Posts

I don’t trust anyone who doesn’t appreciate context. I write that sentence after reading Andrew Brown’s post on how the failure to appreciate history on its own terms clouds the thinking of fundamentalists. (In this case, he’s talking about fundamentalist atheists.) This is the paragraph that grabbed me: Thinking about the ignorant, angry atheists who infest the Guardian’s comment pages I realised one thing they have in common with scriptural fundamentalists: they have no idea of history. They live in an eternally dazzling present and they can’t imagine that there is anything outside it. Oh, sure, they have legends — the inquisition, the crusades, the middle ages — but within these legends the actors move, as they do in renaissance paintings, entirely in contemporary dress. There is no sense of the strangeness and difficulty of the past; no sense that many things have been tried and failed; no sense that words once meant things entirely different and possibly inexpressible now. ...

I live near one of the Barack Obama campaign offices, and I couldn’t help but notice that it was completely vacant the next morning after election day. It was like the circus leaving town. I wondered what happened to everything in the office, and in the hundreds of other campaign offices around the country. In the case of the Obama campaign, the answer is that they made arrangements to donate all of the computers, furniture, and office supplies to schools. ...

Today Barack Obama nominated economist Peter Orszag his to head the Office of Management and Budget. Orszag is currently director of the Congressional Budget Office and writes an official blog in that capacity. Not quite the same as publishing a personal blog, but interesting nonetheless. I wonder if he’ll be blogging from the OMB as well? Marc Ambinder notes that OMB is in charge of implementing Obama’s transparency agenda. Putting that office in the hands of someone who’s comfortable blogging is a good sign. ...

Anyone who loathes Thomas Kinkade as much as I do will appreciate this leaked Kinkade-authored memo offering 16 guidelines for achieving the Kinkade aesthetic in a film. (via Kottke) You can get an idea of how the guidelines were applied in the trailer for Thomas Kinkade’s Christmas Cottage. This is the best piece of Kinkade snark since Janelle Brown wrote Ticky-tacky houses from “The Painter of Light™ back in 2002, about a Kinkade-inspired golf course community in California. The prices of those houses have not fared well in the current climate – here’s the 5 year pricing chart for one of the houses in the neighborhood from Zillow. ...

Mark Bittman’s New York Times article on the future of fish is getting linked to by everyone, but it’s important, so I’m linking to it. One thing’s for sure, farm-raised salmon really aren’t very good.

Barack Obama stated unequivocally that he will close Guantanamo and put a stop to torture on 60 Minutes last night. Of course, our current President has said any number of times that the US “does not torture,” but I’ll give Obama the benefit of the doubt for now that he is using the accepted definition of the word torture rather than the made-up one that the Bush administration has tried to foist upon us. ...

Here’s Robin Hanson’s advice at Overcoming Bias (by way of Tyler Cowen: Best to clear your mind and emotions of group loyalties and resentments and ask, if this belief gave me no pleasure of rebelling against some folks or identifying with others, if it was just me alone choosing, would my best evidence suggest that this belief is true? All else is the road to rationality ruin. This made me think about a recent political issue – whether the government should somehow bail out the US automakers. On one hand, we have the evidence that these companies are lost causes and principled objection to using taxpayer dollars to bail out certain failing businesses. On the other hand, we have the possibility of massive job loss at car factories, dealerships, parts suppliers, and so on. What’s best for America? What’s best for me? I don’t really have any idea. ...

Timothy Lee makes the pragmatic argument against the need for legislation to enforce network neutrality. Here’s his evidence that the market is already rejecting violations of network neutrality: This isn’t to say that ISPs will never violate network neutrality. A few have done so already. The most significant was Comcast’s interference with the BitTorrent protocol last year. I think there’s plenty to criticize about what Comcast did. But there’s a big difference between interfering with one networking protocol and the kind of comprehensive filtering that network neutrality advocates fear. And it’s worth noting that even Comcast’s modest interference with network neutrality provoked a ferocious response from customers, the press, and the political process. The Comcast/BitTorrent story certainly isn’t going to make other ISPs think that more aggressive violations of network neutrality would be a good business strategy. ...

Gawker Media’s Nick Denton predicts a steep decline in advertising revenue for Internet publishers next year, and makes some recommendations on how to react to what can only be described as an impending bloodbath. The revenue model for rc3.org remains unchanged, but I probably will move to cheaper hosting.

Before the election passes into the distance, I wanted to give some special recognition to the stable of bloggers assembled by The Atlantic. They’ve done a great job of putting together a group of really smart bloggers with a diverse point of view, and I found a number of them to be essential reading all year. In particular, Marc Ambinder’s day to day insights into the shape of the campaigns were more useful than the entire staff of the Politico put together. James Fallows did an incredible job of covering the debates, and turned out to make the most accurate prediction of Sarah Palin’s future as a running mate as soon as she was chosen. I enjoy the rest of their bloggers as well, Andrew Sullivan and Ta-Nehesi Coates in particular. I have been meaning to mention how impressed I’ve been with The Atlantic for awhile, and wanted to give credit where it’s due before it completely slips my mind. ...