Archive for 2013
June 24, 2013
MORE ON CYBERSHAMING IN THE SCIENCE FICTION COMMUNITY, with some interesting discussion in the comments. Note this one in particular, on the growth of electronically published SF outside the largely-stagnant mainstream SF publishers. Or, perhaps even more significant, this from an author: “It’s a pretty damned exhilarating experience, publishing as an indie. I got an email from Amazon just last week, my first royalties check will be in the bank this coming week. Published in April, check in July. Traditional publishing can’t come close to beating this.” The royalties come a lot slower, that’s for sure.
People are also praising Jay Allan’s Crimson Worlds books there, but I haven’t read them. Just ordered one, though.
FOUAD AJAMI: Turkey, Between Ataturk and Erdogan.
IN THE MAIL: Transgalactic.
WHAT BEING TARGETED LOOKS LIKE: The Human Face Of The IRS Scandal.
AND YET POLITICIANS AND JOURNALISTS FETISHIZE FEMA: Friends, neighbors were more helpful than government after Sandy, poll finds. “People overwhelmingly said the Oct. 29 storm brought out the best in their neighbors, who shared generators, food, water and other supplies. Far fewer said they found help from federal or state governments.”
THE IMMIGRATION BILL IS ALMOST DONE: But it stinks.
TEACHER EDUCATION: “An Industry Of Mediocrity.”
The study assigned ratings of up to four stars to 1,200 programs at 608 institutions. Only four were awarded the four-star maximum. Fewer than 10 percent earned three or more stars, 14 percent earned zero stars, and one in seven received less than one star. For these, the NCTQ suggested that potential applicants refrain from applying, because they are “unlikely to obtain much return on their investment.”
And meanwhile, teachers unions ensure that these incompetently prepared people are given lifetime tenure and protected evaluations. So not only are future educators prepared poorly for their jobs, but most receive job protection within one to seven years, consistently avoiding an evaluation that would allow parents to judge their effectiveness.
It’s a real nice system we have.
It’s why we’re heading toward a K-12 Implosion.
JUST DO LIKE OBAMA DID AND HARASS THEM OUT OF EXISTENCE WITH ABUSIVE BEHAVIOR FROM TAX AUTHORITIES: The Revolt of the Global Middle Class. “From Turkey to Brazil to Iran the global middle class is awakening politically. The size, focus and scope of protests vary, but this is not unfolding chaos — it is nascent democracy. Citizens are demanding basic political rights, accountable governments and a fairer share of resources.”
COVERING THE SUPREME COURT OPINIONS TODAY at ScotusBlog.
AT AMAZON, 68% off the Coen Brothers Film Collection.
Also, today only: Vivere Double Hammock with stand, $94.90 (41% off).
TAXPROF ROUNDUP: The IRS Scandal, Day 46.
ANOTHER MIXED SEX-AND-BUSINESS SCANDAL for embattled New Jersey Senator Bob Menendez.
THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION AS THE OMERTA ADMINISTRATION: Washington Keeps Getting Worse For Whistleblowers.
HOW’S THAT “SMART DIPLOMACY” WORKIN’ OUT FOR YA? (CONT’D): The Great Bugout: Obama’s retreat from the Middle East. “Even the president’s most ardent supporters are beginning to wonder whether the Obama retreat has gone too far. It’s a good time to ask the quintessential Ronald Reagan question: Are you better off than you were four years ago? Or rather, is the United States in a better position in the Middle East today than it was when Obama replaced Bush? Not to kill the suspense, but we’re much worse off—no better liked, no longer feared, regarded as an increasingly inconstant ally or as an enemy prone to blink. The simple facts make the case.”
ROGER SIMON: What Snowden Knew.
I don’t have a brief for Snowden. He seems to be a new form of narcissistic international creep, similar to Julian Assange of Wikileaks fame. I hope he gets dysentery in Ecuador or wherever he winds up.
But he may have done us a favor, putting an exclamation point on the activities of the NSA so there are no doubts. He also has made obvious the utter contempt with which Russia and China treat the Obama administration. (Evidently this was surprising to Dianne Feinstein on Face the Nation Sunday. Go figure.)
Also interesting is that the heightened concern for our civil liberties under government digital surveillance crosses political and party lines. Given the plethora of scandals confronting the administration, this presents an opportunity for dialogue we haven’t had for many years. Who knows if it will happen?
But if it does, I hope it will be intelligent and substantive. These are not easy questions. Good reasons exist for government surveillance.
Most obvious of them is the threat and reality of Islamic terrorism, which, despite the death of bin Laden, does not seem to be going away. Quite the contrary. It appears to be growing rapidly and dangerously.
The problem is, it’s hard to trust the people who are supposed to use that data to protect us to do so, when they abandoned their own in Benghazi. And it’s hard to trust them not to use that data to oppress us, when they’ve already abused their powers that way in other connections. Which is why abuse of power is itself a kind of treason: It weakens the fabric of the nation like nothing else, by undermining the trust that is essential for the system to work.
IRS SCANDAL UPDATE: The IRS’s Best Friend in Congress: Rep. Elijah Cummings says the House investigation is a ‘witch hunt.’ Yet revealing evidence keeps coming.
Mr. Cummings’s enthusiasm for defending the IRS may make him a lonely figure among the 22 Republicans and 16 Democrats on the House Oversight Committee, but he is likely to find an ally in his chief counsel on the committee. She is Susanne Sachsman Grooms, who worked for the IRS between 2008 and 2011 as an adviser to the deputy commissioner for services and enforcement and then as a senior counselor to the chief of criminal investigations. At the time, the deputy commissioner for services and enforcement—her boss—was none other than Steven Miller, who held the post of IRS commissioner from November 2012 until his resignation in May after the scandal broke. Mr. Cummings also has a strong tie to the Obama administration: His staff director on the Oversight Committee, David Rapallo, is a former White House lawyer.
The door keeps revolving. Plus:
Many questions remain for the committee to address, even if Mr. Cummings might disagree. Who at the IRS, for instance, developed the intrusive and exhaustive questions that were sent to the tea-party groups? Why did so many of those groups have to wait years for their applications to be processed, and why are many more still waiting? Who specifically were the IRS officials in Washington directing the Cincinnati agents targeting the tea-party organizations?
If the House Oversight Committee can overlook the distractions thrown up by one of its members, the answers may prove illuminating about the way Washington has worked during the Obama administration.
Indeed.
CATCH ME IF YOU CAN: Journalists trapped on flight to Cuba as Snowden follies continue. “Reporters quickly bought tickets for the suddenly popular 12-hour Aeroflot route and dutifully took their seats … only to discover after the doors closed and the plane headed for the runway that Snowden wasn’t on board at all.” Oops.
ACLU TO OBAMA: “We are tired of living in a nation governed by fear.”
Under President Obama, the United States is “a nation governed by fear,” the American Civil Liberties Union says in an open letter that echoes the criticisms Obama has made of George W. Bush’s national security policies.
“[W]e say as Americans that we are tired of seeing liberty sacrificed on the altar of security and having a handful of lawmakers decide what we should and should not know,” the ACLU writes in a statement circulated to grassroots supporters and addressed to Obama. “We are tired of living in a nation governed by fear instead of the principles of freedom and liberty that made this nation great.”
It’s strange to read in light of Obama’s disavowal of Bush. “[T]oo often — our government made decisions based upon fear rather than foresight, and all too often trimmed facts and evidence to fit ideological predispositions,” Obama said in 2009. “Instead of strategically applying our power and our principles, we too often set those principles aside as luxuries that we could no longer afford. And in this season of fear, too many of us — Democrats and Republicans; politicians, journalists and citizens — fell silent.”
The ACLU is circulating that statement in response to the Justice Department’s efforts to prosecute Edward Snowden.
Hey, Rube!
MICHAEL HASTINGS, OBAMA, AND THE SWOON. “The fear was that the White House would collectively punish all of us by revoking the already limited access or, worse, Obama might never come down and hang out with us again.”
JAMES TARANTO’S “PRESIDENT ASTERISK” BIT SEEMS TO HAVE A BASIS: Yes, IRS harassment blunted the Tea Party ground game.
The bottom line is that the Tea Party movement, when properly activated, can generate a huge number of votes-more votes in 2010, in fact, than the vote advantage Obama held over Romney in 2012. The data show that had the Tea Party groups continued to grow at the pace seen in 2009 and 2010, and had their effect on the 2012 vote been similar to that seen in 2010, they would have brought the Republican Party as many as 5 – 8.5 million votes compared to Obama’s victory margin of 5 million.The bottom line is that the Tea Party movement, when properly activated, can generate a huge number of votes-more votes in 2010, in fact, than the vote advantage Obama held over Romney in 2012. -Stan Veuger
President Obama’s margin of victory in some of the key swing states was fairly small: a mere 75,000 votes separated the two contenders in Florida, for example. That is less than 25% of our estimate of what the Tea Party’s impact in Florida was in 2010. Looking forward to 2012 in 2010 undermining the Tea Party’s efforts there must have seemed quite appealing indeed.
Unfortunately for Republicans, the IRS slowed Tea Party growth before the 2012 election. In March 2010, the IRS decided to single Tea Party groups out for special treatment when applying for tax-exempt status by flagging organizations with names containing “Tea Party,” “patriot,” or “9/12.” For the next two years, the IRS approved the applications of only four such groups, delaying all others while subjecting the applicants to highly intrusive, intimidating requests for information regarding their activities, membership, contacts, Facebook posts, and private thoughts. . . .
We may never know to what exact extent the federal government diverted votes from Governor Romney and thus, how much it influenced the course of a presidential election in the world’s oldest democracy. At the very least, however, Americans of all political persuasions can be forgiven for a little cynicism when the president has the nerve to say, as he did on May 5th in his commencement address to graduates of the Ohio State University: “You’ve grown up hearing voices that incessantly warn of government as nothing more than some separate, sinister entity that’s at the root of all our problems. You should reject these voices.” And that cynicism, that lack of trust in the country’s governing institutions, becomes harmful quite easily: when the people are asked to have faith in the NSA’s efforts to protect the nation from terrorist threats, for example.
Indeed.
As a consequence, the founders, members, and donors of new Tea Party groups found themselves incapable of exercising their constitutional rights, and the Tea Party’s impact was muted in the 2012 election cycle.
PREDICTS, THREATENS, WHATEVER: The Hill: Schumer predicts mass demonstrations if House blocks path to citizenship.
Actually, that’s no threat. Unruly protests by masses of illegal immigrants waving Mexican flags were one of the things that killed the 2007 amnesty attempt. Marches like that, if repeated, will only help people who vote against this bill.
Related: If “Amnesty” will make the GOP loved by Latinos where are the Latinos holding signs for Gabe Gomez? He’s Latino and pro-Gang of 8, but not getting any love because the Latino vote is owned by the Democrats. So why do the Republicans think they’ll win if they enlarge it?