Picture of the day

You know there's no real silver lining to the whole BP oil spill. Sure they got it capped... after three months of spilling. Sure Tony Hayward was fired... but not out of a cannon and into a sewage pit. Plus I doubt very much that this will actually lead to increased care for the environment, better and smarter government action, or better regulations.

But we can hang our hat on one thing: at least we aren't China. They're going through their own massive oil spill crisis. Hoo boy! Can you imagine their lax regulations, poor government oversight, and open bribery! Hey, at least we aren't them. It looks way worse! They're cleaning it up with rags!

Pics via BPB. Click to embiggen.

Cheap Blogging Crutch 06.15

Star Wars political cartoons... is that something you might be interested in?

How little have our elected betters learned from our horrific financial apocalypse? Almost nothing. The latest example is the Herculean struggle Al Franken is currently going through to get the Senate to maybe consider the fact that the financial sector getting to choose the agency which rates its products creates rather a large conflict of interest. On the side of randomizing the selection process: people who are smart. On the side of keeping things as is and trusting our financial betters won't game a shoddy system: a probable filibuster proof majority of Senators. Remember to put on your surprised faces when our next financial collapse comes.

Comically oil executives took to the Hill today to explain all the ways in which they were not like BP in their offshore drilling practices. The main differences? Uhhh.... they aren't named BP and none of them has a drilling rig named Deepwater Horizon. One candid moment was when the executives basically admitted they had no way to handle massive offshore spills. Oh really? I think we've noticed that lo these past two months.

People have started to call bullshit and nakedly manipulative bullshit on the timing and PR strategy behind the whole "Afghanistan has trillions in resources! We'll all be rich... RICH!!" story from yesterday. C'mon. How are we supposed to feel good about this war or as if we're getting something out of it if they don't trump up old shit the Soviets were trumping up in 1985... when they we in the midst of an unproductive slog in Afghanistan? Just keep telling yourself "Just a few more years of fighting... then we'll all be rich."

Were you wondering who was cheering for North Korea today during their 2-1 defeat at the hands of Brazil? It certainly wasn't any North Koreans. No, the Chinese government flew in supporters specifically for the purpose of cheering for Kim Jong-Il's future waterslide park invitees/torture victims (depending on how the tournament goes). Commies stick together. Maybe China can fly in some soccer supporters to the US after our team invariably is eliminated before the semis and we lose interest in the sport for another 4 years.

Media Matters has gone to the trouble of picking out choice excerpts from Glenn Beck's new fiction thriller/Randian teabagging circle jerk... The Overton Window. Amongst the gems; "rule number one is, don't tease the panther", various meandering/awful sections of prose, bizarre asides about the flat tax and Bill Clinton, examples where Glenn doesn't seem to remember things his own characters have done, and a Star Wars reference so hackneyed it would make Kevin Smith cringe. Essentially it's a less funny version of his "serious" non-fiction books. Anyway, it doesn't compare to the liberal writing brilliance of Who Blog In Darkness.

In closing, your daily "Oh shit, we're fucked" oil flow estimate is 35,000 to 60,000 barrels a day. Up from the 20,000 to 40,000 from last week. It doesn't really matter; at this point it's like having third degree burns over 100% of your body and complaining about the sniffles.

Compare/Contrast

The 2010 World Expo in Shanghai is upon us. Since the last time we covered it, construction has been completed on the various country pavilions in preparation for the May 1st opening.

The theme of the event is "Better City, Better Life" and I assume the pavilions are supposed to represent better ways in which humanity can build and live. What the buildings really mean is what buildings at the World Expo always mean: giant fuck yous to other countries by means of architectural and design splendor. Grandiose signs of architectural hubris? Shouldn't America place pretty well in this contest? You'd think so, but, the results are a quite disappointing.

This is the UK's Seed Cathedral by Thomas Heatherwick, which encases a quarter of the world's seeded species from the Millennium Seed Bank inside a transparent acrylic filament.


The South Korean pavilion is based around the themes of convergence, symbol, and space as the building comes together to form letters of the Korean alphabet with a relief of letters and colored panels designed by Korean artist Ik-Joong Kang.


The Japanese Pavilion is nicknamed the Purple Silkworm Island and is meant to showcase themes of connection and incorporate an efficient use of natural resources.


The American Pavilion.... is the shed out back where they store all the cleaning equipment, sawdust for covering up tourist vomit, and spare hot dog carts.


For shame, America. If we can't tell the world to fuck off, architectural style, during an international event celebrating interconnectedness and unity, when can we? May I suggest for the next Expo we just build a large version of this:


Everyone loves The Simpsons and it embodies the whimsical menace I think we want to project. The building could also shoot fireworks and surface to Muslim missiles if the situation calls for it. Call me, we'll talk building and design.

Cheap Blogging Crutch 03.31

Up In Smoke: How Marijuana Ruined States’ Chances Of Invalidating Health Care Law In Court
The passage of health care set off a rash of frivolous lawsuits from state AG's with hopes for higher office and a penchant for wasting the money of cash strapped governments in times of economic crisis. Will they succeed? No. But that inevitability isn't so much interesting as why they will fail to succeed, besides the basic "not understanding the Constitution" thing. Essentially the Supreme Court, and Antonin Scalia in particular, recently ruled in a marijuana case that the government had a right to regulate interstate non-economic activity as a part of regulating interstate commerce. So unless Scalia totally reverses his opinion for political means, any challenge that makes it to the Supremes isn't likely to even pass muster with the conservative wing. Actually, that sounds incredibly likely. Still, marijuana: is there anything it can't do?

Beijing to sweeten stench of rubbish crisis with giant deodorant guns
For some countries a sensible response to a garbage crisis would be better collection and disposal methods, moves to make sure less waste is produced, or even recycling programs. Not China though. Instead of actually responding to their crippling garbage crisis they've just decided to buy a really big can of Axe body spray and just drench their trash in it so people don't have to smell it. Efforts are already underway to paint the trash to look like land and convincing people to ignore it. I think we may have to admit that China may be taking the lead away from us in the Ignoring Potentially Disastrous Environmental Problems category. Ouch. We really seem to cherish that one too.

Art of the Steal: On the Trail of World’s Most Ingenious Thief
What if you were a savant. And not one of those crappy ones who is only good at something like math, the viola, or counting toothpicks that Charlie Babbitt dropped on the floor. No, a savant at stealing shit. Such is the skill of one Gerald Blanchard, a man with the preternatural ability to seemingly exploit any flaw in security. Wired tells his story and how he was caught by two Winnipeg cops.

The most dangerous drug isn't meow meow. It isn't even alcohol...
Charlie Brooker, the man who did this, explains how newspapers, especially newspapers covering drugs, are the most dangerous mind destroying drug on the planet. And he's talking about British ones too. I imagine if he ever had to read an American one or watch American 24 hour news, he'd take his own life.

New Study Estimates Mass Deportation Of Undocumented Immigrants Would Cost $285 Billion
In a tremendous blow to Mexican hating everywhere, it turns out that if we decided everyone in the restaurant, service, farming, and labor industries it'd cost close to $300 billion, or $922 in tax dollars for everyone in the US. Everyone American that is. Not to mention it would completely depopulate California and force white people to get their hands dirty while laboring... and maybe completely cripple US economic growth. Plus who would militias and border state Republicans and Southern Republicans and most Republicans hate then? The Polish? On the other hand, if you put undocumented workers on a path to legalization, it could add nearly $1.5 trillion to GDP over the next decade. I think we know the clear and obvious path here. You start rounding up Mexicans and I'll go door to door collecting $922 a person.

Google v. China: Shit just got real

It's a new day today. How can I tell? We've finally moved away from socialism to communism being the story of the day. Google has effectively pulled up stakes in China, moving its offices and redirecting its Google.cn domain to... another part of China. Hong Kong more specifically. Yes, Google finally got tired of China stealing their proprietary software spying, hacking, and censoring... beyond the parameters of the spying, hacking, and censoring they allowed the Chinese government to do through Google as part of their original deal. It's about the principle of the thing. If China can't hold to the agreed upon principles of dishonesty, then Google just can't trust them.

But now, with the move to Hong Kong and the domain forwarding, Google is effectively uncensored in China.... for about 15 more minutes until they revoke the domain name. They're kind of pissed. In that "trying to pretend we aren't pissed, saying nice things through a grimace and gritted teeth while holding a gun" communist way.

A bulletin from China's state-run news outlet Xinhua blasted Google in a post titled "China says Google breaks promise, totally wrong to stop censoring."
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"This is totally wrong. We're uncompromisingly opposed to the politicization of commercial issues, and express our discontent and indignation to Google for its unreasonable accusations and conducts," an official with the Internet bureau of the State Council Information Office, China's Cabinet, was quoted as saying by the official Xinhua News Agency.

An op-ed by Xinhua published on the CCTV website accused Google of "groundlessly accusing the Chinese government of supporting hacker attack [sic]" and warned Google that it "should not continue to politicalize itself." The article continues,

"Regrettably, Google's recent behaviors show that the company not just aims at expanding business in China, but is playing an active role in exporting culture, value and ideas. It is unfair for Google to impose its own value and yardsticks on Internet regulation to China, which has its own time-honored tradition, culture and value."

Yes, Google is violating that time honored Chinese cultural principle of total government censorship. But judging by the tone of the Chinese statements, they have hired a 14 year-old American girl to write their press releases. We're one more 'totally' and an 'OMG' away from audibly being able to hear the sound of someone loudly chewing gum while they banged this release out on their Sidekick.

Google in China is not actually totally uncensored now, it's just that they've abdicated their self-censorship duties to the Chinese government, who, because of the move to Hong Kong, can only censor Google by completely shutting the search engine down. Which is exactly what Google wants so they can claim the moral high ground. They also technically get a PR victory in China because by forwarding the domain to Google.hk they technically haven't violated the deal to stop censoring Google.cn, which I'm sure will be explained in great detail to the people of China from the Chinese news services.

As of today, through Google.hk, Chinese people can search about Tienanmen Square. And porn. And internet gambling. One of those speaks to the true freedom of the internet, but I'm not sure which one.

So as the Chinese government and Google do battle on the largest stage in the most passive aggressive fight in human history, the Chinese people are caught in the middle of mommy and daddy fighting. And in the end, they probably won't end up better off because of it. But Google does get to make a stand over not allowing China to further their intellectual property theft and save face at a failing operation... I mean make a stand over censorship. I don't even know why I wrote the first half of that sentence. This is about free speech. Totally.

Picture of the day

The 2010 World Expo is almost upon us. "Already?" you're asking? Yes, already. I know, it seems like we were just celebrating the last World Expo whenever and wherever that was and now this one has crept up on us. The 2010 Expo is taking place in Shanghai, China, so we all know what that means: ludicrous buildings that will immediately become uninhabited forever once the expo ends! Soon they will have more empty, unused architectural masterpieces than citizens. It is China's way.

The Big Picture blog is cataloging this latest folly, showing that while this event won't benefit the people of China in anyway, it will at least provide them with an interesting few months of Expo-ing and some nice abandoned shelters for the homeless to huddle in once the event is over.

There are a lot of nonsensical structures, so we had to add in a jump. As always embiggening is enabled by clicking.

Things you should read

I have some demands. Why? Because I like the mental fiction of having a supposed willing audience with which I can makes orders and demands that are carried out with brutal efficiency. What are these commands? Well, I was going to ask that someone fly a plane into an IRS building, but since someone already did that, it's just going to be reading related.

Content and demands, on a Sunday. I'm too good to you. How is this different from the Cheap Blogging Crutch? Well, it's on a weekend and this comprises articles I couldn't find a way to tack cheap dick jokes onto. More serious stuff, I guess. Onward.

For Scots, a Scourge Unleashed by a Bottle
A story of Scotland, “Wreck the Hoose Juice”, and a nation trying to come to grips with entrenched alcoholism and the specific beverage that they seem to want to blame for it: Buckfast. It may not have made me feel sympathy for Scotland, but I do want to buy a case of Buckfast.

The Substitute
Brad Plumer looks at the fading possibilities for climate change reform and how successful the EPA can be trying to regulate pollution and emissions now that it is likely to be the only entity capable of doing so, what with the Senate deciding to become irrelevant. Now you know what those lawsuits from Texas and Virginia are meant to do: pretty much make sure we don't do anything to avoid catching our death of heat and flooding.

Sticker Shock
John Cohn looks at the methods and madness of health insurance companies and why they jack rates. In addition he lays out why this means reform needs to be passed (as if you already didn't understand that) and further explains why piecemeal legislation will not work to reform the problem and stop the rate jacking.

After Summer Olympics, Empty Shells in Beijing
The New York Times looks at Beijing and the massive Olympic structures they built for the 2008 games. The verdict? They pretty much got used that week and haven't been touched since. Most striking is the status of the Bird's Nest stadium. It has no tenant, no real future events scheduled, and is right now a de facto gift shop and is packed with snow so children can sled down the aisles. The 2004 Athens games probably bankrupted Greece. I'm sure that bodes well for Vancouver, London, Sochi, and Rio.

How Christian Were the Founders?
The New York Times explores the radical, purely politically motivated attempts that the Texas education board is taking up in an attempt to rewrite textbooks to push Christianity and conservatism at the expense of science, known verifiable history, and common sense, and how they're decisions will likely affect the textbooks of around 40+ states. I bet you didn't know that Phyllis Schlafly, the Moral Majority, and the Contract With America were some of the most integral events in American history. Well now they are. Just one of the great ways in which this country is being destroyed from the inside in the name of cheap politics.

Roger Ebert: The Essential Man
Esquire magazine's story about the life of film critic Roger Ebert now that he has lost most of his jaw, the ability to eat, the ability to speak thanks to cancer, and how his outlook and life have changed since. One of the best profile pieces you're likely to read this year.

Roger Ebert's Last Words, con't.
Roger Ebert responds to the article on his own blog, musing on the tone, the shock of seeing the photo they used, how he doesn't want people to get the idea that he's dying, and what he wants people to take away from the article.

McDonald's Has a Chef?
TIME follows around McDonald's head chef, Daniel Coudreaut, and looks at just what exactly it is he does in a job that most people expect is an attempt at irony. It's an interesting portrait at just what a man who graduated from the Culinary Institute of America and ran the kitchen at the Four Seasons does at McDonald's and the arduous, creatively crushing nature, and logistical nightmare coming up with food ideas for Mickey D's is when the sheer size and food production timetables, schedules, and production lines of an organization with as many restaurants as McDonald's has have to be taken into account.

Wall Street's Bailout Hustle
Matt Taibbi comes back for one more shot at Wall Street and the financial wizards who destroyed the economy. This time he focuses on all the various cons, grifts, scams, and outright thefts the financial and banking sector has engaged in since the global meltdown and how they haven't really learned anything.

Video of the day

The Chinese news explains the Conan/Leno conflict.

This is the way our news needs to be.

Congress brings the funny

Ahh, the Google "I can't believe the information suppressing and spying government of China tried to suppress information and spy after we built them a system to help them suppress information and spy" hissy fit. How could Google have ever foreseen a future in which China wouldn't be content to merely partake in the OK kind of spying and censorship that Google was fine with and move into the bad kind of spying and censorship that Google doesn't like?

But there is much humor to be mined from the situation. Much of it gallows humor over freedom and the ridiculously naive praise Google seems to be getting for standing up to China... after spending years enabling and helping China. But in an article about the Google-China showdown, our own government decided to bring the irony with all the subtlety of a knee to the groin.

The Google-China flap has already reignited the debate over global censorship, reinvigorating human rights groups drawing attention to abuses in the country and prompting U.S. politicians to take a hard look at trade relations. The Obama administration issued statements of support for Google, and members of Congress are pushing to revive a bill banning U.S. tech companies from working with governments that digitally spy on their citizens.

So... Google can't work with the US government? Ah well, it's for the best. Google needs to be affiliated with as few shady governments as possible. There's been too much bad press already.

Not that there's anything wrong wth that

In what is likely a crushing blow to Sean, myself, and our large Chinese gay readership, we have some unfortunate news to report. The first annual Mr. Gay China pageant? The one we were all eagerly awaiting? It's shockingly been canceled. I know, I can't believe that a gay pageant wasn't allowed to be held in China either.

Now while the first impulse is to blame China's communist police state for it's bigotry and hostility towards anyone who is different or expresses a unique thought, that would be mistaken. It was just a wacky mix-up.

"They said the content, meaning homosexuality, there's nothing wrong with that, but you did not do things according to procedures," Zhang said.

He said police told him he needed official approval for events that included performances, in this case a stage show.

I didn't know they had translated the "Not that there's anything wrong with that" episode of Seinfeld into Mandarin. Good to know that it's not part of the Chinese government's long practice of shunning and intimidating gays, it's just a minor permit snafu. Like all the permit snafus that I bet public gay events run into. I'm sure they'll get this problem sorted out never and we'll be able to provide the sort of coverage of Mr. Gay China that we were going to provide as the world's #3 web destination for the Chinese gay community.

On the bright side, the irreverent comic stylings of classic American sitcoms are beginning to take hold across the Chinese mainland. They're up to Season 4 of Seinfeld now, soon we'll be able to crack Soup Nazi jokes together under total government surveillance. I can't wait until they start showing Curb Your Enthusiasm there.

Goliath vs. an even bigger Goliath

I think we all remember the biblical story of Goliath and Goliath. Where two massive entities come to work together in order to increase their quarterly earnings reports and stranglehold on the information its subjects can view? I think Jesus was in it and there was something about a scorpion riding on the back of a frog in a river or something.

Anyway, such was the pairing of China and Google. But now that partnership is cracking under the weight of obvious conclusions that should have been eminently foreseeable for all. I don't want to alarm any of you, but it seems that China is an intensely oppressive communist regime that likes to control every shred of news or information its citizens try to access. I know that's shocking to you, but it seems that Google didn't know this information either. That's why it was shocked, shocked, to see that China was using all of the information controls and censoring blocks that Google put into its Google China search engine were used to spy on dissidents and businesses. That seems so unlike China. So Google offered an ultimatum: stop censoring information or we'll shut down Google China. Yeah, China's cool with that.

China made clear today that it will ignore an ultimatum from Google to relax internet censorship and reminded all companies that they must abide by state controls of the country’s cyberspace.

The authorities published a half-page statement in the People’s Daily, official mouthpiece of the Communist Party, signalling that Beijing has already decided that its 360 million internet users will have to manage without the world’s most popular search engine.
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Google plans to stand by its pledge to close its Chinese Google.cn service if the censorship is not lifted.

Who could have foreseen? How was Google supposed to know that all the information it was censoring, websites it was blocking, and monitoring and tracking information it was providing to China was going to be used for nefarious purposes? Censoring the internet for money usually carries with it such humanitarian goals. Who knew that China would try to overstep its already ridiculous internet censorship into trying to find out who was trying to access contraband information and suing that to persecute them? How could the brilliant plan of joint corporate and government censorship all have gone wrong?

C'est la vie. It looks like Chinese citizens won't have a nice user interface to go along with their government approved searches. Plus Google is really going to get some good PR. Because what's better than pulling out of China for ethical and free speech reasons? Not thinking about the ethical and free speech reasons Google went into China and set up a high tech censorship network for, that's what. It's a shame, I had high hopes for a Google China Nexus One phone that not only had a lot of cool apps, but also recorded all your phone calls. Oh well.

Cheap Blogging Crutch 01.11

Why Is the Whistleblower Who Exposed the Massive UBS Tax Evasion Scheme the Only One Heading to Prison?
When a massive international bank helps thousands upon thousands of people evade taxes and hide money to flagrantly that it has to pay almost a billion dollars in fines, who goes to jail? If you answered "One guy, the one who blew the life off the scandal in the first place" then you... must have read the headline above. Democracy Now conducts and extensive interview with the executive director of the National Whistleblowers Center to show just exactly how banks, the US justice system, and the US government endeared themselves to you again.

Chinese Coal Formed During Earth’s Greatest Extinction Is Still Deadly
You have to hand it to the Chinese. Not only are the set to drag ass on climate change in such an epic manner that it would make the US stand back in awe, they've apparently found and are burning the deadliest and most polluting coal known to man. Not only does this coal, formed 250 million years ago during a massive extinction (I wonder...), pollute just as effectively as the regular stuff, but it come with a cancer chaser that's 20 times greater than normal. See, the Chinese even pollute and poison their populace more effectively than us. We just can't win.

ABC News embraces the nonsense
Let's say you were a TV news director and you were doing a piece on the fact that 28 doctors who have spent their lives studying autism, conducted an exhaustive study that found no correlation between GI disorders, diets and causing autism or diets in improving autism cases. Who is the first person you'd rush to interview for the story? If you said "a Playboy model/vaccine denier", you get to run ABC's news division for the next month. The Bad Astronomy blog takes a look at autism, ABC, Jenny McCarthy, vaccine gainsayers, and the difference between news and "news" and science and "science".

Abortion Foe Defies Party on Health Care Bill
Question. What do you call someone who would kill an attempt to make sure that 45,000 people a year don't die due to lack of access to health care as well as better the lives of millions, because he doesn't think he's getting enough control over women's bodies? That's a serious question, because I don't think "pro-life" quite covers it. The NYT covers Bob Stupak's bitching and moaning over the fact that people don't agree with him.

Google Earth helps find El Dorado
According to some wags on the internet, they've used Google Earth to find the fabled "lost city of gold." Sounds all well and good, but this better not be like the time some jagoffs said the found the lost city of Atlantis on Google Earth or those people who said they found the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. This time their treasure better not be knowledge. The lost city of gold better contain some gold. This time I better see some archeologist in a fedora hauling 24 karat bricks of of the Bolivian brush and whipping some fascists in the face.

Vatican takes aim at 'Avatar'
id you ever want to see movie criticism from a leading religious body that not only accurately described the flaws in a movie but also unknowingly provided a meta criticism about itself and the way it runs said religion? Well, God bless the Catholic Church. It's the pot shooting the kettle in the kneecap.

Cheap Blogging Crutch 12.28

The Big Zero
Economic killjoy Paul Krugman, fresh of prognosticating an economic contraction for next year, rehashes all the ways in which the US shat itself over the past decade. Near zero job creation, private sector employment declines (a first!), lower median household income, no gains for homeowners, 25% of people owing more on their house than it is worth, zero gains on stocks, it was revealed that Santa and the Easter Bunny never existed, and we all found out that everyone we ever thought loved or cared for us... didn't. On the bright side, we're not all slaves to some intergalactic overlord. Otherwise, you were better off a decade ago. Happy new year!

New groups join climate lobby fray
If the inherent laziness and incompetence of the Senate wasn't enough to buckle your knees over the prospects for climate legislation, then the Politico wants to smash a five iron right into your kneecap. That's right: a rundown of all the various lobbying interests that are gearing up to make sure you die sunburned and waist deep in melted ice cap. But it's not all bad, while one half of the lobbyists won't admit that global warming exists, there a whole other side of lobbyists who will admit that climate change is real... just that nothing should be done about it now. It's that kind of debate that makes this country great.

Green Giant: Beijing’s crash program for clean energy
As our elected betters can't figure out a decent way to address either the climate problems, energy independence, or the development of new energy technologies our soon to be global overlords in China have been aggressively funding science endeavors through the 863 Program and have, in recent years, drastically expanded their energy technology programs. What aggressive scientific funding measure is the US taking? Uh, $50 million for abstinence only education in the health reform bill counts as science funding, right? Hopefully they'll give us access to all their work once we've defaulted on all the money we owe them and they take over. Maybe they'll give us extra money for abstinence education too.

7 Tipping Points That Could Transform Earth
Just in case you didn't have enough global calamities to worry about, Wired Science came through with 7 examples of conditions whereupon an irreversible tipping point could be reached and the world could spiral inexorably towards apocalyptic calamity. Strangely not on the list: dithering world leaders and governments that recognize a problem but don't actually want to do anything about it. That's probably because we've already hit that tipping point. Ah well, personally I hope we're hit with the Gulf Stream catastrophe. That's what happened in The Day After Tomorrow and I'll be damned if it was two and a half hours of white knuckle excitement.

Quote of the Day

The Copenhagen conference is over with a weak, toothless, non-binding, low target, do little climate agreement as our elected world betters (stop me if you've heard this one before) failed to heed obvious warnings, listen to experts, or take necessary action due to short term political calculations. The US Senate was blamed, China was blamed more, Gordon Brown claimed the talks were "held to ransom", Banksy unleashed snarky art, and Thom Yorke was apoplectic. Hope you like a Radiohead album full of melting arctic ice references and climate statistics.

But still, in Copenhagen we found out that there were still things we can learn from our European brethren that could be applied back here in the States. Oh, not about climate change. No, we're all fucked horribly. No, I'm talking about the way their press deals with horridly regressive and embarrassing climate change deniers like Senator James Inhofe (R-OK) who went to the Copenhagen conference to enact his "one man truth squad" and ended up bumming around Copenhagen for about two hours, before calling a press conference and getting heckled by the few press that bothered to even cover him.

A reporter asked: “If there’s a hoax, then who’s putting on this hoax, and what’s the motive?”

“It started in the United Nations,” Inhofe said, “and the ones in the United States who really grab ahold of this is the Hollywood elite.”

One reporter asked Inhofe if he was referring to California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. Another reporter — this one from Der Spiegel — told the senator: “You’re ridiculous.”

Ouch. That cold shoulder was so cold that might have proved that global warming is a hoax... if the snow in Copenhagen during the summit didn't already prove that global warming was a hoax.

So, American press, would it be too much to ask that when a crazy person starts yelling bullshit about science that you'd speak up and go "You're ridiculous"? Or are will still doing that whole "Some people say that they have facts, figures, numbers, decades of research, and scientific analysis, while others say they have a notion about what God will or won't allow the planet to do. Who can say who is right?" thing? Ah well, thanks Germany for shaming Inhofe, however little his capacity for shame is. Thanks for treating him like a buffoon. Here he's treated like an important man with considerable power... which he is. It's incredibly sad.

No one can do anything right

Well what do you know, the World can't get its shit together either. We spend so much time here chronicling the failures of our own government to do things that other industrialized nations did 4-5 decades ago, that it's nice to see that they have the same problems we do on the issues of today. Shame it's going to kill us all. Ah well, at least I live far enough in from the coast to avoid drowning.

I'm speaking, of course, of the Copenhagen climate conference. With proceedings being described as an "elaborate sham" and the possibility of any deal getting done dramatically in question, today we learn that even the measures they were preparing to sign off on were woefully inadequate.

The emissions cuts offered so far at the Copenhagen climate change summit would still lead to global temperatures rising by an average of 3C, according to a confidential UN analysis obtained by the Guardian.

With the talks entering the final 24 hours on a knife-edge, the emergence of the document seriously undermines the statements by governments that they are aiming to limit emissions to a level ensuring no more than a 2C temperature rise over the next century, and indicates that the last day of negotiations will be extremely challenging.

A rise of 3C would mean up to 170 million more people suffering severe coastal floods and 550 million more at risk of hunger, according to the Stern economic review of climate change for the UK government – as well as leaving up to 50% of species facing extinction. Even a rise of 2C would lead to a sharp decline in tropical crop yields, more flooding and droughts.

Worldwide action needed, experts all saying the same thing, consensus reached on solutions, but leaders can't seem to do anything other than pass half-measures and paens to the industries that caused the problem in the first place. Where have we heard this before? At the very least, people are saying that this isn't America's fault; it's China's. America, on the other hand, is being described as helpful and "pulling things back from the brink." Weird to hear that, I know. Hell, Obama even took to trying to shame and put pressure on those who were trying to hold up a deal. A nice attempt, but still a little hollow knowing that anything the Copenhagen conference agrees to and Obama wants to sign on to will still have next to no chance of passing the US Senate.

But as we approach the end it seems that our world leaders have come up with one concrete plan of action: work their asses off to draft a weak, face saving agreement with which they can use to pretend something was done. Because what you want in a comprehensive climate agreement is a draft that has the words "ought to", "scout's honor", "Totally promise", "It would be nice if...", and "let's hope and pray" prominently featured. So as the world shows us how to fail on a global scale, we in America can take solace in a few things: this time it wasn't our fault, we tried to help, and anyway it's the developing countries that are going to be most negatively affected by the temperature changes. We win again.

It's about to get a lot warmer

If there's a silver lining to our impending governmental foray into climate legislation it's that whatever gets passed won't be some woefully inadequate response to any agreements and goals set at the Copenhagen Conference. How do I know this? Because they aren't going to have an agreement coming out of Copenhagen, because the talks are collapsing. I know that doesn't exactly sound like good news, perhaps I'm explaining it wrong.

Talks to save the planet from catastrophic climate change were on the brink of collapse this morning as officials from the three main blocs – rich countries, major developing economies, and small island states – said they had given up on getting a substantive deal.

Even as 115 world leaders began arriving to put their personal imprint on a deal, the summit hosts were admitting they had failed to broker an agreement.
...
The sense of despair from the Danes comes after nine days of working negotiations which has seen increasing acrimony and distrust between rich countries and poor countries, and industrialised countries and the rapidly emerging economies.

Isn't that always the way? Poor and emerging countries want to grow and not be in so much abject poverty, low lying and equator countries want to not fry and drown to death, and the developed nations want to be able to not take minor political hits, pass complex legislation, and make difficult decisions. It's impossible to weigh one set of goals against the other. At least the developing countries got to keep the Kyoto accords and get US support for a climate fund.

However, China is talking about "no possibility of achieving a detailed accord to tackle global warming", anything the President signs will not be listened to by our Legislative branch, the President of the Maldives has practically resigned himself to the fact that his country will resemble Atlantis soon, African countries are crying out that they're being railroaded and held hostage by countries that provide them aid, and the Danes have shown a perceptible emotion that one could construe as displeasure. So buck up, you may think that your own country is the height of political mismanagement and duty shirking, but it merely pales in comparison to when you gather the entire world together. Feel better?

By the by, you probably should have asked Santa for scuba gear, SPF 10,000 sunblock, and a boat this Christmas. You'll need all of them.

This pretty much explains it all

What with the Copenhagen climate conspiracy conference going on Al Gore is back in the news again, doing interviews, making speeches, and doing whatever he can to increase the millions of dollars he secretly earns from promoting doing something about all that climate change.

In a post describing how Gore is now taking a harsher, no-nonsense approach to climate change denialists, the Washington Monthly's Steve Benen uses a sentence to segue into a quote from a second Gore interview that perfectly sums up the state of modern politics, our modern media, the way experts and activists are treated in the media, and the way the problem of climate change and science in general is addressed by our political and media elite. Yup, all of 'em.

This morning, Gore appeared on MSNBC, where Andrea Mitchell read from Sarah Palin's Facebook page to ask the former vice president questions about climate change.

*dusts hands off and walks away* Yep, that about sums it all up. Enjoy running the world, China. I hope you learned from our mistakes.

Cheap Blogging Crutch 11.13

Making Health Care Better
The New York Times' David Leonhardt provides us with an exhaustive story on doctors, administrators, and public policy dorks who are doing the hard work of trying to hold down costs and make health care more effective in the current broken system. You may know them by their other title: people who aren't as smart as our elected betters in the Senate. He focuses specifically on the work of Brent James, who probably wakes up every morning, reads about the health care debate, and then has to spend 15 minutes talking himself out of suicide. It's an article that's worth your time.

How the US Funds the Taliban
I bet you're thinking "I'm sure it's just some labyrinthine trail where we find out that things we buy and things we do eventually flow back to the Taliban and terrorist organizations in Afghanistan, meant to teach us a lesson about the complexities of war." Nope! We're just straight up paying them. In cash. Sometimes just to not do anything, sometimes we pay them for protection. Often it's just huge, corrupt payments to Hamid Karzai's family. It's all very sordid and is definitely one of the many, many things your shouldn't think about when we decide to send a bunch more troops over there.

CDC Estimates 22 Million H1N1 Cases In US Between April And October
Oh, you forgot about Porcine AIDS, didn't you? Well it didn't forget about you, infecting maybe as many as 36 million and killing 4,000. Ok, that doesn't sound frightening, but what if I pointed out it was Friday the 13th and said it in a spooooky voice? No? Fuck you anyway, we're all going to die. Might want to think about getting that flu shot.

Al-Qa'ida prefers U.S. to stick around
What would you say if I told you that the United States military and political establishment didn't really understand Al Qaeda or it's political and military goals in reference to Afghanistan. Would you say 'no shit' or 'no fucking shit'? Well, anyway, it basically boils down to how they really, really, really, want us to stay and keep sending troops in. Boy, good thing we're not going to do anything stupid like that. By the way, this is also one of the many, many things your shouldn't think about when we decide to send a bunch more troops over there.

China proves to be an aggressive foe in cyberspace
Hey, while the US is spending trillions on not having health care, building super duper fighter planes, missiles, and various things that Michael Bay totally beats off to, you know what China is spending their money on? Well, infrastructure, energy, and wrapping its tentacles around the world. But militarily? Mostly they're watching Hackers over and over again and taking notes. Aaaand they're pretty much countering any intelligence imbalances and could do major damage to us if we ever started a war with them. In fact they're pretty much already running an undeclared war on us. I'm sure this is a problem a few more F-22's that are built the districts of every congressman on an appropriations committee will solve.

Picture of the Day

China had it's 60th birthday party the other day and they certainly got their money's worth. By which I mean our money's worth. No, their massive numbers, bright colors, military precision, and highly organized co-ordination...it isn't frightening at all. Certainly not terrifying.

One wonders where they'll be in another 60 years. Probably running everything and posting up signs in our country telling us that we should "be disturbed at not understanding." See you in the work camps! Click to embiggen.

Cheap Blogging Crutch 10.05

Buyout Firms Profited as a Company’s Debt Soared
Doesn't it warm the cockles of all our hearts when we see a venerated and popular American company bankrupted? Yes, it does. But I think it always leaves us with one question: were financial companies, private equity firms, and investment firms able to rape close to a billion out of the company as they essentially overburdened it with debt and ran it out of business? In this case? Yes. It's a heartwarming tale of greed and quality mattresses in our new financial apocalypse.

Goldman to be paid $1bn if CIT fails
God bless Goldman-Sachs. When they aren't giving Matt Taibbi an aneurysm, stocking the government with cronies, and working the financial apocalypse to their benefit, they get to do things like take out credit default swaps on companies like CIT and make a billion dollars while sticking the government for a $2.3 billion dollar bill. I'm sure Tim Geithener will get right on this, provided any deferred compensation he's owed by Goldman isn't affected by it.

Obama's Meeting With the Dalai Lama Is Delayed
There are a multitude of reasons you don't want to meet the Dalai Lama. His drinking, the racist jokes he tells, the expensive items he orders off the menu and sticks you with the tab for, and lets not forget the constant droning bullshit about "spiritual enlightenment" and how to achieve it. But probably the best reason to snub the Lama is to placate your biggest creditor, China. I'm glad we've chosen that track, along with soft pedaling criticism of their human rights, financial, and trade policies. It just feels right, you know?

Gov. Perry replaces head of agency investigating Texas arson findings
What do you do when clear evidence shows you that you're about to execute an innocent man based on witnesses that are proven to have lied and deeply flawed scientific evidence that everyone in the scientific community now recognizes as wrong? If you're Texas? Execute the guy anyway, and then, as a coda, start firing people who are set to investigate the case and your seriously flawed arson investigations. I'm surprised at this, I thought Texas Governor Rick Perry, what with his calls for secession and his cries against the tyranny of government...and his calls for more government assistance and money, seemed like such a stable and honest fellow.

Mysterious Private Security Firm Gets Control Of Empty Jail In Small Montana Town
This feels right. Isn't it about time a shadowy unregistered private security firm took over a small rural town after they take over the town's jail and unilaterally declare themselves the town's police force? We had Blackwater run rampant in Iraq (among other places) and private security firms already served as a villain in 24, isn't about time we imported that fun here? I think we can sacrifice the 3,400 people of Hardin for what will almost certainly inspire an awesome season of 24 or at least a great sequel to Red Dawn.