Unqualified Offerings

By Thoreau

In explaining why Detroit must be bailed out yet again, Obama says:

The news coming out of the auto industry this week reminds us of the hardship it faces, hardship that goes far beyond individual auto companies to the countless suppliers, small businesses and communities throughout our nation who depend on a vibrant American auto industry.

The auto industry is the backbone of American manufacturing and a critical part of our attempt to reduce our dependence on foreign oil.

I would like to see the administration do everything it can to accelerate the retooling assistance that Congress has already enacted.

In addition, I have made it a high priority for my transition team to work on additional policy options to help the auto industry adjust, weather the financial crisis, and succeed in producing fuel-efficient cars here in the United States of America.

You know, for all the decades of talk about fuel efficiency, alternative energy, and energy independence, the most fuel efficient personal vehicles on our roads are primarily foreign brands.  So why, pray tell, should bailing out inefficient Detroit automakers be the top priority if our goal is energy efficiency?

By Thoreau

You’d think that I could at least get an ideal election outcome in a parallel universe. But no.

From here.

By Thoreau

First, props to commenter dhex for the post title. Now, a transcript of my latest interaction with a student:

Student: It keeps giving me syntax errors.
Matlab: Error assigning value to array element in line 21: Assigned value is an array, not a single number.
Me: OK, why are you telling it to put an array inside an array?
Student: I’m not. I think there’s something wrong with it.
Me: Well, the value that you’re trying to assign to the array element was generated by a function that you created. And it looks like the function that you created outputs 2 numbers instead of 1. Why is it outputting 2 numbers?
Student: I don’t know.
Me: Did you actually, like, run the function that you wrote? Did you test it before using it?
Student: No.

Maybe I’ll just write “F” on his homework in my class rather than actually, you know, checking it first. I mean, why bother with, like, checking stuff?

UPDATE:  Despite all my complaining about academia, I actually am working on solutions to these problems:  One reason why I fought so hard to use a different book for the honors section is that it comes with some simple programming exercises, exercises that might be feasible with a small group of honors students.  If I want them to be able to do something, I’d better ask them to do it from the start, rather than letting them take Computer Science 101 as freshmen and then not programming again until senior year.  But if I make use of it in every class that I teach, then maybe they’ll see it enough times that it will stick with them.

Or maybe not.  The one thing I know is that if I don’t make an effort to reinforce a lesson I have no right to complain that they can’t do it.

By Thoreau

Barack Obama spent many years as a professor.  Consequently, some of his complaints about the Presidency are fairly predictable:

1)  His assigned office space is some oddly-shaped room in an ancient government building in a neighborhood overrun by tourists.
2)  Secret Service Agents have been at the White House longer than him, and consequently get dibs on the good parking permits.
3)  The Library of Congress doesn’t carry some of the more obscure journals in his field.
4)  They turned down his request for a reduced committee load in his first year.
5)  Even if he gets a research grant, they won’t let him use it to hire an Adjunct President to cover some of his load so he has more time for research.
6)  Firing a federal civil servant secretary is even harder than firing a university secretary, no matter how many times she screws up your travel paperwork.
7)  His big performance and reappointment review is in year 4, whereas the universities give 6 years before the tenure review.
8)  If he doesn’t know the answer at a press conference, he can’t punt and assign the reporters to read up on the issue and find the answer themselves for extra credit.
9)  Would it KILL them to put a Starbucks in the White House?  Well, would it?  All of the campuses have them these days.  Yeah, yeah, old building, fire code issues for kitchens and electrical appliances, plumbing needs upgrades, I know, but still.
10)  House minority whip keeps showing up to ask budget questions outside of office hours.  Geez, can’t he just read the assigned memos listed on the syllabus?

By Thoreau

Via Jesse Walker, I learn that drug-free urine is now being used as currency in prison, since inmates use it to pass drug tests.

There is no stronger indictment of the Drug War:  Men are locked up being barbed wire and guarded 24/7 by government employees with guns, subjected to surveillance, and tested for drugs, and the government still can’t keep them from using drugs!  If there was ever proof of the utter EPIC FAIL of the drug war, this is it.

I’m going to piss off (hah!) my Blue readers by noting that our soon-to-be VP, while not as evil as Cheney (a low standard if ever there was one) is a hawk on the Drug War.  Expect more of this insanity.

BTW, I admit to being a tiny bit skeptical of the drug free urine claim, as there is no source, but even if the use of drug free urine as a prison currency is inaccurate, the widespread use of drugs in prison is well-known, and so the basic indictment of the drug war remains.

By Thoreau

My God, do I love Republicans!  As of 7:59 pm PST on Nov. 4, Sarah Palin and her family were Real Americans from the Real America.  But as soon as the election was done?

Sarah Palin wasn’t aware that Africa was a continent and she and her brood behaved like a band of “Wasilla hillbillies looting Neiman Marcus from coast to coast,” aides to Republican John McCain are telling prominent news organizations.

Ah, “hillbillies.”  Just imagine the response if some coastal professor were to use that phrase.  But it’s all good for Republican operatives.  Yes, the knives are out, and the Republican Civil War War of Elite Aggression has begun.

I don’t actually have anything against people who aren’t from the wealthy coastal states.  Hell, I was born in a place far away from salt water, and I’m still fond of that place and its local customs.  Still, I have always been annoyed when rural whites are held up as the superior manifestation of American culture, better than those in wealthy coastal cities.  So when I hear that Republicans are sniping at each other and trotting out the “hillbilly” rhetorical bombs, well, I just have to laugh at the irony.

I don’t think Sarah Palin is at all representative of people from rural states, but it’s fascinating to me that when Republican operatives went looking for somebody who could appeal to the rural base they went and found what is by all accounts a fairly ignorant and difficult person….even by the standards of professional politicians!  It says something about their attitudes toward rural whites.  My guess is that next time around the Big Money faction of the GOP will return to form and try to campaign against the Eastern Elites by running such authentic populists as George W. Bush (Connecticut born, Yale and Harvard education, Kennebunkport vacation home), John McCain (son and grandson of 4 Star Admirals, husband to an heiress) and Mitt Romney (multi-millionaire, former governor of MA).

James Joyner marvels that

The top entry pages at OTB over the last hour, by a longshot, are Barack Obama the Socialist, Obama the Antichrist?, and Left Behind Authors Say Obama Is Not the Antichrist.  (Also getting a lot of entries, likely through the vagaries of search engine rankings, Primary Popular Vote Totals.)

Apparently, neither John McCain’s gracious concession speech nor Barack Obama’s stirring words about national unity have not yet dispelled all concerns about the president-elect.

I’m not surprised by these results, because the Left Behind authors are wrong, which I can prove with Science!

Consider:

1. Pam Atlas has proven that Barack Obama is the illegitimate "love child" of Malcolm X.

2. Malcolm X was conveniently assassinated in 1965, before he could disclose the truth about Barack "Obama" X’s parentage.

3. Obviously we need to add Malcolm X to the Obama Death List until it can be proved otherwise. Cui Bono? is our guiding principle here.

4. But, you object, Obama was barely three and a half years old when Malcolm X was murdered. What kind of pre-schooler could pull off cold-blooded murder?

5. Obvious answer: Damien, in the first Omen movie.

6. Damien was the Antichrist, people!

7. There’s no arguing with Science!

8. Wake Up America!

By Thoreau

I’ve said more than enough over the past several months about why fear that a certain Senator who voted for a certain wiretap bill will probably fail to do much good as President. But who gives a damn about him, anyway? What about the nearly 64 million Americans who were willing to vote for a guy whose ethnic background would have made him a second-class citizen (both by law and social custom) not so long ago? A certain wiretap bill might not be change that I can believe in, but 64 million Americans voting contrary to the prejudices of the past, many of them constituting voting majorities in places where such an outcome would have once been unthinkable (and no, I’m not just talking about the South, there are more than enough examples of racism in lots of other places as well) is change that we just saw.

As a libertarian, I am skeptical that positive change can come from the state, but optimistic that positive change can come from individuals. 64 million individuals have demonstrated a change in our society, and that is what matters. Original Recipe Thoreau once wrote “The character inherent in the American people has done all that has been accomplished; and it would have done somewhat more, if the government had not sometimes got in its way.” Whatever should come of the Obama Administration, the shattering of a barrier in our society will have positive repercussions that will manifest in ways that go far beyond any sort of federal policy. And I am optimistic that these positive repercussions will accomplish something, even if they accomplish less than they might have accomplished had the Obama administration not sometimes got in its way. (Sorry!)

Yes, there are still racists. Ignorance and bigotry cannot be erased completely, but the influence of these vile things can waxe and wane over time, and clearly it is waning in the present moment. That is a change that I believe in. I don’t believe in any Senator or President, but I believe in the potential for good in the American people.

Some will say that I’m just part of the big hype and honeymoon for Obama, but I don’t really give a damn about him. I’m enough of a cynic to see hope in even a disappointing leader (and I’ve already outlined in many posts the reasons I fear that he’ll disappoint). In an ideal world, of course, change and hope and progress would come from the promotion of the most talented of each race, and all these talented people coming together to sing kumbaya around a campfire. In the real world, the sign of progress will often be that bigotry over ethnicity was no barrier to a disappointing person’s advancement–the double standard is gone! If Obama is a great President, well, great. If he’s just another mediocrity, it just means that he was held to the same standard as so many of his paler predecessors. See, cynics can find hope anywhere!

Finally, what do I think of the 56 million people who voted for McCain? Well, I won’t attribute to malice that which can be explained by really bad ideas about policy. Yes, there’s some malice in that group, but I think there are more than enough people who simply have bad ideas about policy.

By Thoreau

“Sasha and Malia … I love you both more than you can imagine. And you have earned the new puppy that’s coming with us …to the new White House.”

Though he may be the most powerful man on earth, set to assume command of legions deployed in every corner of the globe, a bureaucracy unparalleled in its power and budget, and a set of powers that would cause leaders of earlier eras to drool, right now he’s busy laying down newspaper to keep the puppy from messing up the carpet.

I like that thought.

IOZ on all the little Atlases . . . well, not shrugging exactly:

Anyway, Reynold’s army of John Galts (pray: come, let us snicker together), a gang of pencil-neck Sharper-Image shoppers with dreams of mountain redoubts and rough sex with heiresses, petulantly proclaim that they will . . . well, they do not seem to be proclaiming that they will stop the engine of the world. Rather, they will consider slowing it marginally, like union slugs caging an extra five minutes on every smoke break in order to stick it to Management. The irony. Oh.

Lots more.

Speech over, they play the Springsteen song in which all the firemen die. Awesome!

By Thoreau

It looks like Proposition 5, which would have diverted more drug offenders from prison to rehab, is going to fail. Say what you will about how puny this is in the face of the bigger news tonight, but the Drug War is the path through which the worst tools of the War on Terror will find their way into police precincts and neighborhoods across the country. The Drug War is, at the end of the day, still my #1 political concern, even if I don’t blog about it much.  It is just an unforgivable cauldron of insanity, corruption, violence, profound ignorance of the lessons of history and economics, horrendous foreign policy, and social decay.

The horse race is over. It’s too soon to make accurate predictions about Obama’s administration. Perhaps this is a good time to refocus my political blogging on the drug war, because it is an issue of continuing urgency.

Listening to the victory speech: Deliberate Sam Cook allusion FTW.

Mark Levin stays classy at the Corner:

PS - John McCain just gave a classy concession speech.  If McCain had won, we were told of possible riots.

First: Piss off. Second: Yes, by right-wing fearmongers. Third: Nyah nyah nyah! Fourth: Piss off.

The cynical reaction would be, "Here, colored boy. We broke the country. You fix it." But listening to Eugene Robinson’s voice breaking as he talks just a little bit about what the election means to him personally, I don’t feel like being cynical at the moment.

By Special Guest Blogger Muhammed Saeed al-Sahaf, former Information Minister of Iraq

Thank you so much for this blogging invitation, Dr. T. I am pleased to announce that the Urkobold’s forces are being routed even as we speak, their taints destroyed by the most excellent machines of the Evil Fiziks Lair. Those explosions in the background are victory fireworks, and the people you see running around clutching their damaged taints are agents of the Urkobold who attempted to infiltrate our lair disguised as Evil Fiziks types. Pay no attention to their pocket protectors and t-shirts with Maxwell’s equations, for those are merely disguises. They are not physicists, they are agents of Urkobold who have been vanquished by our technologies.

(This concludes Monkey Tuesday humor blogging, so we can get down to the serious business of lampooning the next wearer of the One Ring for 4-8 years.)

If only Roger L. Simon’s promise to move to France weren’t tongue-in-cheek. But Clark Stooksbury offers an alternative:

Isn’t this a missed opportunity? Simon, along with Reynolds, and dozens of other bloggers and pundits supported policies that have turned Iraq into a paradise on Earth. They should move there. I know I would chip into a few dollars to help Simon, Reynolds, the gangs at the Corner and Townhall relocate to Basra or Baghdad.

By Thoreau

I have MSNBC on in the background during my late night session of lab report grading. Why? Because listening to pundits makes even the worst student reports seem articulate by comparison.

Anyway, in the midst of some standard “Obama is a socialist” spiel, Sen. Kit Bond (R-MO) said something about us not having a lot to go on in Obama’s background, or questions about his thin record, or something like that. This is a great dog whistle, because Bond can solemnly insist that Obama simply has less experience than McCain so we can’t make as many predictions about what sorts of decisions Obama will make. Say what you will about that line, but it’s one that he can stick with. Of course, with all the SEKRIT MOOSLIM and ANTIAMERICAN nonsense that’s been flying around, those who want to can read it as “We don’t really know whether this guy is a Trojan Horse for radical ideologies.

Moreover, Bond said something about how we don’t really know who Obama will redistribute that money to.  You can take it as a generic “There’s a lot of details missing from his entitlement proposals” or, if you want, you can read that “We don’t know to whom” as something more nefarious.

Great dog whistle.  I should try this.

“Look, I respect Sen. McCain, but he spent several years in a Communist camp, and we simply don’t know what sort of brainwashing he may have gone through.  Now if he becomes our Commander-in-Chief and has his finger on the button, we simply don’t know what he’ll do or who he’ll do it to.”

By Thoreau

While we ready the Doomsday Device for Operation NOMOREURKOBOLD here in the Evil Fiziks Lair, enjoy some research on monkeys and linguistics.

By Thoreau

Some guy on youtube summarizes campaign advertising. 

By Thoreau

Fear not, loyal Blue Readers.  While I may have been known to go harsh on your candidate, the Hindu Monkey God Hanuman blesses your candidate.  So, on the one hand, you have a cranky blogger talking trash about your candidate.  On the other hand, you have the blessings of Hanuman.  Fear not, my friends.  Aure entuluva!

By Thoreau

We were in the Evil Fiziks Lair, gloating. Having procured copious amounts of grant money by following the advice of the esteemed Drug Monkey, we were in the midst of meeting with a sales representative to discuss the purchase of a monkey gun.

Suddenly, we were attacked by a winged monkey, a creature in the last throes of its evil schemes.

Having successfully neutralized the monkey, we are now in the midst of plotting revenge. This sort of perfidy could only be the work of the Urkobold. Fortunately, having found ways to defeat the diffraction limit in imaging I can launch a missile that will hit the Urkobold’s taint with pin-point accuracy. Operation NOMOREURKOBOLD is on!

By Thoreau

It seems like at least once a year a science journalist announces tantalizing new results from a particle accelerator, results that hint at physics beyond the Standard Model of how particles interact.  These results are always preliminary and in need of confirmation, and there is never a subsequent peer-reviewed paper on the breakthrough.  I’m quite confident on that “never a subsequent peer-reviewed paper on the breakthrough” despite not reading the particle physics literature (I don’t understand their stuff) because if one actually came through it would make the cover of Science and/or Nature and all of the APS publications would be highlighting it.

Which is just my way of saying that you should ignore this.