Category — reviews

Most books that I really enjoy reading affect me in two ways:

1. Keep me up late night — can’t put ‘em down
2. Fire up a web of ideas that my brain spins off of the main narrative

The Conservative Nanny State: How the Wealthy Use the Government to Stay Rich and Get Richer by Dean Baker fits the “perfect reading bill” nicely with the added bonus that the book is FREE.

Baker’s work, much like Lakoff’s don’t think of an elephant goes to great pains to show how progressives are doomed to lose on the national political scene because they do not take the time to properly frame their arguments. Baker shows time and again how supporters of the “conservative nanny state” use big government to keep money flowing from those with less income to those with greater income.

For those on the conservative side: Yes, Baker has an agenda. Yes, Baker supports ideas that mostly support the ideals of progressives. But yet, Baker uses market-based examples to show how the conservative nanny state creates artificial markets that allow the rich to grow richer. The books greatest success is not just highlighting the many ways in which conservatives rig the game thanks to big governemnt; rather, it is illustrating very clearly how progressives can use markets to increase prosperity for all Americans, not just those already at the top.

I held off reading this book for three months because I was too cheap to print the free download out. Sigh. Three months of waiting on a great book because I didn’t want to spend $3 in printer ink. Much like Common Sense, I hope the rapid distribution of The Conservative Nanny State helps bring about a new discussion on the role of government in our lives.

Marijuana and hot dogs.
The Q smelled like marijuana and hot dogs as Roger Waters led a sell out crowd through “Dark Side of the Moon” Wednesday night in Cleveland.

Unlike his 1999 tour, tonight rocked.

Highlights: “Set the controls for the heart of the sun” “Sheep” all of Dark Side, “Another Brick in the Wall, Part II”

Dark Side is very enjoyable live — the only thing that would have made this show better would have been hearing “Echoes,” the song that lulled me to sleep every night of my first year in college.

Great sound, strong visuals and only a few minutes of 80s cheese. Good stuff.

Roger Waters - The Dark Side of the Moon Live (2006)

don’t think of an elephant!
Know your values and frame the debate by George Lakoff

A blazingly quick read on how progressives (they used to be called liberals until right-wingers made “liberal” seem a dirty word) are being out foxed through the conservative movement’s mastery of language and thought.

Lakoff’s strict father (Right wing) / caring family (Progressive) dichotomy rings true as he paints the emotional base for the Right’s arguments — a base that has reversed the direction of this country in a mere 40 years.

He points out progressives’ conceptual gaps, such as on taxation. The right owns current mainstream thought on tax cuts. They aren’t cuts, they are tax relief. As Lakoff imagines, progressives need to enshrine a different view on taxes, such as:

Perhaps Bill Gates Sr. said it best. In arguing to keep the inheritance tax, he pointed out that he and Bill Jr. did not invent the Internet. They just used it — to make billions. There is no such thing as a self-made man. Every businessman has used the vast American infrastructure, which the taxpayers paid for, to make his money. He did not make his money alone. He used taxpayer infrastructure.

More on Lakoff: Wikipedia | web site (hasn’t been updated in a while) | Some of his work

Finally: For progressives to succeed in taking back this country, we need to stay true to our values and communicate them effectively. To accomplish this mission, we need to be aware of the traps that have often tripped up progressives in the past.

I’m impressed by the Wind Blows viral video contest but not surprised by the lack of feedback.

The idea of the contest — submit a video showing why wind power is good — had a chance of generating buzz because it has a passionate audience of environmental-friendly types who are plugged in (That is, they might know someone with a camcorder).

The site, by Invoke Media is well done, with features like a slick flash video player that follows you as you scroll down the page.

Several of the videos are watchable, if only because they are so cheesy.

However, even with the $10,000 booty, the site only has 11 entries. And the leading entry has a whopping 213 votes.

Yikes! That’s a lot of cash for such a small turn-out.

Time for me to cut a quick video about the sweetness that is wind power.

More on Adrants

As Lost Remote points out, TV Guide has a new web site that is not only video-heavy, but attempts to point to online video listings.

Check it out, on the right-side of the homepage.

It’s a simple idea that makes TV Guide relevant to users who would never use it otherwise. Smart.

Now, if they were really on the ball, they would daypart and feature “TV” during prime-time and “Online Video” during the workday, or iPrime. They could also rotate their main video offering more often — the Anne Heche “Men in Trees: Preview” has been the main feature for more than 12 hours.

Just got back from Muse electrifying’s concert at the Agora in Cleveland.

Standard set list for this concert (Update: Exo Politics and longer Assassin were new for Muse at Cleveland show) — but it fucking kicked ass.

Opened with Knights of Cydonia (Watch the perfectly cheesy video below) — closed with Stockolm Syndrome. Loved it. Good moshing. Good times.

NASA decided to go old-school, New Wave of Grecian Heavy Metal by naming their new spacecraft Orion after the instrumental on Metallica’s epic Master of Puppets.

Now, air-guitar along with me: Chunk, chuck, chunk-chunk Chunk. Chunk, Chunk Chunk Chunk. Chunk, chunk-chunk Chunk. Chunk.
Does this new name mark the return of the balls-to-the-wall, thrash metal NASA of the 60s? Or will NASA continue to be the therapy-coddled rehab patient of the 90s and 00s that just rehashes the same show launch after launch with nothing much to show?

Let’s hope NASA returns to being a master of spaceflight – no longer a puppet of budget cuts and unfounded presidential decrees. You know, the NASA every high school boy dreamed about being a part of, before all the “Behind the Rocket” specials on cable TV, the fights to keep other countries from stealing NASA technology without even paying for it and the dreaded Lollapalooza implosion of 1996. (Whoops – make that the Challenger explosion of 1986. What the hell am I writing about? Metallica?)

Master of Puppets was released in 1986, a pivotal year for both Metallica and NASA. The album was Metallica’s apogee and the tragic, deadly end of their tour in support of the record began the band’s slide back down to mere mortality.

1986 was a low point for NASA, and not only because the agency lost an entire crew when the Challenger blew up during lunchtime. Rather, the fact that NASA was sending a teacher into space as a publicity stunt said a little bit more about the pitful state of America’s space mission. Truth laid bare, there was no longer a scientific reason for NASA to exist.

Truthfully, the Orion is another Federal boondoggle that keeps engineers and scientists working in towns like Cleveland. Working, instead of being unemployed like most everyone else who used to build shiny metal craft that went fast. As sources will point out, spacecraft for people don’t help us explore the universe.

Another fun fact about our shiny new speed demon: According to greek mythology, Orion died being stung by a Scorpion. Watch out for a flying hunk of German power metal, brave Orion!

Thanks to the great font site dafont.com for the assist.

Yes, it’s true — you can get Cox on demand any time you’d like in Lakewood, Ohio. And Cox Digital Cable service now offers it, too!

With a surprise that made my day, when I booted up our brand new, yet out-of-date Explorer 8000 DVR Wednesday night, we were greeted by a warm, blue ad to watch Failure to Launch on demand.

No thanks, Cox, but I did sample your on demand offering, and here’s what I found:

• An interface that feels similar to Replay TV’s — bold background color, vertical list of choices on the left, advertisement / large logo treatment on the right
• Interface is different from Comcast On Demand, but offering is similar
  The layout is different — with one main column to choose from versus Comcast’s two columns. But, the on Demand choices are similar — the videos on the Music Choice channel are the same, for example
• Slower to respond than Comcast, but less prone to crash.
  The few Comcast on demand boxes I’ve tried all hang or exit out to the channel guide when you attempt to scroll through a menu too quickly, or if you press “back” immediately after making a selection. In 10 minutes of trying my best, I was unable to “crash” the Cox on demand. It takes longer to scroll through the choices, though

Why am I making a big deal out of this? Because on demand came from out of the blue — there’s no listing for on demand on Cox’s Cleveland-area page and no one at the Parma office knew about on demand when I got digital cable August 5.

In Field Notes from a Catastrophe, Elizabeth Kolbert connects the dots on global warming and outlines the latest thoughts on the current state of Earth.

It’s a frighteningly good read.

The breadth of Kolbert’s work plainly points to the rapid approach of the end of human civilization thanks to unchecked pollution.

Climatologists speak of “DAI” or Dangerous Anthropogenic Interference, that is “climate change dramatic enough to destroy entire ecosystems, for instance, or cause mass extinction or disrupt the world’s food supply.”

Evidence is mounting that climate change may have destroyed early civilizations thanks to drought and reliance on too few crops.

Reading Kolbert, it’s easy to see that DAI is underway in some, and possibly many ways. But what can be done?

On a personal level, what steps can I or any other individual take to help more than I hurt? My existence is littered with half-hearted attempts to follow through on my latest passion: Exercise, blogs with a purpose, playing an instrument, watching less TV.

Shall I add “giving a shit about the environment” to my list of personal failures? I might be doing that right now, as I type this out on one of two personal computers currently running in my air conditioned, poorly insulated house.

Or can people of conscience do more than exchange pathetic incandescent lights with compact fluorescent bulbs? Can driving less and using less begin to slow the deadly effects of climate change that are underway?

As is the case with civilization, only group action will matter enough to save humans. As Kolbert ends her work:

It may seem impossible to imagine that a technologically advanced society could choose, in essence, to destroy itself, but that is what we are now in the process of doing.

Sadly, our government is unable to take responsibility for finding a solution. We need a more educated voter — one who will read the writing on the wall and only accept sustainable governance.

I’d like to take this opportunity to tell you about a bridge that I have for sale.

OK, kids, time to get scared
“The planet is already nearly as warm as it has been at any point in the last 420,000 years.” And since humans are about 250,000 years old … it’s about to be hotter than we’ve ever experienced as a species.

The last time it was this hot, “crocodiles roamed Colorado and sea levels were nearly three hundred feet higher than they are today.”

Temperatures globally will rise 4.9 to 7.7 degrees Fahrenheit sometime this century. During the height of the last period of glaciers, “average global temperatures were only about ten degrees colder than they are today.” We’re pushing the Earth’s temperature swing harder and harder — who knows when our children will be thrown off.

A carbon tax of $100 per ton might raise an American’s electric bill by $180 per year — or $15 per month, 50 cents per day. I can hear Sally Struthers already: “Save a dying planet for only 50 cents a day.”

It may also be interesting to note that this book’s publisher, at least according to its PR people, is concerned about environmental impacts. Concerned enough to spend a little more on emission controls for a factory in Brazil.

Do the math
EPA’s Personal Greenhouse Gas Calculator.

My family is above average — pumping out 75,000 pounds of carbon dioxide per year. The norm? 60,000 pounds.

The newly redesigned Slate feels like a cheap blog according to one reader.

It’s obvious that Slate is trying to get some of that “blogs are the new cool” smell on it by taking many style cues from snarky, pop-culture obsessed blogs.

I love that the redesign is “Presented by Nissan” Great idea to get a buck or two. As for the design, I like it for some of the reasons that avid Slate readers hate it. It feels like a warm, often updated blog of interest. That being said, I haven’t had a reason to visit Slate in years, and I doubt they’re doing the smart thing by ticking off regular customers.