Category: Quick Hits

There is a scene in Total Recall (I refuse to see the "remake" and refer, of course, to the 1990 film) wherein a corrupt profiteer named Cohagen shuts off the supply of breathable air to part of a city managed by his corporation to "teach them a lesson" for hiding Arnold Schwarzenegger's character. It provides us with one of the more famously bad Schwarzenegger quotes from his Eighties "I haven't totally mastered English. Or acting." phase: "Give these people air!"

It's no "Get to the choppa!" but it'll do.

We've all realized by now that the 1987 Paul Verhoeven splatter-fest RoboCop was actually a documentary about how Detroit would look in 25 years; there may not be police-robots but Omni Consumer Products is getting ready to take over. I hadn't previously made the connection with Total Recall, though. It didn't seem plausible that some unelected sociopath would be able to turn off public utilities out of spite here in the United States. As a dystopian literary device, sure.
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But in real life? In the USA?

Well it turns out that last week's power outage in Detroit was done intentionally by the Rick Snyder-appointed "city manager" or someone in that office. It appears that on one of the hottest days of the year, "We did start calling our customers prior to taking them down and asking them to turn off air conditioners, but they weren't responding as fast as we would like them to so we had to send them a strong message by turning the power off." In the video, the speaker laughs a lot while explaining this.

The power was down for four hours without warning.

There hasn't been a peep about this from the media, of course. Go ahead, google "Detroit power outage" and see if any major networks or newspapers covered this – despite the fact that the city manager's office explicitly admits responsibility. On video. In fact, if not for the local Fox station in Detroit – oh, delicious irony – it would be as if this never happened.

The city managers are eager to blame the city's power department and infrastructure as a means of hastening the privatization plans.
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Services are scheduled to be handed over to DTE Energy, because if the last three decades have proven anything it's that corporate control is pure and efficient whereas public control is inherently corrupt.

Just a friendly reminder to keep this in mind when the ALEC-sponsored "financial emergency" bills appear in your state legislature.

Someone correct me if I have this wrong.

We want "diplomacy" to solve the situation in Syria, but to do so we need to stand ready to lob some missiles at them. If we do lob missiles at them, it wouldn't be with the intent of altering the course of the conflict; we don't want to choose sides, after all. We just want to fire enough missiles at…something…to remind other countries that we are totally tough and capable of lobbing missiles at things from afar. I mean, we can't Show Weakness In Front Of the Russians.

Wow. Never thought we'd get to use that dusty Cold War gem again.

The technology available to modern presidents has reduced the costs of going to "war" (or "police action" or "intervention" or whatever euphemism is appropriate for not-really-wars like this) to the point that it appears to have permanently warped the judgment of our political leaders. Is there anything less costly to a president, to the Pentagon, to Congress, to the belligerent public, than parking naval assets in international waters and launching guided missiles at far-off targets?

It costs no American blood and little political capital – if anything, it succeeds in making presidents look "tough" or whatever. It costs nothing but money, and god knows that we are perpetually broke but somehow always able to dig deeper into the pocketbook to find more money when the Department of Defense deems it necessary.

Combined with the use of air strikes (high altitude bombing runs against countries relying on Vietnam-era Soviet anti-aircraft defenses) and the growing popularity of drones, video game warfare is upon us.

There really isn't much incentive for a president not to conduct that type of war continuously and against all perceived threats.
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No one weeps when a drone crashes, nor do Americans particularly care if cruise missiles aren't as "pinpoint accurate" as defense contractors claim.
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The only thing that rouses the public against war, in the rare instances in which that actually happens, is the cost in American lives. Remove that from the equation and the use of force can continue in the background almost indefinitely. Having declared war on a threat that can never be eliminated completely, we've found a way to remove morality from the use of force by isolating it from the only lives that matter in our political process.

The title comes from Jello Biafra's final line in the classic Lard song "Drug Raid at 4 AM.

" The musical stylings of Lard may not be your cup of tea, but this is one of the best War on Drugs songs around.

It's at once subtle and completely unsubtle with its anti-anti-drug message.

The element of black humor in the song comes from the fact that police in this era of No-Knock Warrants and battering rams through front doors do end up saying "Whoops!

Wrong house!" with regularity that can only be described as alarming. The Cato Institute – I know, strange bedfellows – has an interactive map of how often these "isolated incidents" and "tragic mistakes" occur.

It turns out that sloppy police work extends beyond the zealous enforcement of drug laws (to say nothing of municipal governments' enthusiasm for civil forfeiture) and that using Maximum Overkill levels of force has become standard operating procedure in the most pedestrian matters.

A few weeks ago, police in Leander, TX raided the home of James and Renata Simmons and ended up shooting their dog before realizing that the person named on the warrant, one Bradley Simpson, doesn't even live in the same town let alone at that address. Simmons, Simpson, close enough. Guns out!

The warrant was for an unpaid vehicle registration.

The saddest part is that the raw incompetence and stupidity of most police is only like 4th on the list of things about them that are terrifying, behind the corruption, violence, and racism.

You know those nightmare Labor Day traffic quagmires? They're the understandable consequence of half the country loading up the Land Barge with children and coolers to head on down to Lake Fingerbang for a few days.
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The highway system can only handle so much capacity, after all.

Don't worry, though: in as little as ten years depending on where you live, you can experience the boredom and frustration of standstill Labor Day traffic every single day! Yes, the highway corridors between a number of major cities will see a constant level of overcrowding similar to what we experience now only on major travel holidays, according to the US Travel Association.

But relax. We can still fly! Except that we'll long since maxed out the capacity of most major metropolitan airports since air traffic is predicted to double by 2030.

We can't build any trains, though.

Because, like, one time there was a train crash and people died. We'll stick with uncrashable forms of transit like cars and planes.

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Admittedly it has been a while, but one of the things I recall distinctly from the years of being a Republican was that it was very tiring. It was exhausting, frankly, to keep one's motives hidden. It wasn't even that bad back in the 1990s, yet I could already see the clear distinction between thoughts and words that were acceptable in private (i.e., among fellow travelers) and the public Message.
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I said, and heard people say, things in private that it was understood were For Republican Ears Only. I'm not even talking about anything horrifyingly offensive – it was simply the pretense of being concerned about A, B, and C when in reality we cared about X, Y, and Z. Pretending to be morally outraged at the Lewinsky affair, for example, was a tiring cover story for the fact that Republicans just kinda hated Bill Clinton. But you can't just say "Well there's no point, we just kinda hate Bill Clinton." You have to have a reason that sounds good.
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That was long ago for Ed. I got out before it became necessary to pretend – for years on end – the pretense that voter ID laws are about preventing fraud. Certainly the GOP is sick of engaging in tortured explanations of how something that doesn't exist (in-person voter fraud) is a major problem that only Republican state legislatures have the courage to address. After more than half a decade of having this debate publicly, I'd almost respect them more if they'd just come out and admit that they're passing these laws because they think it will help them win elections.
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Just be honest. Nobody believes the horseshit cover story anyway.

Well, Phyllis Schlafly is dropping the charade. Since the Supreme Court has signed off on explicitly partisan election laws at the state level, why the hell not? Just come out and say:

The reduction in the number of days allowed for early voting is particularly important because early voting plays a major role in Obama's ground game. The Democrats carried most states that allow many days of early voting, and Obama's national field director admitted, shortly before last year's election, that "early voting is giving us a solid lead in the battleground states that will decide this election."

Well, Phyllis came out and said that. And a lot more. All of it amounts to, "We really can't win presidential elections unless we stop some of These People from voting."

There's a certain freedom wingnuts enjoy when writing in a forum like World Nut Daily – talk about preaching to the choir – but Schlafly is a visible figure and perhaps this is a signal that it's OK to start telling the truth. We all know exactly what is going on here anyway, so I welcome a world in which we no longer have to have this phony hand-wringing about voter fraud that does not exist in any way that Voter ID laws could prevent. It's tiring for everyone involved.

Since 2008 we've had the distinct pleasure of watching so many people on the right go absolutely insane. Aside from having let their deepest paranoid fantasies run amok, they've descended into using some sort of coded language that centers around repeating phrases like Solyndra, Benghazi, Fast & Furious, Pelosi, Obamacare, and Death Panels. And now someone has gone ahead and written it down to prove the point.

This is one of the most insane things I've ever seen in writing, and remember that I am a person who enjoys writing things that intentionally make the least possible sense. Somehow reality has one-upped me. A failed academic turned failed author named Sarah Hoyt has written a Teabagging screed called, I shit you not, "I Am Spartacus." Here's an excerpt, and you should treat yourself to the whole thing.

I am Spartacus because Fast and Furious.

I am Spartacus because Benghazi.

I am Spartacus because Fast and Furious.

I am Spartacus because Benghazi.

I am Spartacus because Fast and Furious.

I am Spartacus because Benghazi.

To stop the crazy train, to preserve as much as I can of the greatest nation the world has ever known, I Am Spartacus.

To this end I pledge my life, my fortune and my sacred honor.

And no, I don't think it's a joke. This has long since stopped being just a game.

The funny part is that this was widely circulated. People read this batshit nuttery and not only thought it was great but also forwarded it to others. Glenn Reynolds was moved beyond words.

Their echo chamber reminds me of grad school in a big college town, where everyone drank like a Scottish football hooligan. You go out on an average evening and have a dozen beers and you think absolutely nothing of it because everyone else around you – your entire social and professional circle – does exactly the same. It never occurs to you that, well, maybe that's too much to drink. It's not until you step out of that environment that you that it becomes apparent.

Well, the right wingers have created such an elaborate bubble that they never need to step out of it. It's a brand new reality wherein everyone is barking mad and no one gives it a second thought when you decide to smear yourself in flan and run around brandishing a mace and screaming something about IRS-gate.

There are dozens of Intro to American Government textbooks on the market and I think I've been given copies of all of them at least twice.
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The funny thing about having so many entrants in a lucrative and crowded market is that they are all essentially the same. There are only so many ways to explain what a congressional committee is, how the Electoral College works, or why interest groups form.

I haven't done the math, but off the top of my head I'd estimate that 90% of the available textbooks begin with a chapter on the basic question of why organized government exists. This introduces 18 year-olds to basic concepts that Coach was supposed to teach them in high school but didn't – collective action problems, public goods, free riding, and so on. Most of them pick up very quickly an understanding of why getting a large group of people to agree on a single course of action and then stick to the plan is difficult at best, impossible at worst. Even if they don't care about or understand government, I think I get the point across to most of them. I hate to say it, but if they can't grasp this simple concept they might not be the sharpest of knives overall.
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And it is those dull knives that come to mind when I see news items about the latest half-assed plan to undermine health care reform by getting literally tens of millions of people to disregard their own self-interest and act collectively to further the ideological goals of FreedomWorks and Koch Industries. The latest brainstorm is to convince young people to opt out of the insurance exchanges (which raises costs by taking the healthiest, least costly members out of the pool) to undermine the law.

This plan would have to improve markedly to qualify as idiotic.
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This not only requires young people to live without health insurance for several years while this scheme takes effect, but also to pay a fine for failing to comply with the law. Their motivation to do this – and to ignore the prospect of being insured and the many subsidies available for people with low incomes to buy coverage – will be their intense commitment to Tea Party principles.

The handful of complete knuckleheads who actually follow the lead of people – insured ones, mind you – like Dick Armey and Rush Limbaugh are so deeply misguided that it is only a matter of time before they die (uninsured) from touching a downed power line or when their inebriated friend Scooter mistakes them for a trophy buck and opens fire.

A few things for today:

1. The soundest advice I give to students is: Never buy cheap toilet paper.
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The cost of failure is high; spend the extra dollar. The second most important thing I can impart is what I like to call the R.
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Kelly Principle: If you're going to commit a felony, don't make a video of yourself doing it. Or take pictures. Or make an audio recording. Or leave a lengthy paper trail. Basically, don't create mountains of damning evidence that will be used against you.

If only the former Indiana education commissioner Tony Bennett and his staff had taken my classes they might have known better than to write dozens of baldly incriminating emails about rigging their bullshit-reeking school "grading system" to help out a big money Republican donor (and noted charter school pimp/profiteer) whose school had earned a lousy grade. At the very least they might have learned not to do it on government email accounts, for christ's sake.

2. Here's a good spleen-venting rant about how the modern GOP lacks the intellectual consistency required to have their style qualify as paranoid.

3. Ask any cop or lawyer you know who has experience with criminal cases – "Some black guys did it" is a remarkably common statement from people trying to avoid suspicion during investigations. And it probably works pretty often, too. Fortunately in this case, which involved the murder of a child, the physical evidence was examined thoroughly. Race baiting is telling people that they can't commit crimes and blame it on "black kids."

4. Does it ever seem like the only problems successfully solved by the tecnho-wizardry of the Creative Class – Silicon Valley types and the venture capitalists who fuel them – are the "problems" of being a multimillionaire 30-something Silicon Valley/Venture Capitalist type? As George Packer put it, "It suddenly occurred to me that the hottest tech start-ups are solving all the problems of being twenty years old, with cash on hand, because that’s who thinks them up." What a wonderful world they're creating!

For themselves.

Sorry to do this on a weekday – not to mention on consecutive days – but I'm doing some traveling and both time and energy are currently at a premium.

1. Indiana's imbecile man-child governor Mike Pence came up with a very creative way to make "Obamacare" look all scary: he had his staff make shit up. More accurately, he had them make a conceptually ludicrous average of the average cost of all available health care exchange options irrespective of the fact that the lowest-cost options are far and away more popular. How does math work? When Forbes is calling bullshit, you've probably gone too far. Nice try though. Very subtle.

2. John Hodgman offers some choice excerpts from back when Ayn Rand had a column for…Parade??? How did I not know that was a thing?
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Does anyone remember this? Readers really get to see her human side:

Short column today. Once again, I have cut my finger trying to open a can of Fresca. What are they, made of Rearden Metal? I am joking, because I am not joyless.
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What is your favorite joke, readers?
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Write me and let me know.

Am I getting trolled? Is this real?

3. Lawyers, Guns, and Money examines the problems created by the stranglehold that two schools – Harvard and Yale – have on legal education in the U.S. and the legal/judicial system in general. Even though I work in an academic field where the same elitist dynamics apply, I found these numbers about law schools shocking.
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4. What's this…original reporting from BuzzFeed? It turns out that foreign governments looking for the support of the American defense complex have found that the ol' payola system works remarkably well on right-wing bloggers. Does the name Armstrong Williams ring a bell for those of us with the misfortune to recall the Bush years?

5. You've probably seen this by now, but McDonald's inadvertently admits that no one can live off of minimum wage in the U.S. without having a second job. By offering a budgeting tool for employees, Mickey D's has show its employees just how screwed they are. But, you know…work hard and save and Horatio Alger and Freedom and a bunch of other nonsense. America!