Category: Uncategorized

links for 2007-10-13

swiped from someone else’s comments

Sadly, No! » Insert Clever Title, Pt. Eleventy-Whatever:

Now we’re getting down to it.

“Who deserves ____________________?”

“Who should provide _________________?”

I’ve written at length about these very subjects. Because, when you get all the racism and classism and hurt feelings and name calling behind you, the difference between Teh Leftâ„¢ and Teh Rightâ„¢ is in how they answer two questions.

1. What is the role of government in the lives of the citizens?

And

2. How does the government determine who “deserves” intervention in their lives?

And there you have it. On abortion, capital punishment, the draft, healthcare, subsidies, taxes, anything you can name, you’re really only providing your answers to those questions.

Fortunately, as vocal and unpleasant as the Malkin thing and her ilk are, I’m am convinced they do not represent the vast majority of the American population. Oh, I know they’re not as lefty as me, and racism and assorted hatreds has a profound impact on political beliefs, but for the most part americans want america to take care of americans.

I’m ecstatic there was a program to help the Frosts. And whether or not one cent of that money came from my taxes, I’m proud we as a people saw that as an important expenditure.

It’s about what kind of society we want to be. And the leadership has been dragging america in a direction the people just don’t want to go since the end of the second world war. We really don’t want to be a society focused on hate, scarcity and violent militarism. It may well be that some very smart people figured out a long time ago that without massive defense spending you don’t get this HUGE economy that has served five generations so well.

But the people have hate fatigue. They look around, and they realize that other nations, who are not spending trillions of dollars on armies, weapons, bases and wars, have better infrastructure, better communities, better education and health care and all the things america by all rights should lead the world in.

But america leads the world in war.

And while the malkin thing wants that, most of us do not…

Commenter mikey nails it.

the little slide show that could

Front-Page Congratulations to Al Gore on Apple.com:

“Al has put his heart and soul, and much of his life during the past several years, into alerting and educating us all on the climate crisis. We are bursting with pride for Al and this historic recognition of his global contributions.”

And the fact that he used Keynote, and by extension Apple hardware, is also a fine thing.

quote of the day

James Wolcott’s Blog: Calista Flockhart Confronts Cornholio: Wolcott’s Blog: vanityfair.com:

Rush Limbaugh and his fellow talk-radio troll dolls didn’t “pervert” conservatism–he didn’t lay siege to some maiden fair and debauch her virtue. Rush Limbaugh didn’t inject an “ideology of hate” into conservatism, he extracted the contemptuous, divisive animosity inherent in the Gingrich doctrine and sugared it up with comedy and his own personal saga for popular consumption. He, like Clarence Thomas, was just what the Republican overseers ordered. Rush Limbaugh is modern mainstream conservatism in all its bullying bluster, hypocrisy, jolly ignorance (global warming etc), slavish submission to military, corporate, and executive power, and slimeballing of political opponents. To believe otherwise is like putting your faith in those few remaining Republican moderates who always manage not to come through in the clutch, who put up a brief show of conscience or faint dissent before the inevitable capitulation. It’s a little late to suddenly look around and realize what sleazebags you’ve got on your team, especially since those sleazebags were there before you arrived.

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links for 2007-10-12

on the low bitrate files in the new Radiohead release

Marginal Revolution: MR Readers’ poll about Radiohead:

To all who complained of the MP3 quality: the band did that partially to save on bandwidth and partially in the hopes of keeping the album off of places like Oink, where 192 kbps is the minimum quality for torrents. That having been said, it’s almost certain that they had to mix and master the album differently for this purpose than they would for a lossless CD. Note how Thom’s vocals and Phil’s drums are so crisp compared to the guitar and bass in most of the songs. I’m looking forward to the discbox, so I can hear what I’m missing right now, and I’m sure as hell not going to complain about the quality of a product for which I chose the price.

So why 160? Why not 180 or even 191?

I expect the post-production stuff was geared toward this (I remember hearing the ZZ Top’s stuff in the 80s was mixed using car stereo speakers for the same reason). Wonder if the disc box goodies will be different? Are they really shipping vinyl?

in the interests of modern science

Radiohead ‘In Rainbows’ – What price did you choose? | What price did you choose?:

Radiohead ‘In Rainbows’ – What price did you choose?
If you have pre-ordered or intend to order the download version of Radiohead’s new album In Rainbows and are curious to know what price others chose, take part in the survey.

And they’ll send you the results when the survey is done.

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