This is idiotic
WASHINGTON — The Obama administration is expected to impose a cap of $500,000 for top executives at companies that receive large amounts of bailout money, according to people familiar with the plan. - New York Times, February 3, 2009
This is idiotic. I wasn't aware the TARP was intended to be some sort of virtue exercise. Let the U.S. come in and buy shares if it wants, and then attend to executive compensation concerns like any other shareholder, by voting at the appropriate times.
It's not clear where the people will come from who will take big pay cuts to do these jobs, which are not jobs that anyone off the street could remotely perform. The President, smart as he is, knows this and ought to do a better job of moderating the Committee-of-Public-Safety wing of his party. He should also be smart enough to know that you can't force people to be responsible. You don't see parents saying "son, I'm going to force you to be responsible." What has suddenly happened to the power of words?
Labels: Barack Obama, things that seem stupid to MWR (abridged version)
"Slow news week—let's go with our cat-predation package!"
This is what the more mainstream of our two local "alternative weeklies", Seattle Weekly, opted to run as a cover story this week:
The Lost Cats of Poverty GulchI'll confess that I have not read the story in its entirety (still working my way through last week's Economist ("World on the edge") and just loaded up with this week's ("Saving the system"), and maybe it turns into a work of reportage that would make Joseph Mitchell and Hunter S. Thompson cry . . . but it appears to be all about how people who live in this one heavily-wooded greenbelt area tend to have a lot of cats go missing at the hands (paws? jaws?) of coyotes. With all due respect, WHO CARES?!?! It's hard to think of a more trivial story, or a week when it would seem more incongruous for it to show up on the front page of any publication.
Here's a classic bit from the story. I will let you find the authorial/editorial self indulgence that is in the finest tradition of Seattle alternative journalism, while I note a problem with the "scientific" explanation being put forward:
A 2004 paper authored by Russell Link, an urban wildlife biologist with the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW), seconds Convy's notion. "In Washington," Link writes, "these intelligent and adaptable animals now manage to occupy almost every conceivable habitat type, from open ranch country to densely forested areas to downtown waterfront."
And occasionally, they like to eat pussy.
"Cats are thought of by coyotes as a competitor for prey," says Link. "A coyote is going to eliminate that competition."
Now, I could be wrong, but I doubt coyotes are picky eaters. They are not sitting around nibbling buttered scones and tut-tutting that these churlish cat-things are apt to put a dent in the population of delicious rabbits. I'm sure the coyotes are killing the cats in order to eat the cats [
cue Schwarzenegger Terminator voice: "I would."]. It's also a rather poor evolutionary strategy for predators to pick fights with other predators in order to keep them from competing. That's like getting in a knife fight with the next person in the interview line at Wal-Mart: not worth it from a risk or energy-expenditure perspective—just try to do a little better in the interview. Also, I'm confident that cats are not "thought of by coyotes as a competitor for prey." Do you really think a coyote has the slightest idea of what a cat does or doesn't do vis-à-vis the coyote's prey (besides simply being it)? It seems unlikely. Plainly, the benefit package at the Department of Fish and Wildlife is not attracting the cream of our biology graduates.
Labels: local Seattle media, mocking others, pets, things that seem stupid to MWR (abridged version)
I'll be the one with the speakerphone in my free hand
How stupid is Washington's "Hands-Free Law" for cell phone use while driving?
Very.
Illegal: One hand on wheel, cell phone to ear.
Legal: One hand on wheel, cell phone in other hand in speakerphone mode.
From the statute:
For purposes of this section, "hands-free mode" means the use of a wireless communications device with a speaker phone, headset, or earpiece.
So, technically, you could be steering with your knee while cradling your phone in both hands, as long as you had it in speakerphone mode. That's quality legislative draftsmanship right there. I suppose steering with your knee is covered somewhere else in the law.
Labels: things that seem stupid to MWR (abridged version)
"Don't fill up on sody pop and candy, junior. Or kill anyone."
Pamela Almli, an experienced hiker from Oso, Snohomish County, who was aware of hunting seasons, was killed Saturday on a marked hiking trail on Sauk Mountain, Skagit County. She was shot from about 120 yards by a 14-year-old who told police he thought she was a bear.
The boy and his 16-year-old brother had been dropped off at the mountain by their grandfather. - Seattle Times, August 6, 2008
I find this whole story just appalling. (An earlier story found it necessary to mention that the victim's family wasn't "anti-gun", a line of inquiry and reportage that's insulting to the poor woman's memory.)
It's incredible to me that in our state you don't even have to be old enough to drive yourself to the woods. Just get grand-dad to drop you off like it's the matinee. "Don't fill up on sody pop and candy, junior. Or kill anyone." It would have been illegal for the 16-year-old to drive somewhere with the 14-year-old in the car, for God's sake! As far as I'm concerned, giving those kids high-powered rifles and dropping them off at the forest's edge was negligence per se
at best. Really, why shouldn't the grandfather face criminal charges? Criminally negligent homicide, perhaps.
And why should I or any hiker have the slightest responsibility to do anything special to avoid being shot by a hunter? Of course, it could be
wise to take some precautions, like wearing some colors not normally sported by deer and bears. But the onus should be
entirely on the hunters to not shoot any human beings in the wilderness.
Any subtext in this article suggesting unarmed hikers bear responsibility to stay out of hunters' way is gross, and there's definitely some of that tone here, including the sidebar headed "Staying Safe." It's the hunters who need a sidebar. "Don't shoot any humans. Use your fucking binoculars. Supervise your grandchildren." Meanwhile, the article doesn't even tell us whether these
children were even carrying binoculars.
Labels: Don't shoot any humans, if I could stand it . . . I wouldn't be blogging about it, things that seem stupid to MWR (abridged version)
Entertainment without content or value
LOS ANGELES — The Japanese video game titans, Nintendo and Sony, announced wide-ranging, if not entirely breathtaking, constellations of new games and services at the E3 convention here on Tuesday, but did not appear to significantly alter their overall strategies in the fast-growing game market, as Microsoft did on Monday.
Nintendo — which is riding high on the gangbusters popularity of its DS handheld game unit and its Wii home console — continued to aim largely at children and the mainstream consumers who have adopted gaming in recent years, propelling the industry and the hobby beyond its historical base of young male players. Sony, which is finally generating some traction and excitement around its PlayStation 3 console after initial stumbles, directed most of its new offerings at more traditional gamers, as well as at movie buffs interested in the company’s high-definition Blu-Ray disc format. - New York Times, July 16, 2008
Have you given any thought recently to what a pointless waste of time video games are? I have. These are entertainments that my generation enjoyed in adolescence and that some—distracted by the steady evolution of the games and the technology that underlies them—have forgotten to outgrow. Almost anything else you could choose to do with your time would be more personally and socially beneficial. Watching a string of TV commercials would be more educational. Web surfing should carry degree credit by comparison.
Labels: things that seem stupid to MWR (abridged version)
Worse than "kidlets"
"interwebs"
God, I shudder to hear or read that . . . I hesitate to call it a "term". It embodies a certain vaguely aspergic, affected knowing breeziness just repels me. It's one of those words that, as you are about to use it, should prompt you to bash the heel of your hand against your forehead—smartly—and ask "WHAT AM I TRYING TO ACCOMPLISH!?"
Labels: if I could stand it . . . I wouldn't be blogging about it, things that seem stupid to MWR (abridged version)
Vile purveyors of vulgar smut and filth
This April 30, 2008 Wall Street Journal editorial deserves to be quoted in full:
Readers with little girls at home don't have to be told who Miley Cyrus is. Their daughters want to be Miley Cyrus. The Disney Channel singer/actress is the star of "Hannah Montana," one of the most popular shows on TV. Her latest album is No. 3 on Billboard magazine's bestseller list. Reports estimate that she will bring in $1 billion in business to Disney this year.
She is also 15. Thus this week's uproar over a seminude photo by Annie Leibovitz for Vanity Fair magazine. The photo – showing Miley draped in a sheet, back bared, hair tousled, with a come-hither smile – upset countless parents who immediately grasped the photo's essential vulgarity.
Such ordinary wisdom apparently escaped every so-called grown-up involved in the photo shoot. The sophisticates at Vanity Fair defended the picture as a "beautiful and natural portrait." Absent sensible adults, Miley herself stepped forward to issue a statement saying that the now-embarrassing photo shoot was supposed to be "artistic."
Next to what crosses TV and computer screens every day, Miley's photo is relatively tame – save for the fact that Vanity Fair was trying to lower the bar on this stuff to the age of 15. Parents have enough difficulty teaching their daughters how not to expose their bodies in a vulgar way; this makes it harder. If there's good news here, it's that folks in Buffalo, Charlotte or Iowa City are still insisting on cultural norms alien to the elites of Manhattan or Hollywood.
"Essential vulgarity"? "This stuff"? (and, for that matter, "come-hither smile"?) Is there some standard I don't know about where art directors and iconic photographers are supposed to speculate about (or even concern themselves with) what may or may not "upset countless parents." And did this tame photo really "upset countless parents"? Whose even more countless kids were reading
Vanity Fair? Looking at the VF website, we see that her (so-called grown-up) parents were present for the photo shoot, which appears to have taken place on a farm.
Labels: "The Wall Street Journal editors lie without consequence", if I could stand it . . . I wouldn't be blogging about it, parenting, photography, things that seem stupid to MWR (abridged version)
Call a spade a spade
Why is it acceptable to use "diplomatic" euphemisms when speaking about race in certain contexts? Two quotes from today's Wall Street Journal:
"you've got conservative whites here, and I think there are some whites who are probably not ready to vote for an African-American candidate" - Gov. Ed Rendell of Pennsylvania
"Race still matters. White working-class voters tend to be more conservative in terms of social beliefs and that is going to spill over." - Prof. John Russo, Youngstown State University
Translations:
"not ready . . ." = racist
"more conservative in terms of social beliefs" = racist
I guess the idea is that we shouldn't want to offend anyone by suggesting they are racist just because they wouldn't vote for, or date, or whatever, a black person. We'd be better off calling racism by its right name and not letting people off the hook because they're "not ready" for this and "more conservative" than that.
("So old is
this expression that it wasn't original with Plutarch, who used it back in the first century when writing about Philip of Macedon.")
Labels: 2008 presidential campaign, Barack Obama, if I could stand it . . . I wouldn't be blogging about it, race, things that seem stupid to MWR (abridged version)
Overheard in South Carolina
"Say, let's nickname our state after some plant no one's ever heard of, or a flying cockroach, and let's hold our party primaries on two different days and fly this racist flag at our capitol!"
Labels: 2008 presidential campaign, mocking others, things that seem stupid to MWR (abridged version)
Color me non-intrigued
In a related vein, physician and social scientist Nicholas Christakis of Harvard is now questioning the supremacy of genes over culture, saying that he has changed his mind about whether “culture can change our genes.” Like Pinker, he now believes that “human evolution may proceed much faster than I had thought.” Even more intriguing, “humans themselves may be responsible.” In societies where a stable supply of milk is available, for instance, people evolve genes making them lactose-tolerant, as has occurred in just the last 3,000 to 9,000 years several times in Africa and Europe. In societies where population density is high enough to spread epidemic diseases such as typhoid, some populations evolve genes that confer resistance to the disease.
Christakis concludes, “It is hard to know where this would stop. There may be genetic variants that favor survival in cities, that favor saving for retirement, that favor consumption of alcohol, or that favor a preference for complicated social networks. There may be genetic variants (based on altruistic genes that are a part of our hominid heritage) that favor living in a democratic society, others that favor living among computers.” - Newsweek, January 1, 2008
Even more intriguing?? Shouldn't it really be blindingly obvious that if we change the environment, that can change what constitutes "fitness" in the operative environment? What is interesting is that the fitness advantage of being able to consume dairy products would likely to have to be very significant in order for it to become prevalent in those short evolutionary timeframes.
The shorthand construction "people evolve genes" is just horrible. It promotes fundamental misunderstandings about how evolution occurs, which the last time I checked was through natural selection among random, heritable genetic mutations. It's not that having milk around promotes the development of a "milk gene"—such a "milk gene" would be expected to crop up just as often in non-agrarian cultures, but there it would confer no fitness advantage and there would be no reason for it to become prevalent in those populations. "[S]ome populations evolve genes that confer resistance to the disease." Huh? How about "the survivors mate"?
Labels: if I could stand it . . . I wouldn't be blogging about it, things that seem stupid to MWR (abridged version)
Screw you, grandma!
Although chronic disorganization is not a medical diagnosis, therapists and doctors sometimes call on professional organizers to help patients. One of them is Lynne Johnson, a professional organizer from Quincy, Mass., who is president of the National Study Group on Chronic Disorganization.
Ms. Johnson explains that some people look at a shelf stacked with coffee mugs and see only mugs. But people with serious disorganization problems might see each one as a unique item — a souvenir from Yellowstone or a treasured gift from Grandma. - New York Times, January 1, 2008
Yeah, a normal person would never look at their possessions this way.
Labels: things that seem stupid to MWR (abridged version)
Wow
This morning I had the cringeworthy experience of listening to my not-favorite KUOW (NPR) personality, Steve Scher,
interviewing one of my new not-favorite entertainer-slash-political-gadflies, Harry Shearer. Among other things, I got to hear
- an excerpt from Shearer's song "Waterboarding U.S.A." (from what I understand of waterboarding, it is more subtle as torture than this is as satire)
- Shearer explaining that U.S. condemnation of the Myanmar crackdown was ineffective because of our newly diminished moral standing around the world (a view revealing almost total ignorance, since the state of that country and our zero influence over its leaders long preceded the Bush Presidency, Iraq, 9/11, etc.)
- special praise for Al Jazeera's coverage of the situation in Myanmar
- the beginning of an excerpt from Shearer's song "Let's Fry the Flag-Burners on the Fourth of July!" (I'm reminded of something my freshman expository writing instructor told me about not needing to argue "with the ham-fistedness of the Soviet propagandists.")
- Shearer commenting about David Letterman's post-9/11 remark that if he lived to be a thousand he wouldn't understand the 9/11 attacks (the comment was something like "Do some more reading.")
- "Your tax dollars paid to flood the city."
- Shearer, asked whether political satire had lost its edge, or was still effective, or some such thing, responding "if it was really having a political effect , they'd come down on us . . . you can see that we have no effect because we're free."
"You can see that we have no effect because we're free." Think that one over. By the same basic logic, if Hillary wins the general election and "they" allow her to take office, it means presidential politics, like satire, is ineffective. I stand in awe of Harry Shearer, not least for being someone who believes all the things he evidently believes, yet chooses to confront the manifold ills he sees in our country not by taking up arms, but with a thousand little voices and heavy-handed ditties sung to the converted.
Labels: things that seem stupid to MWR (abridged version)
No show
When did it become common for people in the under-50 set, in Seattle at least, to refer to any kind of band performance as a "show" or a "live show"?
If I could stand this usage, I wouldn't be blogging about it.
Labels: I know . . . hipsters are boring, if I could stand it . . . I wouldn't be blogging about it, mocking others, things that seem stupid to MWR (abridged version)
And if you want to be taller, use centimeters
WASHINGTON, Sept. 4 — With the Democratic-led Congress poised to measure progress in Iraq by focusing on the central government’s failure to perform, President Bush is proposing a new gauge, by focusing on new American alliances with the tribes and local groups that Washington once feared would tear the country apart. - New York Times, September 5, 2007
If Iraq were a cancer patient, oncologist Bush would be focusing on cardiovascular health.
Labels: mocking others, things that seem stupid to MWR (abridged version)
WSBA jumps the shark
Mandatory Preadmission Education
Effective June 1, 2006, Bar applicants who have passed the bar exam, or who qualify for admission without passing the bar exam, must complete an approved four-hour Preadmission Education Program. This course should not be completed until you have successfully passed the bar exam and will not count if you complete it before then. You can meet this requirement by attending a live program, if offered in your local area, or by watching the video available on the Preadmission Education website. [LINK]
Let's see, you spent three years in law school, graduated, took a bar review course, passed a bar exam, passed a professional responsibility exam (but not the MPRE, for some curious reason), but you still have to take a free four-hour course before being admitted to practice.
By "free", I mean it is paid for with my bar dues. I'm impressed there is anything left of them to spend after all the many valuable (to others) uses they are already put to.
Labels: mocking others, things that seem stupid to MWR (abridged version)
The scourge of our age
I can't believe how many people, professionals even, have voicemail boxes with very limited recording time. I don't see how you can be in a client-service business, especially, and find it acceptable to have a voicemail system that cuts people off in mid-message, with no warning when time is running down. I'd almost rather get a busy signal. Recently I called a friend who is general counsel of a significant enterprise, and had to leave three messages in order to get my point across. And the "append" feature in that person's menu of options had not actually been enabled, so when I tried to append to the original message, nothing happened.
I am going to have to test my own cell phone and work email to see if this is happening.
By the way, I am making this entry from my new office and looking out at a lovely view of Elliott Bay (part of Puget Sound). Whee!
Labels: things that seem stupid to MWR (abridged version)
"911, what is your emergency?" "I wish to report a runaway trans-species cliché."
Seriously, though, if this is your best idea for a Seattle pig, why even bother?
Labels: mocking others, things that seem stupid to MWR (abridged version)
The stupidest statement I have heard all month
Security experts say even if these weren't dry runs for terrorist attacks, the good news is that this time the system worked: TSA officials did find the suspicious items. - ABC News reporter, July 25, 2007
This is like catching a few trout and then concluding that the river is out of trout . . . when the real danger is probably salmon or crayfish or periwinkles.
Labels: mocking others, MWR: weaver of metaphor, things that seem stupid to MWR (abridged version)
The strange case of the self-identified "geek"
I've never understood why anyone would self-identify as a geek or a nerd, as seems common in places like Seattle. Doing so involves an unexplainable willingness to denigrate one's own interests. I have never had a single interest that I felt I had to justify, account for or gloss over as "my geeky interest." I realize that, most of the time, people who brand themselves as geeks or nerds are using a shorthand and self-deprecatingly acknowledging how they expect people perceive them, but I could never do that. It would never even cross my mind. I make no apologies or accounts for my interests, ever.
Before someone leaves a comment that includes the phrase "badge of honor", let me note that only only fools and despots confer badges of honor on themselves. Who am I kidding? Comments on this blog are rarer than a three-legged snake.
Labels: ego integrity, things that seem stupid to MWR (abridged version), what passes for introspection
