Balloon Juice

OKC Update

Soonergrunt — Thu, 23 May 2013 15:37:15 +0000

Betty Cracker–I’m sorry to bigfoot you like this, but I’m posting when I get a chance. You can stomp all over me later, ma’am.

From VA Admin office:

For Employees:
• Impacted Employees: We have now accounted for 100% of our employees. Fortunately, as we get additional information the number of impacted employees has reduced.
10 employees have completely lost their homes
27 employees have minor to severe damage to their homes
5 employees have an unknown amount of damage to their homes
1 employee has an immediate family member injured

Also, flash flooding in the area damaged by the tornado and areas south of there is occurring today with the heavy rains we’ve had for the last several hours. My house is in the region, but should be OK. We built the ground up a couple of feet from the regular ground level and then built up from that. The doors are about three feet above the normal level of the ground. All around us is mainly open fields and the runoff abatement canal behind our house is a couple of feet below that.

Again, I and my family are all OK. There are others who are much, much worse off.

UPDATE: http://google.org/crisismap/2013-oklahoma-tornado

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O-Prom-A

Betty Cracker — Thu, 23 May 2013 15:00:02 +0000

Here’s Mr. Obama on his way to the senior prom (Time, via Gawker). Considering that he graduated in the late 70s, the outfits are far less embarrassing than one could have hoped. My husband is only a bit younger than the president, and the suit he wore to the prom once prompted someone who saw his prom photo to laugh and ask if it was a Halloween costume.

On a more serious note, Obama is scheduled to give an address on counterterrorism today:

In his first major speech on counterterrorism of his second term, Mr. Obama hopes to refocus the epic conflict that has defined American priorities since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and even foresees an unspecified day when the so-called war on terror might all but end, according to people briefed on White House plans.

Could the war on a noun really end? The report says Obama will announce new limits on the use of drone strikes and launch a new effort to close Gitmo. I expect the reaction will range from “worse than Bush” to “worse than Neville Chamberlain.”

[X-posted at Rumproast]

Weiner is In

mistermix — Thu, 23 May 2013 12:53:20 +0000

Nobody covered this yesterday, so here’s Anthony Weiner’s announcement video. I might be in the minority but leading immediately with the family was a little creepy–if you have to announce at midnight so the tabloids won’t make a Weiner joke, maybe you shouldn’t use your new baby as a campaign prop. Plus, the whole interaction has a very stilted, nanny’s-day-off feel. The rest is stock campaign ad.

Early Morning Open Thread: Immigration Reform, Maybe

Anne Laurie — Thu, 23 May 2013 08:28:55 +0000

(Tom Toles via GoComics.com)

On the glass-half-full side, Gail Collins, in the NYTimes:

… Mainstream Republicans have been super-energized to do immigration reform ever since the Hispanic vote went against them in the last election. Democracy does work. If somebody came up with a dramatic poll showing that all the people with diabetes, asthma and chronic back problems had voted against Mitt Romney, there would no longer be a problem getting funding for health care reform.
High points in the committee’s long slog toward passage included a proposal from Tea Party icon Mike Lee of Utah to exempt employers of “cooks, waiters, butlers, housekeepers, governesses, maids, valets, baby sitters, janitors, laundresses, furnacemen, caretakers, handymen, gardeners, foot- men, grooms, and chauffeurs of automobiles for family use” from checking to make sure their help had the proper legal status. It didn’t go anywhere, but if you happen to run into Lee, feel free to say: “The butler did it.”
The most painful low point in the committee’s deliberations came at the end, when the Democrats gave up on an amendment allowing same-sex spouses the same right as heterosexuals to apply for permanent resident status for their partners. It’s not every day when you hear a senator announce that he had decided to support a move that involved “rank discrimination.” But the Republicans who were needed to get an immigration bill through the Senate had made it supremely clear that if any hint of gay marriage entered the legislation, they were going to take their toys and go home.
Decide for yourself how you feel about this one, people. Stand up for equality or finally get a major bill through the Senate? Defend equality or cave in and hope that the Supreme Court bails you out when it rules on the Defense of Marriage Act next month? …

Ed Kilgore, at the Washington Monthly, is less sanguine:

… Meanwhile, despite the announcement last Friday that the House Gang of Eight had reached an “agreement in principle” on its own immigration bill, nothing has actually been released, and now it appears a draft provision banning any government assistance for newly legalized immigrants in securing health care could endanger Democratic support, particularly outside the Gang.
So don’t get your hopes up on immigration reform just yet, even if Republican congressional leaders keep insisting it’s the one subject they won’t forget about no matter how central Scandalmania becomes to their overall political message.

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Late Night Open Thread

John Cole — Thu, 23 May 2013 03:54:00 +0000

In a weird bit of serendipity, I woke up this morning with Whole Lotta Love as my earworm, so it was kind of odd to check the front page and see Doug Milhous J using Zep lyrics as titles.

Here is the current earworm:

Was there a better rock vocalist than Freddie Mercury and Chris Cornell in the last thirty years?

Also, latest song in my pet serenade repertoire: Rosie’s Barking, sung to the tune of Janie’s Crying. Was talking to friends and we mentioned how awesome Rosie has become compare to how wretched she was the first year, and she really has become a complete sweetie. There no longer is a #1 dog (Lily) and a #2 dog (Rosie), it’s now more like #1 and #1.50. I still know which one I will put on the life raft with me if I can only fit one.

Wait? What? You don’t run these scenarios through your head? I know the order of everyone I am saving, and some of you just didn’t make the list.

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Open Thread: Stuff You Can Find on the Internet, Reliable & Otherwise

Anne Laurie — Thu, 23 May 2013 02:40:11 +0000

The NYTImes discovers Urban Dictionary in the courtroom:

… Slang has always been a challenge for the courts in cases that involve vulgar or insulting language. Conventional dictionaries lag the spoken word by design. That has lawyers and judges turning to a more fluid source of definitions: Urban Dictionary, a crowdsourced collection of slang words on the Internet.
The online site, created by a college freshman in 1999, has found itself in the thick of cases involving everything from sexual harassment to armed robbery to requests for personalized license plates, as courts look to discern meaning and intent in the modern lexicon…
It can take years for slang terms to be included in traditional dictionaries, whose editors want to be certain that the words have staying power. By contrast, some new words rush into Urban Dictionary in less than a day. As a result, the site has cropped up in dozens of court cases in recent years, according to a Lexis database of federal and state cases, although the outcome rarely rests solely on a definition.
This trend is likely to accelerate, according to Greg Lastowka, a professor of law at Rutgers specializing in Internet and property law. “If it is Urban Dictionary or hire some linguistic expert to do a survey, it seems like a pretty cheap, pretty good alternative for the court,” he said…
Urban Dictionary’s move into the legal arena surprises no one more than Aaron Peckham, its founder, who has continued to run it like a homegrown business. Mr. Peckham, who is 32 and lives in San Francisco, has never taken venture capital money and still runs the entire site from his laptop. For revenue, he contracts with others to put advertising on the site and to make merchandise — like T-shirts and mugs printed with some of the site’s more interesting definitions. He has no paid staff members, though he does contract for help with things like advertising and design….

Andrew Leonard has a long narrative in Salon about “Revenge, Ego, and the Corruption of Wikipedia“:

In the wee hours of the morning of January 27, 2013, a Wikipedia editor named “Qworty” made a series of 14 separate edits to the Wikipedia page for the late writer Barry Hannah, a well-regarded Southern author with a taste for the Gothic and absurd.
Qworty cut paragraphs that included quotes from Hannah’s work. He removed 20 links to interviews, obituaries and reminiscences concerning Hannah. He cut out a list of literary prizes Hannah had won…
Taken all together, the edits strongly suggest a focused attempt to diminish Hannah’s legacy. But why? Who was Qworty and what axe did he have to grind with Hannah?
The answer to this question is on the one hand simple, almost trivial: Qworty turned out to be another author who had a long history of resenting Hannah. The late night Wikipedia edits are certainly not the first time that a writer’s ego has led to mischief. But the story is also important. Wikipedia is one of the jewels in the Internet’s crown, an amazing collective achievement, a mighty stab at realizing an awesome dream: a constantly updated repository for all human knowledge. It is created from the bottom up, a crowd-sourced labor of love by people who require no compensation for their work but also don’t need to jump through any qualifying hoops. Anyone can edit Wikipedia. Just create an account and start messing around!
Qworty’s edits undermine our faith in this great project. Qworty’s edits prove that Wikipedia’s content can be shaped by people settling grudges and acting out of spite and envy. Qworty alone, by his own account, has made 13,000 edits to Wikipedia. And Qworty, as the record will show, is not to be trusted…

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NHL Open Thread

John Cole — Thu, 23 May 2013 00:23:35 +0000

Two shorthanded goals against the Pens in two games. I feel sick.

Go Pens!

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A shady Lane, everybody wants one

Doug Milhous J — Thu, 23 May 2013 00:13:29 +0000

I’m going to keep this one polite, in hopes that I can get the Washington Post’s Charles Lane to reply to my critique. Today, Michael Kinsley replies to Paul Krugman’s critique of Kinsley’s Harvard dining hall contrarianism with a column that, if I’m reading it right, says (a) I am not a sadist, (b) you are a jerk for calling me a sadist, and (c) therefore your anti-austerity ideas are “probably wrong”.

Austerian Charles Lane has been tweeting about this all afternoon, e.g.:

In journalism, or so I was taught as young reporter, you do not speculate on people’s motivations. You call them up and ask for comment (2)
— Charles Lane (@ChuckLane1) May 22, 2013

I have emailed Charles Lane several times, albeit not particularly politely, and unlike most of the national journalists I’ve emailed (rarely politely), he has never replied. I will tweet him to ask for a comment on this.

Charles Lane has consistently written in favor of austerity. This is a position that is primarily staked out by conservatives. He has also written various things that suggest he favors conservative presidential candidates. Here he is comparing Sarah Palin to Sandra Day O’Connor, wondering:

Maybe there’s something about growing up in a challenging, male-dominated physical environment (desert, tundra), in a family where everyone’s expected to get his or her job done (and there’s no time for drama, fuss or introspection), that turns certain girls into very confident women…

And here is his electoral college prediction on the eve of the 2012 election:

It includes NH and WI as “toss-ups”. These are states that Obama won by 6 and 7 points, respectively. Likewise, it includes OR as only “leans Obama” (apparently on the basis of one poll where Romney was close); Obama won OR by 12 points. (EDIT: Also too, CO “leans Romney” for Lane but Obama won by 5.5).

Lane’s pro-austerity, anti-Krugman articles rarely contain any numerical figures, and thus they cannot be judged from a strict quantitative perspective; they typically glorify some ostensibly pro-austerity dead intellectual luminary, like economist James Buchanan or political scientist Mancur Olson, but without numbers or measurement of any kind.

Given the absence of any quantitative evidence in favor of austerity in Lane’s columns, the absence of any comment from Lane on why he supports austerity, and the existence of much evidence that Lane favors conservative politicians, it hardly unfair to conclude that it is possible Lane favors austerity simply because he favors conservative policies more generally.

I suppose the reply, if there is one, will be “I don’t always vote for Republicans!” But what does that prove? Until austerians like Lane do better than (a) eat your spinach or (b) Paul Krugman is a meanie or (c) dead luminary X probably would have liked austerity, I will continue to question their motives for supporting austerity.

But I’ll wait for reply from Lane (I encourage you to contact him via Twitter as well) before reaching any firm conclusions.

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Wednesday Evening Open Thread: Mars Needs Replicators!

Anne Laurie — Wed, 22 May 2013 22:03:59 +0000

Oh, c’mon, you couldn’t resist either. From the Washington Post:

… Yes, it’s another case of life imitating “Star Trek” (remember the food replicator?). In this case, though, the creators hope there is an application beyond deep-space pizza parties. The technology could also be used to feed hungry populations here on Earth.
Texas-based Systems and Materials Research Corp. has been selected for a $125,000 grant from NASA to develop a 3-D printer that will create “nutritious and flavorful” food suitable for astronauts, according to the company’s proposal. Using a “digital recipe,” the printers will combine powders to produce food that has the structure and texture of, well, actual food. Including smell…
Astronauts carry pre-packaged food — not the freeze-dried ice cream for sale in Smithsonian gift shops, but a little like the meals ready to eat, or MREs, consumed by the military. The preparations are short on flavor and heavy on processing, which tends to “degrade the micronutrients in the foods,” Steitz said. There also isn’t much choice or variety, since all combinations of food are pre-determined. That can take on big significance after a year or three cooped up in a small metal capsule…
One of the first goals for SMRC’s printer is the humble pizza. It was chosen because it contains a variety of nutrients and flavors, said David Irvin, director of research at SMRC. More importantly, a pizza is made up of layers, a key principle used in 3-D printing technology. …

Apart from dinner planning (and irking BJ readers not in the Eastern time zone, sorry) what’s on the agenda this evening?

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For a Good Time on the Intertubes — Today!

Tom Levenson — Wed, 22 May 2013 19:53:42 +0000

It’s that time of the month again — the third (usually) Wednesday, when I do my Virtually Speaking Science gig.

This afternoon at 6 p.m. eastern time I’ll be talking again to Naomi Oreskes, historian of science and co-author of Merchants of Doubt,an account of how a small(ish) cadre of cold-war scientists became hired guns for Big Tobacco and the anti-climate change brigade.

Naomi and I spoke in 2011 about the threats posed by the spread of “scientistic” argument — the use of a science-like language, couched in the rhetoric of disinterested skepticism, to obscure critical knowledge for public audiences.

Well, flash forward a year and a half, and we come to an America in which we have experienced years of devastating drought, superstorm Sandy, this week’s tornado, and the breaching of the 400 ppm atmospheric carbon threshold, and it’s time to talk again about the cost of denialism and the misuse of perceived authority by our still-thriving doubt peddlars.

The tornado provides a great touchstone in fact — as Naomi and I have been emailing back and forth on the question. What’s happening is that there is a growing body of increasingly firm research on the impact of climate change on all kinds of circumstances. Changing and possibly deepening patterns of drought are pretty clearly on the table. A boost in the number of severe hurricanes too. Significant ice melt and sea level rise too. But what will happen to tornado patterns as climate change proceeds is still unclear. So what to make of that lacuna?

Here’s my take (not to put any words in Naomi’s mouth): If you are a rational person, you say we need more research on that particular concern, but the broad pattern is clear: human-driven climate change is in progress and it is causing a host of changes that directly conflict with the way we’ve rely on our built environment and on all the things we do (grow cereals in the midwest, e.g.) needed to keep our societies going. And we’ll get back to you on the twisters, asking you to bear this thought in mind: if you are a betting person, how much do you want to wager on the possibility that increasing the amount of heat trapped in the lower atmosphere won’t kick up some extra nasty storms?

We won’t confine ourselves to climate and the weather, by the way. Merchants of Doubt has given me a frame for looking at a lot of news, and I see the same desire to conceal useful knowledge the doubtists serve in the somewhat different technique of simply blocking research that might be used to produce inconvenient truths. See, e.g. the NRA – led ban on research on gun violence and the the recent Republican proposal to forbid the US Census from doing anything but a decennial count, thus eliminating, among other things, our ability to measure unemployment.

So come on down. Listen live or later here. Y’all can head over to the Exploratorium’s Second Life stage as well if you do that virtual world thing.

Image: Pieter Brueghel the Younger, Christ in the Storm on the Sea of Galilee, c. 1596.

You need schooling

Doug Milhous J — Wed, 22 May 2013 18:38:33 +0000

I like to think I know pretty much everything that’s important about the world, but sometimes I find that I don’t. Yesterday I saw the new Big Star documentary and learned two extremely important things of which I was previously unaware: (1) the ’70s Show theme song is a Big Star cover and (2) TGI Friday’s used to be some kind of a crazy bohemian or singles spot (depending on the location, I think). Technically, I didn’t lear the second thing from the movie itself, I learned it from watching the movie, which mentioned TGI Friday’s a cool Memphis hang-out back in the day, and then reading the TGI Friday Wiki entry.

Tell me something important that you recently learned.

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This Makes Me Happy (Afternoon Open Thread)

Betty Cracker — Wed, 22 May 2013 17:45:59 +0000

The astounding guitar chops aside, I particularly admire the 14-year-old’s insouciance. Rock on, little sister. [via Gawker]

Texas, Jake

Tom Levenson — Wed, 22 May 2013 16:50:23 +0000

How’s this for a catch 22:

A judge has ruled that a North Texas lesbian couple can’t live together because of a morality clause in one of the women’s divorce papers.
The clause is common in divorce cases in Texas and other states. It prevents a divorced parent from having a romantic partner spend the night while children are in the home. If the couple marries, they can get out from under the legal provision — but that is not an option for gay couples in Texas, where such marriages aren’t recognized.

This is another one of those laws in which both rich and poor are enjoined from sleeping under bridges:

[Texas District Court Judge] Roach said the clause doesn’t target same-sex couples, adding that the language is gender neutral.
“It’s a general provision for the benefit of the children,” the judge said.

And, of course, the husband’s attorney talks the same line — we’re only in it for the kids:

Paul Key said his client, Joshua Compton, wanted the clause enforced for his kids’ benefit.
“The fact that they can’t get married in Texas is a legislative issue,” Key said. “It’s not really our issue.”

Just remember: the state can’t touch our guns (or require tornado shelters) because of freedom…but adults’ private decisions about whom to love must suffer the full brunt of state power.

Feh.

Image: Mary Cassatt, Jules Being Dried by His Mother, 1900.

One day at a time

Soonergrunt — Wed, 22 May 2013 15:50:41 +0000

My family and I haven’t lost anything. We’ve been majorly inconvenienced, but we have a house (electricity got turned back on yesterday), we have family who have resources nearby, we have our jobs and incomes. We are so much better off than so many people around us.

Doing just about anything is a major logistical operation, especially if the place you need to be is on the other side of the zone from where you are. Since internet service is offline, landline and cell service is spotty for most people in the vicinity of the zone, we have to do things the old fashioned way and drive around for face to face meetings. a lot of people are using Facebook for the primary messaging service. I was able to post some things to FB at times when I couldn’t get any other type of connection. We still don’t have TV or internet or phones. Cox Communications is working to restore their damaged infrastructure, and we hope to have everything working on or around Sunday. My sister has Dish Network, so she has TV, but her internet and phone were AT&T, and she doesn’t have that. Cell phones–they have AT&T, we have Sprint–are getting better every day. It takes hours to do things that used to take minutes. It normally takes about 30 minutes to drop my daughter at school and continue on to work. Yesterday it took three hours to get to work, and today it took 90 minutes.

EDIT–There was only a week left to school, but the Moore Public Schools have cancelled classes for the rest of the year, and finals are cancelled as well. There is a meet-up scheduled for tomorrow for those teachers and children who can make it so that everybody can get together and just be together. I think that is a great idea. High School graduation ceremonies will go on Saturday as previously scheduled at the convention center in OKC for all three MPS high schools.
But I’m alive and healthy, as are my entire family, and we have a place to go to. One of my coworkers made contact from a National Guard checkpoint this morning. He’s alive. He’s got the clothes on his back, and he’s got his dogs. Everything else was destroyed.

I delivered some water and batteries to some shelters and checkpoints the other day, because having done disaster relief before, I know those are the two things that relief personnel are always critically short of, and they are consumed very rapidly. Trash bags and toilet paper are also highly prized on checkpoint duty and at shelters. My FEMA certification is a certification to enter disaster zones on behalf of my agency, or as directed by FEMA. Ideally, that would entail setting up and maintaining computer equipment, and satellite communications. Since no VA facilities were damaged (and I am actually classified as a victim for the purposes of the personnel system) I haven’t been mobilized. I’ve volunteered though, so I’ll go the moment they ask. Other than that, and working as a local point of contact for some friends at Fort Sill who are putting together a package to deliver to the shelters, I’m trying hard to stay out of the way. When something like this happens, once you’ve gotten over the initial threat and immediate aftermath, the best thing a civilian can do is to get out of the way and help the victims after they’ve come out to a safe place. That means volunteering at a shelter or making a cash donation. Cash is generally a lot easier for aid groups and charities to work with.

The American Red Cross

Safe and Well site–find your friends and family

Feed The Children

Another Invisible Handjob

mistermix — Wed, 22 May 2013 15:13:25 +0000

Market wisdom rules:

Mike Gilles, a former president of the Oklahoma State Home Builders Association, said that he built safe rooms in all his custom homes, and that even many builders who build speculatively now make them standard.
But asked whether the government should require safe rooms in homes, he said, “Most homebuilders would be against that because we think the market ought to drive what people are putting in the houses, not the government.”

If electrical and plumbing codes didn’t come from “the government”, how did they arise? Did the Gospel of Mark mention circuit breakers and grounded outlets? Where does the Torah speak to pressure relief valves in gas water heaters?

Also, too: it’s too bad that only Stalinists want saferooms at schools like Plaza Towers Elementary. If the free market had demanded them, perhaps there would be a few more kids alive today.