digamma.net - notes

Well, it’s EST here again, and I’m not sure if my Movable Type setup supports it or not. But Kevin Drum has some thoughts on time changes - mainly that we should make small time changes all year round to maintain a sunset time of 8 PM. I agree with the goa l- I’ll trade any amount of morning sunlight in return for evenings that don’t make me want to kill myself. But it’s not that simple.

The first problem is that we would need more time zones, divided by latitude as well as longitude. Miami and Montpelier are in the same time zone, but their sunset schedules are not comparable. We’d need at least eight time zones in the continental US, possibly twelve, each changing at least six times a year. Ouch.

A more feasible (but still totally infeasible) way would be for society to adopt these lifestyle changes voluntarily without changing the clocks at all. I, like a lot of people, wake up at 7:30, work 9 to 6, and go to bed around midnight. What if a subset of northeastern US society agreed to do everything 3 hours earlier in the winter? Sleeping from 9 PM to 4:30 AM wouldn’t be so bad, although cars would take a tiny bit longer to warm up in the morning.

But maybe we’re so conditioned to be governed by these time numbers that, no matter, what the benefits, that schedule would be frowned upon. What if we overhauled how we talk about time? Say your local sunset time is 7:19 PM - let’s call 7 PM your Sunset Hour. What if a business voluntarily declared itself to be open from SunsetHourMinus11 to SunsetHourMinus3?

That’s the best time policy overhaul I can think of, but it would take massive leadership to make it happen, and I’m not the guy to do it.

I wrote a while back about the outstanding documentary Control Room and its compelling portrayal of USMC Lieutenant Josh Rushing. Yesterday, Philly’s finest, Terry Gross, managed to get an interview with the now-reclusive Rushing which you can listen to here, and I heartily recommend it.

Steve Chapman (I didn’t actually register to read it, I just read the quote on Hit & Run):

Bad things have been the hallmark of the Bush presidency, from either a conservative or a liberal perspective. On Nov. 2, we can let him expand the grave damage he has done to the national interest–or we can hold him accountable. I’ll vote for John Kerry without high hopes or enthusiasm, but vote for him I will.

Amen.

My intemperate thought for the day:

If 9/11 changed how you think about foreign policy, you weren’t thinking very hard about foreign policy beforehand.

If you’d asked me on September 10th, 2001, what the gravest threat to America’s safety was, I’d have told you al-Qaeda. Duh. Al-Qaeda had attacked Americans abroad at least three times in the 1990’s. A good friend of my family visited Kenya and Tanzania the same month in 1998 when the embassies were bombed, and had been IN both embassies a week before it happened. Bin Laden was very clear about his desire to attack United States civilians. A plot by associates of bin Laden to bomb LAX airport was foiled in 1999.

So on September 10, I didn’t have a “September 10 mentality". The following morning was absolutely horrible (I was living in New Jersey at the time), but other than a few FAA regulations, it didn’t change any of my ideas about counterterror policy. Al-Qaeda was still the biggest threat.

The people with a “September 10 mentality” are the people who think we have to fight terrorism by knocking over nation-states with tangential connections to terrorism. Oddly enough, those are the same people accusing people like me of having such a mentality.

Al-Qaeda was our gravest threat on 9/10. Al-Qaeda was our gravest threat on 9/12. 9/11 changed nothing.

Ugh - MTP’s opening segment is Ed Gillespie and Terry McAuliffe arguing like Yankees and Red Sox fans about who is going to win. I can’t think of anything more pointless.

Gillespie: “And I guarantee, if Dick Tracy and Mary Poppins vote, they’re voting for John Kerry!” Well, I’ve made up my mind.

Broder says it’s not a national election, it’s 51 elections. It needs to be said more. When Russert starts out by saying, “Latest polls show 49% This Guy, 47% That Guy - discuss", he’s actively encouraging ignorance.

You know, I really want Bush to win the popular vote and lose the electoral vote. That way, all the partisans who spent the last four years debating the electoral college system can look like morons.

Worst question ever, Russert to Byron York: “When you see the pack of wolves, do you think of Saddam Hussein?”

I bet people who have actually been attacked by wolves are mad about that ad. No candidate is truly speaking to their issues.

Bosley Crowther, the New York Times, 1964:

But when virtually everybody turns up stupid or insane—or, what is worse, psychopathic—I want to know what this picture proves. The President, played by Peter Sellers with a shiny bald head, is a dolt, whining and unavailing with the nation in a life-or-death spot. But worse yet, his technical expert, Dr. Strangelove, whom Mr. Sellers also plays, is a devious and noxious ex-German whose mechanical arm insists on making the Nazi salute…..

The ultimate touch of ghoulish humor is when we see the bomb actually going off, dropped on some point in Russia, and a jazzy sound track comes in with a cheerful melodic rendition of “We’ll Meet Again Some Sunny Day.” Somehow, to me, it isn’t funny. It is malefic and sick.

Roger Ebert, the Chicago Sun-Times, 2004:

If I were asked to extract a political position from the movie, I’d be baffled. It is neither for nor against the war on terrorism, just dedicated to ridiculing those who wage it and those who oppose it. The White House gets a free pass, since the movie seems to think Team America makes its own policies without political direction.

I wasn’t offended by the movie’s content so much as by its nihilism. At a time when the world is in crisis and the country faces an important election, the response of Parker, Stone and company is to sneer at both sides – indeed, at anyone who takes the current world situation seriously. They may be right that some of us are puppets, but they’re wrong that all of us are fools, and dead wrong that it doesn’t matter.

I haven’t seen Team America, but I’m a huge South Park fan, so I expect to like it. Ebert is one of my favorites, but the similarity between his review and Crowther’s struck me immediately. Forty years from now, I wonder if we’ll look back and snicker at the film critics who stumbled over it.

Glenn Reynolds approvingly links to this Mark Steyn column (I didn’t register so I’m going by what Reynolds quotes):

The silliest thing Dick Cheney has ever said was a couple of weeks after 9/11: ‘One of the things that’s changed so much since September 11 is the extent to which people do trust the government — big shift — and value it, and have high expectations for what we can do.’
Really? I’d say 9/11 vindicated perfectly a decentralised, federalist, conservative view of the state: what worked that day was municipal government, small government, core government — the firemen, the NYPD cops, rescue workers. What flopped — big-time, as the Vice-President would say — was federal government, the FBI, CIA, INS, FAA and all the other hotshot, money-no-object, fancypants acronyms.

So what we see here is a rejection of the centralized strategy the Bush administration has used to fight terrorism stateside since 9/11. For once, I agree with Steyn and Reynolds. So what does Instapundit think are the implications of this failure on the election?

Don’t count on John Edwards making this point Tuesday night, though.

Oh. I was going to talk about the people actually RESPONSIBLE for what’s been done wrong, but yeah, I guess Edwards is a trial lawyer or something.
At this point, I think Bush could come to Glenn Reynolds’s house and slash his tires, and Reynolds would write that Kerry’s failure to stop it is troubling.

Atrios and Matthew Yglesias amusingly catch Bush accusing Kerry of having a healthcare plan that would be better and very cheap relative to what we have now. The only problem is that it’s a false accusation.

I have no opinion on this hypothetical healthcare policy, but fiscal conservatives deal with this political pattern all the time. It goes something like this:

Politician A: My opponent seeks to eliminate the entire Departments of Agriculture and Education!
Fiscal Conservative: Sweet!
Politician B: No I don’t.
Fiscal Conservative: D’oh!

I noticed this ridiculous ad on Matthew Yglesias’s web log:

If you don’t feel like sitting through the animation, it says “Without a Democratic Senate, George Bush decides against civil rights, against privacy rights, against your rights; Stop the GOP; Elect Democrats; Support the DSCC.”

Trivia question: what party controlled the Senate when it confirmed Clarence Thomas in 1991? Extra credit if you can tell me how Senators John Kerry and Al Gore voted on that confirmation.

Damn. I thought I’d added elementropy to my blogroll months ago. Sorry, Retardo. Go read him before he hits the big time and won’t talk to fascists like me anymore.

This New York Times editorial says that a $5 million gift certificate good for unlimited lifetime first-class travel on American Airlines is a bad gift, because to make it pay for itself, you’d have to take 10 trips a year for 31.2 years.

To all of you readers who were considering buying me this $5 million gift for my birthday or Christmas until you read the editorial, I’d like to reiterate that I would appreciate it very much. At least until American Airlines goes bankrupt.

“I don’t think you want a President who tries to become popular, and does the wrong thing.”

- George W. Bush, October 8 2004.

I agree. That’s why I won’t vote for the President who supported McCain-Feingold, farm subsidies, tariffs, a massive expansion of Medicare, and a general explosion in government spending on no grounds whatsoever but the popularity they’d gain him.

Atrios fondly remembers CNN “debates” leading up to the Iraq war between the pro-war New Republic’s Peter Beinart and that reknowned Bush-hating peacenik Jonah Goldberg, and remarks, “CNN’s been more ‘fair and balanced’ than Fox for quite some time…”

The bipartisan CNN faux-debate has been a thorn in my side since the days when Clinton was on top and most of my impotent rage was focused on him. You could watch people on Crossfire spit bile back and forth for hours and never hear a word about the death penalty or drug policy, simply because the two fighting heads had no disagreement on those issues.

It’s always been my anecdotal observation that Fox News is more likely to air truly independent views. In other words, people like radical anti-prohibitionist Jacob Sullum (I’m pretty radical on the subject, and he out-radicals me by a mile) or a straight up communist are more likely to show up on Fox’s shout shows than CNN’s.

This kind of perspective is probably less beneficial to the Democrats, partly because it gives them less voice than a show like Crossfire, and partly because when people like Sullum are contrasted with conservatives, it makes certain people even more scared of the damn dirty liberals. Perhaps that’s the only reason Fox lets them on. But it definitely makes for better discussions.

Via Brad DeLong and NTodd, I see the idea forming in the anti-Bush blogosphere that Department of Homeland Security cybersecurity chief Amit Yoran quit in disgust at Bush’s policies. And I’m not sure that’s quite right.

Here’s the most detail on Yoran’s beef I find in the AP article:

Yoran has privately confided to industry colleagues his frustrations in recent months over what he considers the department’s lack of attention paid to computer security issues, according to lobbyists and others who recounted these conversations on condition they not be identified because the talks were personal.

I bet the US Representative from Des Moines, Iowa, thinks the US government doesn’t pay enough attention to the issues affecting Des Moines, Iowa. Likewise, the cybersecurity chief at DHS is probably going to think more attention needs to be paid to cybersecurity. And if he’s just left a job as a tech sector CEO, he’s probably used to having people do what he says, and on the double.

Where should “cyberterrorism” really rank on our list of national priorities? What if you had to choose between a terrorist attack that would take down the entire Internet for two weeks and a terrorist attack that would blow up just one bus in a major city during rush hour? I’d save human lives first, every time. Economically, the Internet outage might do more damage in the short term, but if people get scared of walking around Wall Street, you’ll see some real economic damage.

Full disclosure: my day job has ties to both DHS and cybersecurity.

President Bush took after his father last night:

George Bush: Well, that is a big problem, Sam, and unfortunately the format of these debates makes it hard to give you a complete answer. If I had more time, I could spell out the program in greater detail, but I’m afraid, in a short answer like this, all I can say is we’re on track - we can do more - but we’re getting the job done, so let’s stay on course, a thousand points of light. Well, unfortunately, I guess my time is up.

Diane Sawyer: Mr. Vice-President, you still have a minute-twenty.

George Bush: What? That can’t be right. I must have spoken for at least two minutes.

Diane Sawyer: No, just forty seconds, Mr. Vice-President.

George Bush: Really? Well, if I didn’t use the time then, I must have just used the time now, talking about it.

Diane Sawyer: No, no, Mr. Vice-President, it’s not being counted against you.

George Bush: Well, I just don’t want it to count against Governor Dukakis’ time.

Diane Sawyer: It won’t. It will come out of the post-debate commentary.

George Bush: Do you think that’s a good idea?

Diane Sawyer: You still have a minute-twenty, Mr. Vice-President.

George Bush: Well, more has to be done, sure. But the programs we have in place are doing the job, so let’s keep on track and stay the course.

Diane Sawyer: You have fifty seconds left, Mr. Vice-President.

George Bush: Let me sum up. On track, stay the course. Thousand points of light.

Diane Sawyer: Governor Dukakis. Rebuttal?

Michael Dukakis: I can’t believe I’m losing to this guy!

Catallarchy: The P2P Gene Pool And The Evolution Of Porn Filenames

It’s probably because my expectations have been “managed” by a year of wondering what the hell John Kerry was doing in a presidential race, but tonight’s debate was the most confident, persuasive, and charismatic I’ve ever seen him. I can’t play the meta-meta-meta-analysis game and figure out who “won", but I can’t see how Bush’s repeating himself endlessly would convert swing voters to his camp.

Also, I learned that apparently the way for free-trade Democrats to shore up his labor base is to use the word “outsource” to criticize any policy he opposes, to cover up the fact that he doesn’t oppose actual outsourcing.