Link Dump - 20 August 2011

Crime:

✭

"But I wore my juice"

People tend to overestimate their own intelligence. Funny story at the beginning of the article.

Great article on Wired about Stuxnet

There are other articles out there that are better on one aspect of it, but this is by far the best overview of the spread and damage done by the Stuxnet worm.

✭

Manning-Lamo Chat Logs Revealed | Threat Level | Wired.com

Gives some great perspective on how the Wikileaks Afghan War Logs got leaked. Also, nice to read the unedited logs to get the whole perspective (although it takes some skipping around).

✭

Anthrax killer still unknown?

FBI mucks up the case yet again.

More here

✭

Lee Zurik is lazy

So sez Aaron Bennet

Miami Scandal - Original Yahoo Sports column

Original article. Well worth a read. Great investigative journalism.

Church child protection chief caught with 4,000 child porn pictures - mirror.co.uk

Mubarak in hospital bed, but still on trial

In Mussolini's Italy, people surrendered their civil rights 'so they train could run on time'

Economics:

✭

How does Germany keep youth unemployment down?

Answer: get some practical experience. In the US for engineers, the Senior Project is looked at very closely by employers.

✭

China vs. Korea: Battle of the Shipbuilders

China seeks to displace Korea as the king of the shipbuilders. Korea will start concentrating on higher-value ships (LNG tankers, for example) as China's government pumps money into the shipbuilding industry to build capacity.

✭

Illegal Immigrants from Mexico drop to a trickle?

Note the article focuses only on Mexican immigrants (not other Latin American countries). Economic progress and less corruption keeps Mexico's best and brightest home.

✭

Sandeep Gautam's answer to Managerial track or Technical track - how should students make this career choice? - Quora

Discussion of choosing between technical track and managerial track positions. I don't necessarily agree with everything that's presented in the article, but the comments at the end are also good.

✭

Small measures to reign in executive pay prove worth

✭

The Price of Life

✭

Broken Lotteries | Wired Science | Wired.com

Downgrade saves US taxpayer $10 Billion dollars

✭

As Newsrooms Shrink, PR fills the gap

Shocking article. Also mentions the USCG/MMS hearings in New Orleans.

Energy

✭

Natural Nuclear Reactors hold the key to nuclear waste storage?

Also check out the 'Chats with nuclear dad' on the Georneys blog. A PhD candidate in geology interviews her nuclear engineer dad on Fukushima and other nuclear topics.

✭

10 most dangerous moments in ISS/Shuttle history

Lots of the early missions are still classified (NRO/NSA satellite launches, mostly) and there were some incidents that were never widely known.

✭

Young Men and Fire

The Practical Pyromaniac, reviewed by Adam Savage

✭

Retrain Shuttle workers to inspect Offshore?

Not as crazy an idea as it soundsh

✭

Oil Industry Executives Pay themselves well, fire their subordinates and don't even try to make more oil

Note that many major oil companies have negative reserve replacement ratios and don't even have a plan to reverse that trend; they'd rather live high on the hog on booked reserves. If you look at oil patch history, on the long run, it's cheaper to find and book barrels today rather than wait until tomorrow....

✭

Squirrels changing trees: Republican edition

MMS tuns to BOEMRE. Now it's BOEM, OESS, and ONRR.

Too Much Safety Could Make Drivers Less Safe | Autopia | Wired.com

If I ever become dictator, everyone will drive stickshifts. It will stop distracted driving, lower energy consumption (and hence oil prices), and be safer.

Bomb found on Natural Gas Pipeline

Chesapeake Padding Reserves?

The truth about the "Obama/Soros/Petrobras deal"

From the Houston Chronicle, with hilarious appeal to 'stop sending us those crazy emails'

War:

A Littoral Mess

A history of the Littoral Combat Ship

Khadafi as the lynchpin of Middle Eastern Secret Polices?

✭

Soldier's view of having to shoot on your own country's civilians

Syrian soldier's view on being ordered to shoot at his neighbors.

✭

Pakistan let China see crashed US "stealth" copter

Information Dissemination: China Exporting Submarines For Pakistans Nuclear Triad

Politics:

Freshman Republicans hate pork... Except for their own district

✭

For lesson in shared sacrifice, send Congress to boot camp - CNN.com

Lt. General Russel Honoré thinks Congress should be sent to boot camp: "Put them in tents with no air conditioning, have Army drill sergeants teach them teamwork and physical sacrifice. When they recognize their responsibility to the people of America, they can return to D.C."

Obama's Book Club - The Daily Beast

List of books read by Obama over the past ~2 years.

No laws, no welfare, no building codes, no minimum wage, and lots of guns

"Journalists"

With the death of Walter Cronkite, what is left of journalism? Lots of today's journalists grew up idolizing Cronkite, Woodward and Bernstein, but more of today's journalists look like Joseph Alsop than Cronkite.

A few supporting points to ponder:

Rupert Murdoch caught illegally hacking thousands of databases. Massive settlements being thrown around to hush things up.

Deadspin: The Real Reason You Should Hate The Media (And That Includes Us). From my experience, 27 percent of the people who work in media (and I'm using the Mediaite definition of media, which is pretty much "anyone who gets paid for typing, talking or figuring out how to fire people who type or talk") are journalists in the truest sense, out to enlighten the public for common good, altruistic believers in the fourth estate and its power to invoke change [NOTE- And I salute that valiant 27%.]. The other 73 percent are pretending to be that 27 percent and really just trying to promote their own personal brand. In the past, this has always been an inside joke, something for media folk to snicker about in private. Mediaite breaks with the pretense and just states what everyone already knew: This is really what it's all about. Check out "Power Grid" (a farce of a name if ever there was) for more vomit-worthy moments.

Dan Froomkin hired by Satan's Botoxed Handmaiden {H/T Kevin for the nickname}. Hired with MONEY?!?! Hmm... Bigger picture is Froomkin's real transgression in the eyes of the media: Indeed, nothing eliminates the possibility of establishment journalist jobs more quickly or decisively than criticizing the establishment media as being too sycophantic to political power, manipulated by the Right, and, in general, slothfully devoted to doing nothing other than uncritically repeating what "both sides" say . In the early 20th Century, the New York Times used to "balance" their reporting about lynchings with crimes that black people committed before the lynching.

Speaking of Satan's Handmaiden: FOX Business Vs. CNBC: Who's Hotter? (SLIDESHOW) FUCK YOU, ARIANNA!

And then, of course, there's the infamous Washington Post is a $2 whore scandal (and don't forget The Atlantic, too). The story was broken by Politico. Most painful detail for Washington Post: they got found out because a lobbyist thought it was too blatant. 'Journalists: less of a conscience than soulless lobbyists.'

So, how to fix it? Three ideas here:

1.) Adopt the Russian Business model.

2.) Close the Journalism Schools. Journalism is not a profession like engineering, medicine or even law. You can pick up most media skills on the job, or with a few hours of instruction. If you screw up, nobody dies, and nothing collapses. This is why so many — perhaps most — journalism pros have built successful careers without touching J-school, and why many of them considered a J-degree a dubious credential even in the field's heyday.

3.) Support good writing and beat bad journalists over the head with a lead pipe when they go out in public.

Cleaning up the Post-Mardi Gras Mess Part 2 of 2

The bigger part of the mess we now have to clean up is our most intractable opponent: crime.

In case you're living under a rock, there were multiple shootings yesterday. At least 5 by my count.

My twitter feed was clogged today with people who went back to work and were asked by coworkers, sometimes on the other side of the world, "so, you get shot yesterday?" The entire world read about the shootings. We're keeping "the brand out there" all across the globe. Well, I picked up today's Picayune and look:

The only mention of the shootings is a very brief note at the bottom to refer to the Metro section. I understand it was a busy news day, but come on. You're not the only source of news in the world. People are going to find out about it. It was one of the top stories on WWL. Here's Warren Riley's comments on a WDSU video. WDSU could have also done a better job holding the Chief's feet to the fire. Here's a Stormfront Nola.com puff piece about Warren Riley leading the shutdown of Bourbon Street. Great job, "journalists."

When news organizations downplay the shootings to avoid "hurting the recovery" the only person that benefits is our idiot police chief. The Times-Picayune really outdid themselves today by completely burying the abduction and rape outside Gibson Hall at Tulane. I can't find any mention of the incident in the dead tree edition.

Warren Riley continues to tear Pennington's "model police force" to shreds, but the good news is that NOPD quickly apprehended two suspects (one of which was actually wearing an ankle-bracelet monitoring device!). There are still good cops working hard out there and I salute their valiant efforts. I hope, for the sake of those police, that Warren Riley is removed before he recreates one particular piece of the pre-Pennington force: Antoinette Frank (a cop that murders other cops). The bad news is that someone had the audacity to try something like this. There's always a fair amount of crime around Mardi Gras, but it's rarely close to the parade routes. There's usually too many police/criminals don't feel the need (not sure which) to shoot at the parade routes. The St. Charles Ave. shooting sets a horrible precedent, though. Parade crowds are packed so tightly that even the worst gunman in the world can't help but hitting someone. That's part of the reason concealed carry is specifically prohibited along parade routes. There are so many people that a shooting is almost 100% guaranteed to result in innocent casualties.

We're extremely fortunate that nobody was killed in this incident, but that was purely luck. Next time we might not be so fortunate. Be sure to read how parents were throwing their children over fences to keep them out of the chaos in the first article.

So, now what? We're a poor city with a history of injustice, but there are plenty of places in the world that fit that description that don't have NEARLY the problem with crime, specifically murder, we do. I'm going to propose that our criminals have a very low respect for human life and specifically are very low on Kohlberg's stages of moral development. The best outcome now is to make an example of the suspects, should they be convicted. Charging them with 7 counts of first degree murder is a good start, but we need to try them in a timely manner. The alleged shooters need a competent defense and the DA's office needs to do their job within the rule of law. Justice must be served swiftly.

NOTE- Some edits. See comments.

UPDATE- Make that 6 shootings on Mardi Gras.

Can't Sleep. Clowns will eat me.

Up real early this morning (partly because of this), so I'll post a few links.

Wonkette reports on Draft Stormy movement. "VITTER MUST BE DESTROYED!" Related: David Vitter is a jackass (Iced Coffee and a Bagel).

The Politics of Health Reform. Fascinating to get an outside perspective. A sample from the BBC:


Map of New Orleans political donations. Fascinating to click through for a while. I find it especially interesting that a lot of the old St. Charles Ave./Pickwickian-types mainly donated to Fred Thompson and Rudy Giuliani. Now there's money well spent!

Stimulus Battle in Perspective: Of course, the last time we saw a vote like this one was probably the 1993 vote on Clinton's first budget -- every single Republican in the chamber voted against it, hoping to prove, once and for all, that they were right about economics and Democrats were wrong. If memory serves, that budget was the first step towards the longest economic expansion on record, the creation of 22 million jobs, and the total elimination of the federal budget deficit. Related: For Republicans, there wasn't much downside to voting no.

More extensions to housing aid in Louisiana? Those overly generous subsidies to landlords is part of what's keeping market rates up. You remove those payments, the market will fall (it already has fallen from it's post-Katrina highs). Probably won't return to pre-Katrina rents, but that's unreasonable to expect.

Gulfport Mayor indicted for Katrina fraud.

Taibbi + Blago. Need I say more?

Roger Clemens has always been batshit insane. Deadspin clarifies the level of insanity: "Then Donahue would rub the hottest possible liniment on his testicles. “He’d start snorting like a bull,” the trainer said. “That’s when he was ready to pitch.” "

State Farm completely pulling out of property insurance in Florida.

Here's a few companies that have never had mass layoffs. I can thing of a few to add to the list, too (Honda, for one).

When it comes to Israel, to revive or dump the two-state solution?

Bill Gates talks about education, especially high school, and what constitutes a successful school. Two most interesting points: a kid is better off with a good teacher in a "bad" school than he is with a bad teacher in a "good" school. Also, in extremely poor areas, the schools with the longest schooldays tend to do the best.

Sad to see Cerasoli go. Oyster rounds up the reacts. One little tidbit: “People were telling me he [Nagin] was saying they would regret getting the office up and running 10 years from now.

Old media, don't piss off new media. Remember that the "Symbiotic relationship between new and old media" isn't a one way street... Also, McCain-endorser's Pedo son gets out of jail early with barely a peep from local media.

So, after closing Our Lady of Good Cousel, et. al.*, the Nazi Pope decides to embrace a Holocaust-denier and a cleric who said Katrina was God's punishment for being too kind to the gays.

Want to see Scott Cowen foam at the mouth? Mention the letters AAUP and stand back.

And for your amusement:

The Thing, remade with G.I. Joe's.

*BTW- Great comic 2 weeks ago Greg. Can't link to your comic, though, because the archives are down.

Blogspotting NOLA - 18 Jan 09

First Draft: Compare and Contrast Joe the Plumber with a Shri Lankan journalist who gave his life covering the story. More here.

WCBF: Jindal screwing New Orleans on stimulus projects? Also, Who wants Charity demolished (the Characters behind LSU/VA)? The usual suspects include Ed Blakely and the list gets less illustrious from there.

BONOB: "What Some Say" WDSU gets caught pulling a Fox News. It's also clear that WDSU is Nagin's preferred local news source. Also, don't forget to read the Cerasoli outtakes.

YRHT: Oyster is atwitter awaiting the Crime Camera report. Also, some major power plays between the White House and the Corps of Engineers.

News and Notes - 22 November 2008

Watch them Squirm: Fox News abandons the mob it created. Along the same lines, check out their eviseration of the new South Park.

Pirates vs. Ninjas, NOLA-edition:


In local political news, did a crooked deal out Cazayoux?

Plummeting oil prices turn state surpluses into deficits. Remember the Stelly Tax Plan-Cuts? Well, they're back to haunt us, like the Times-Picayune warned.

Local judicial corruption exposed...in clerks suicide notes.

How bad is the economy getting? Over 100 applicants to a 7-Eleven job. Wait until after seasonal retail employment boom ends. It's not just the US anymore: Japanese elderly steal to make ends meet. A preview of what happens if we can't patch up Social Security? Also, what might economic collapse look like? The Boston Globe asks. Expect 4 areas to be hit the hardest: housing, education (which would normally boom during a normal recession), healthcare, and childcare.

Krugman describes how between now and January 20th could be the most dangerous time of the economic crisis.

China passes Japan as largest holder of US Treasuries. This will have a big effect on US foreign policy over the next 20 years.

Michigan police chief admits speeding tickets about revenue enhancement, not safety. Nice to see someone finally admit it. We'll see a rise in speeding tickets as municipalities take hits in property tax revenues.

Satirical edition of The New York Times. Don't miss the hilarious Tom Friedman spoof.

Gary Brecher writes the Bush Administration's obituary: Bush fought the wars and the wars won.

As newspapers make cuts, new watchdogs emerge. Fascinating look at a new model for civic involvement. Anyone have any opinions on Voice of San Diego? What does it say when the most thouroughly fact-checked news organ is Sports Illustrated? Don't miss Nate Silver's John Zeigler interview and Did Talk Radio Kill Conservatism?

Tennessee cutting $40 million in college spending while spending $10 million on an obsolete anti-filesharing system. Trying to stop college students from running Limewire more important than hiring 100 college professors is the height of stupidity. Way to go, Tennessee!

Mark Cuban got nailed on insider trading, but was it insider trading or political persecution? For reference, Martha Stewart was nailed less than 2 years after her misdeeds. Cuban was nailed 4 years after his alleged misdeeds. Is that even still within the statute of limitations? You only have to keep your tax documents for 3 years.

Debunking myths and truths about recycling.

And now, the happy thought of the day: imagine hundreds of these off the Louisiana coast.

New Issue of the New Orleans Levee

The Levee lives up to its repuation and doesn't hold anything back this month.

My favorite article:
Nasty Tulane Frat Missed By Many.

Rising Tide 3: Journalism Panel

Cartoon broadcast on SNL in 1998. It was broadcast on the east coast, but never appeared on the West Coast broadcast.

The conversation is revolving around Jeffery's homework list. Can't really summarize the conversation. I'll add updates as I can. The video was mentioned in the conversation, so I'll post it to help people find it.

UPDATE- Nagin and "sex appeal" should never be used in the same sentence ever again.

Lee Zurik made a great point that much of NOAH's attention came as a result of Nagin's press conference and antics. He got 10 or so emails after the initial report. He got 300+ emails after Nagin's press conference where he was accused of "hurting the recovery." Who is responsible for loving sexy news, like the "Inside, Nagin's a Hero, Outside He's a Joke", but ignoring the education situation in New Orleans. Is is the responsibility of the journalists or the public?

UPDATE 2-

"I READ THE BLOGS AND I WANT TO SAY MY EYEBROWS ARE REAL."

Oh yeah, and Zurik is saying Saints will win 9 games this year.

UPDATE 3- Great tag line: "Nola.com comments: where you go when you're too racist for talk radio."

Whack-A-Journalist

The current season of The Wire is all about the press' abdication of reposibility to society. Well, here are a couple examples that have been a pebble in my shoe:

Journalists are drooling morons when it comes to science stories. I'll bet there aren't 2 writers and NO editor on any newspaper staff in the country that can explain ANY of the 3 following terms: the Scientific Method, the Second Law of Thermodynamics, a Gaussian distribution.

Here are some journalists showing some balls. Oops. Sorry. 60 Minutes chickened out at the last minute.

This one I hesitate to even mention, because even bad journalists aren't this bad. Don't betray your heritage by voting for Barak "Muslim Fundamentalist" Obama Someone actually published this bullshit. They later retracted it, but the damage was done. I have a suggestion for Obama: finance the rest of your campaign with winnings from libel lawsuits. There are dumb people with so much money lying around it's a fire hazard. Do them a favor and take some of it off their hands.

Bad Journalist!

You write poop, you deserve a mouthful of it!

Tom Friedman is dead to me

Obama/Cheney '08?

That's it. I'm sick and tired of putting up for this schmuck. I've defended him way too long. I've been a huge fan of his since "From Beiruit to Jeruselum" and have tolerated his delusions and bullshit for a while. I thought his earlier genius and economic insights would reemerge, but I've now come to the conclusion that he's lobotomized himself.

I remember reading that he was one of the highest paid journalists in the biz. To think that the Mainstream media pays him to live in a palace, while much better writers like Taibbi and Dave Zirin struggle to get their work out there.

Please, NY Times! Put him back behind the pay wall so nobody will read this junk anymore!

I'll let 23/6 handle the rest for me...

Good Journalism

Most mainstream journalists either can't or won't do their job. There are a few decent journalists, like Brian Williams and Garland Robinette, but he's overwhelmed by an army of Katie Couric's, Sean Hannity's, and Rob Couhig's.

If you know where to look, though, you can still find great journalism. There are certain traits that they all hold to: very smart, very direct, and all know the powerful effect of humor. I'm going to label this the "Wise Guy" school of journalism. Here's my list of Wise Guys:

Michael Lewis. He's the first one to really break into the mainstream with Liar's Poker and Moneyball.

The eXile. A magazine founded by Mark Ames and Matt Taaibi (see below) for expats in Russia. Never had to worry about libel, so they had complete and total freedom. While Taibbi moved on, the eXile still turns out a quality product. Scathing and real.

Matt Taibbi. Nobody represents the "Wise Guys" more than Taibbi. A literary decendant of the Gonzo journalism movement, he fashions himself as a modern day H. L. Mencken.

Dave Zirin / Will Leitch/Deadspin. I'd heard of Zirin before Rising Tide, so he's not just on the list for that. I also suppose I could put the whole Gawker group (Wonkette, etc.) in there as well.

The Beast. The American version of the eXile. They have to watch what they say far more than the eXile because of libel laws, though.

I'm also going to say that Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert are intellectual cousins of the Wise Guys, so I'll include them on the list, too.

There you have it. This is the cream of the crop of modern journalism. One can only hope someone from the networks reads this and gives one of them an anchor chair.