politicians, and entertains the right journalists. I think he’d turn out to be “boldly transgressive” or something. . . .
DATA ANALYSIS FOR THE PEOPLE: “Wolfram Alpha can now analyze data you provide, so you can do things like map out your e-mail relationships.”
GAS 2.ORG: It’s Time To Pull The Plug On Fisker. “Last night it was reported that Fisker, builder of the sleek-yet-expensive “subcompact” Karma sedan has laid off some 66 workers, and the predictable cries for blood from the right, and mis-guided defense of all things green from the left were out in full force. It’s all become a bunch of blah blah blah, and honestly, I think it’s time to pull the plug on Fisker’s government loans.”
But it’s so pretty. On the other hand: “Fisker has broken a lot of promises, and there are only so many lies a guy can forgive, no matter how pretty the lie may be.”
WIDENER LAW SCANDAL UPDATE: Widener Law settles with Prof. Lawrence Connell.
ELECTRIC VEHICLE UPDATE: Electric vehicles spur concerns over range, fire, Consumer Reports says.
DOOMSDAY FLU UPDATE: Reader Donald Burden writes with this cheerful information: “I’m currently teaching a Topics in Biochemistry course and we’re discussing this right now. The Dutch group has pointed out that their survey of the literature indicates there are labs out there unwittingly working with strains of H5N1 that are anywhere from 1(!) to 3 mutations away from becoming transmissible from human to human. They’re unwittingly doing so, because of course they don’t know what mutations are necessary to make H5N1 transmissible (since the results are currently under wraps).”
HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: If You’re Going to Accept Direct Loans and Pell Grants, You Should Tell Us If Students Are Actually Learning Something.