Big Damn Heroes

For the one or two people subscribed here, this is the latest episode of my FWDAJ Extra podcast.

FWDAJ Extra 2009-09-30

Look, I understand that people are pissed about GM and Chrysler. I mean, this makes twice in my lifetime that Chrysler has nearly hit rock-bottom, so I’m this close to saying “let it go”. If folks want to picket Detroit’s upper management, or bitch about how workers build shoddy cars, I say go for it. But chewing out the spokesmodels at auto shows…?

Donald Han, an accountant from Queens, sounded unmoved. “Why now?” he asked the woman, rather curtly, once she had finished her patter. “How come you’ve got to nearly go bankrupt before you come out with a car like this?”

via NYT: Glamour dims as hecklers hit auto shows – The New York Times- msnbc.com.

Let’s get something straight: the employee at the drive-through window cannot productively respond to your complaints about the fat content of your Extra Value Meal, that ninety year-old Walmart greeter cannot address your concerns about fair labor practices, and a random blond hired to read a script while standing on a rotating dais at the auto show does not have any particular influence on which cars are developed at which times.

In  other words, don’t use the financial shitstorm as an opportunity to chew out the clueless and the powerless just to make yourself feel better. It’s hollow, rude, and just plain idiotic.

I wish Obama would do me a favor and tell me how the “state secrets” invocation isn’t a way to do an end-run around the separation of powers? It was a bullshit moved when Bush did it, and it hasn’t changed one bit.

The government is effectively arguing that it can act with impunity because the evidence that the government has misbehaved is a secret that can’t be used to seek to demonstrate violations of the law or the Constitution and to seek redress.

Did the feds abuse your rights? Too bad, they say, because you won’t be allowed to prove it in court.

via Civil Liberties Examiner: Obama administration says government abuses are ’state secrets’ beyond judicial scrutiny.

I know I’m picking on Barack a bit right now, especially given that I haven’t posted a damned thing applauding him for the stuff he’s done that I appreciate. But c’mon…

BO my man, I get it. You’ve been assured Tim Geithner is the smartest guy out there. So I understand the desire to have him on board. I really do. But this is getting ridiculous.

The Obama administration is engineering its new bailout initiatives in a way that it believes will allow firms benefiting from the programs to avoid restrictions imposed by Congress, including limits on lavish executive pay, according to government officials.

via U.S. aims to help firms sidestep bailout rules – Washington Post- msnbc.com.

First Clinton fought to keep the line item veto, then GWB went on a mad rush to consolidate as much power as possible for the Executive, and now your people are actively seeking to screw Congress and the people they represent by creating loopholes. That’s bullshit, man. That particular buck has got to stop right here, right now. With you, Barack.

I fully support the core idea of a rash of “tea parties” across the country on April 15th in opposition to bailouts and the stimulus. Not that I necessarily agree with a lot of the thinking behind them, but I’m all for the principle of the thing. Protest is a beautiful thing.

What sucks is that it appears that lots of extraneous crap is being inserted into the agenda of the parties by the group that has appointed itself leader of the “movement”. Check out these items that are supposed to be part of the protest, from the TEA Party homepage:

• want to take away the right to vote with a secret ballot in union elections?
• refuse to stop the flow of millions of illegal immigrants into our country?
• appoint a defender of child pornography to the Number 2 position in the Justice Department?
• want to force doctors and other medical workers to perform abortions against their will?

What this suggests is that this isn’t a populist uprising against taxation and government spending… it’s just one more skirmish in the Republican Culture War. How underwhelming.

I want to start chronicling clear evidence of mental midgetry among our elected officials. I’m not talking about out-of-context “gotchas”, flubbed lines, or embarrassing slips. (So no, I’m not interested in most Bushisms, or tales of Gorean “internet invention”.) Nor am I looking for instances of obvious political hackery that backfire, as with McCain’s “fundamentally sound” economy. If the pol in question clearly knows that what he’s saying is bullshit, and is just saying it to score a point, I’ll let it go.

No, I’m talking about people making baseless, stupid arguments that they would make again in the same way if given a chance. All suggestions welcome.

Here’s my first nomination to the Hall of Shame, Rep. John Shimkus:

After calling Rush Limbaugh an entertainer whose form of entertainment is “ugly”. RNC chairman Michael Steele nearly broke the sound barrier while backpedaling to calm his whack-a-doodle fringe:

“I went back at that tape and I realized words that I said weren’t what I was thinking,” Steele said. “It was one of those things where I thinking I was saying one thing, and it came out differently. What I was trying to say was a lot of people … want to make Rush the scapegoat, the bogeyman, and he’s not.”

via Steele to Rush: I’m sorry.

On the one hand, it sucks to have to run around apologizing for every frakkin’ word out of your mouth, so Steele has my sympathy. (It’s that incredibly shitty, depressing part of a politician’s job that explains why even the best of ‘em are at least a little sleazy.) On the other hand, sheesh Michael… grovelling before Rush? Don’t demean youself like that, dude.

The average person on the street may have no idea how huge this is, but it’s a big, big thing: the stimulus package’s implementation instructions require each government agency that spends stimcash to provide an Atom/RSS feed detailing who received the contract, the amount, and so on.

For each of the near term reporting requirements major communications, formula block grant allocations, weekly reports agencies are required to provide a feed preferred: Atom 1.0, acceptable: RSS of the information so that content can be delivered via subscription.

from the Initial Implementing Guidance for the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009

Each agency has the freedom to either stuff the feeds with raw data or just link to static HTML, so it isn’t a perfect system yet… but wowza! Talk about making life easier for amateur journalists and watchdogs!

(hat tip to Aaron Swartz’s Raw Thought)

At this point, we’ve all seen random kids fist-fighting on YouTube, and sometimes it’s pretty awful…  like the case of a group of girls ganging up and beating down a classmate that was in the news last year. But mostly, it’s just a couple kids throwing down, the same way they did it when I was in school. Stupid? Sure. But…

It looks like California (and likely other states) are reacting to the situation like fighting is something invented by GenY, and they’re in a panic to Fix Things.

Enforcement is often complaint driven. School districts do not have the staffing to constantly monitor social networking sites for perceived threats. Atascadero Unified School District dedicates part-time staff hours to reviewing such sites, but the hours are limited by other campus needs.

School districts’ authority over such cases is becoming increasingly more defined by the California School Boards Association and related case law — making it easier to determine how to proceed.

Recent case law expands traditional California education code to give districts authority beyond traditional school hours, which includes events that can be tied to campus or perceived as a threat to a student or staff member.

via Teen FightTube: Local students are posting video of school scuffles online – Local – San Luis Obispo.

So basically, anything a kid does, anywhere on the planet, that has even the most tenuous connection to his school or a classmate, can be considered an offense punishable by the school district. Wow. This is one of those times when I’m no longer worried about the slippery slope, ’cause we’re already way down at the bottom of the hill and heading straight for an outcropping of pointy rocks.

I was already growing concerned about this issue a few years ago, when I heard about one of who-knows-how-many kids who have been punished by their schools for stuff they’ve posted on MySpace. But the fact that the idea seems to be getting a firm, legal toe-hold is seriously worrying.

At this point, I’m ready to give up my long-maintained opposition to school vouchers. Just privatize the whole damned school system, as far as I’m concerned. Whatever it takes to disrupt this cycle of parental abstention and governmental restriction of free expression.

The Army is clearly spooked if they’re releasing this kind of info, and understandably so.

The 24 suspected January suicides include seven confirmed and 17 still being investigated. Usually the vast majority of suspected suicides are eventually confirmed, and if that holds true it would mean that self-inflicted deaths surpassed the 16 combat deaths reported in all branches of the armed forces in Iraq and Afghanistan last month.

via Army: Suicides likely jumped last month – Military- msnbc.com.