Last week during a snowstorm, I needed a mind-clearing/creative exercise after work, so my camera and I took a stroll around West Hartford for over an hour (and I think the cold I have had for the last week was because of this excursion!). Here are a few shots I took:
Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) predicted Sunday that she would find the votes to pass a health care overhaul and said Democrats had already made major concessions to Republicans, including ditching the public insurance option.
Yes, Democrats have made significant concessions to Republicans, and I can’t believe the Democrats are still open to negotiating. The Congressional GOP will not be happy until Democrats have conceded everything in the bill and there’s nothing left—a.k.a. they won’t be happy until the bill is dead.
This was evident from this week’s health-care summit. How many GOP Congresspeople said Congress should start over with a “blank sheet of paper.” Rubbish. This is code for “we want to kill the bill.” They argue the bill is too long. Then the president’s plan is too short. Then C-SPAN cameras should have been in the negotiating rooms. Then when the cameras are present, it’s all political theater. Enough already.
Clearly the GOP is uninterested in crafting legislation to help Americans in need—the same Americans they often say they’re fighting for. I don’t know which Americans they’re fighting for, but certainly not for those in need.
Congressional Democrats are going to be judged in November on what they’ve accomplished. Now is the time to accomplish something. But not just anything. Something that makes a difference.
So if the GOP is uninterested in cooperating, Democrats should move forward on their own—and on their own terms, terms that include the public option. Time to close this concession stand. No more give-aways.
As if you haven’t been able to tell, I like quizzes. Here’s today’s. How many Olympic host cities can you name from their emblems? I scored 18/20. How about you?
News from the helicopter world via Wired: Eurocopter is developing technology to reduce the noise generated by helicopters. The first technology is a different blade design. Instead of a straight-edge blade, angles are built-in to the blades:
In addition to the Blue Edge rotor blade, the company also introduced something called Blue Pulse technology. Also designed to reduce helicopter noise, the Blue Pulse system uses three flap modules in the trailing edge of each rotor blade. Piezoelectric motors move actuate the flaps 15 to 40 times per second in reduce the “slap noise” often heard when a helicopter is descending.
Both of these technologies are able to reduce noise by minimizing the blade-vortex interaction of the main rotor on a helicopter. Blade-vortex interaction is the source of the pulsating sound most of us are familiar with when helicopters fly overhead. The noise is created when a rotor blade hits the wake vortex left behind from the blade in front of it.
Here’s a demo:
Pretty amazing. I’d say look for this technology in those unmarked black helicopters, but you won’t hear them coming.
Awesome tilt-shift of New York City by Sam O’Hare:
http://www.vimeo.com/9679622I tried this with some of my photos once. Cool effect.
Ezra Klein yesterday posted this video of Republican New Hampshire Senator Judd Gregg from 2005 talking about budget reconciliation:
Klein goes on:
The idea “that it is outside the rules to proceed within the rules,” Gregg laughs, “is a very unique view on the rules.” He’s right! Sadly, he has now adopted that unique view on the rules, complaining that reconciliation is “running over the minority, putting them in cement and throwing them in the Chicago River.”
Obviously, Democrats were similarly hypocritical at the time, arguing that reconciliation was a terrible abuse of power. And so it goes: People start from their preferred outcome and then make up principles that support it. But at all times, the most convincing argument is the one Gregg uses above: Elections generally work on the principle that if you have 51 percent of the vote, you win. That’s how we ratified the Constitution at the Massachusetts Convention. That’s how we elected Scott Brown and Ronald Reagan. That’s how the House of Representatives passes legislation. And it’s how the Senate should work.
I’m still not sure how I feel about jettisoning the filibuster. When legislation you support is being strangled by one or more senators, you dislike the filibuster; but when legislation you oppose is on the verge of passage, you want every power you can get to stop that legislation. That said, with cloture votes doubled in this Congress, a supermajority is needed to pass far too many pieces of legislation. Perhaps the filibuster needs to be vetoed.
(Side note: If the senate actually takes up debate on amending the rules to eliminate the filibuster, will some senator filibuster the filibuster debate?)
Black. Orange. Brazil. Rivers. A well known brand named after a famous Brazilian river perhaps?
The Brand Quiz tests your knowledge and color/visual association of specific brands. For each question in the quiz, you’re presented with two colors from the brand, a visual clue, and a cryptic text clue. Some are easy; others, not so much.
I scored 18/21 on my first trip through. I’d love to know the answers of the ones I skipped over.
How did you score?
(Nod: Brand New)
Take the Pew Research Center quiz to find out. Millennial, of course, referring to the Y-Generation, or Millennial Generation. I scored 90/100. How did you score?
The 5-minute nap produced few benefits in comparison with the no-nap control. The 10-minute nap produced immediate improvements in all outcome measures (including sleep latency, subjective sleepiness, fatigue, vigor, and cognitive performance), with some of these benefits maintained for as long as 155 minutes. The 20- minute nap was associated with improvements emerging 35 minutes after napping and lasting up to 125 minutes after napping. The 30-minute nap produced a period of impaired alertness and performance immediately after napping, indicative of sleep inertia, followed by improvements lasting up to 155 minutes after the nap.
Maybe if I took a nap during the day I wouldn’t fall asleep on the couch at night. I wonder how my department’s management would respond to my nap requests.
(Nod: The Daily Dish)
Throughout his analysis of the past NFL seasons, ESPN NFL analyst Merril Hoge often proved himself to be very energetic and enthusiastic using the Perceptive Pixel touchscreen telestrator on SportsCenter.
If you’re an SC producer, what can you have Merril do now that the NFL season is finished? Have a little fun… with NCAA squash.
Google Maps have hit the slopes. You can now see ski slopes in Street View.
You can check out the Olympic slopes in Vancouver, too. I think my favorite part of this new feature is the little character you drag along the map to see Street View. In normal maps, he looks like this:
But on the slopes, he looks like this:
Nice touch, and another great feature from The Google.
ComingSoon.net is reporting Ian McShane will join the cast of Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides as the legendary Blackbeard. McShane is definitely a riveting choice for the role and the series. Johnny Depp and Geoffrey Rush will reprise their roles as they look for the Fountain of Youth (hinted at at the end of At World’s End). Joining the cast with McShane is Penelope Cruz. Orlando Bloom’s and Keira Knightly’s characters won’t be returning—which offers the series something of a fresh-esque start.
I’ve been watching Olympic curling at work for the last week. There’s just something very riveting about the game. Perhaps one of the reasons I get sucked in is because curling is a thinking game—loads of strategy is required. A few of my coworkers were at first skeptical toward the game, but I’ve managed to turn them into viewers, too.
Anyway, GOOD posted a handy primer on curling here. Useful if you’re new to the game.
The Washington Post “asked former politicians and others to name one idea—other than reforming the much-discussed filibuster—that might get Congress moving.” Several interesting ideas, including this one from Mack McLarty, Chief of staff to President Bill Clinton, 1993-94:
…abolish the anonymous hold on nominations. Beyond fixing the Senate, this would also strengthen the governance of our country by allowing the president to more expeditiously get his full team in place.
And this one from former Rhode Island Senator Warren Rudman:
To restore the public’s trust and put senators back to work, we need to end their reliance on special-interest money. The best solution I know is citizen-funded elections: a system of small donations from constituents and matching public funds for qualifying candidates who forgo large donations.
(Nod: Ezra Klein)
We will always be a happy, hopeful kid in our mothers’ hearts, and our mothers will always occupy a special place in our hearts. P&G capitalized on these sentiments with their touching Olympic commercial. I’ve liked the commercial since I first saw it, and now that I found out Daniel Kleinman (the same Daniel Kleinman of James Bond title sequence fame) had a hand in the project, I like it even more.
Go moms!
In Texas, history is being written by those who have the most money.
For anyone interested in or concerned with how Christian conservatives continue to wield influence on American politics or anyone interested in reading the somewhat disturbing process on how school textbooks are written (hint: it’s all about politics and money—and now religion), New York Times reporter Russell Shorto’s article on recent events in Texas regarding their state social studies curriculum is a must-read.
Each year in Texas, the state board of education reviews a school subject and hears petitions on what to include in or what to remove from that subject’s curriculum. Why this is important is because of its national implications. Because of Texas’s large textbook-purchasing budget, textbook publishers cater to Texas standards. Because publishers would rather not create multiple versions of the same textbook to meet other states’ requests, Texas wins, and what Texas wants, other states get, too.
The problem is that the Texas State Board of Education is half made-up of Christian conservatives who are interested in rewriting the history books to elevate religion and their claims of religious intentions of the Founders and downplay other political entities throughout American history.
Merely weaving important religious trends and events into the narrative of American history is not what the Christian bloc on the Texas board has pushed for in revising its guidelines. Many of the points that have been incorporated into the guidelines or that have been advanced by board members and their expert advisers slant toward portraying America as having a divinely preordained mission.
There is, of course, an established separation of church and state in the Constitution, a doctrine that has been upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court. Christian advocates in Texas, however, are adamant about challenging that doctrine and are trying to paint the Founders as ardent Christian crusaders.
But how Christian were the Founders?
…the founders were rooted in Christianity—they were inheritors of the entire European Christian tradition—and at the same time they were steeped in an Enlightenment rationalism that was, if not opposed to religion, determined to establish separate spheres for faith and reason. “I don’t think the founders would have said they were applying Christian principles to government,” says Richard Brookhiser, the conservative columnist and author of books on Alexander Hamilton, Gouverneur Morris and George Washington. “What they said was ‘the laws of nature and nature’s God.’ They didn’t say, ‘We put our faith in Jesus Christ.’ ” Martin Marty says: “They had to invent a new, broad way. Washington, in his writings, makes scores of different references to God, but not one is biblical. He talks instead about a ‘Grand Architect,’ deliberately avoiding the Christian terms, because it had to be a religious language that was accessible to all people.”
…which makes many of the Founders deists, not Christians. Furthermore,
The curious thing is that in trying to bring God into the Constitution, the activists—who say their goal is to follow the original intent of the founders—are ignoring the fact that the founders explicitly avoided religious language in that document.
Yes. There is no mention of “God” in the Constitution, and the pseudo-religious mentions in the Declaration of Independence are all deist-minded: “Nature’s God,” “Creator,” and “Divine Providence.” Moses, Jesus, and the like are conspicuously—and purposefully—absent from both documents.
Do Christian activists in Texas merely want to bend history to their liking, or is there something else involved? Brian Spears at The Rumpus writes:
…there is still a danger in allowing the history books to be rewritten to the degree these people wish. Orwell was right when he said “who controls the past, controls the future,” only in this case, the past I’m concerned about is not in the books, but in the memories of the kids who’ll read those books. The people pushing for these changes aren’t looking for nuanced view of early America–they want a curriculum loaded with Christian Dominionism and American exceptionalism, because they’re hoping to convert people to the cause, and a good place to start is in the public schools.
I wonder how the people at Fox News might respond to political indoctrination. Still, this is definitely a fight worth watching, no matter your position on religion and politics. Both the past and the future are at stake.
(Nod: The Daily Dish)
The Washington Post’s Ezra Klein yesterday noted Democrats, after repeated setbacks on the health-care reform bill, have kept working:
That, of course, is the real plan: finish the bill. The Democrats have been roundly criticized for mishandling the politics of health-care reform, and those criticisms have often been justified. But there’s a larger truth, too: The only way to win this issue is to pass the bill. Their biggest mistake has been letting the legislation take so long. But that doesn’t mean they’ve failed. They fail if the bill fails, and they succeed if the bill passes. The progress has become slow and halting and unsteady, but they are still moving toward the finish line.
Why is this not surprising? Perhaps because we’re too busy chasing ghosts in airport security lines? Contrary to what seems to be popular belief, “Muslim extremists” aren’t the only threat to national security:
A large-scale simulated cyberattack on the U.S. yesterday proved one thing, according to organizers: The country isn’t prepared for a real attack. [...]
The simulation envisioned an attack that unfolds during a single day in July 2011. When the council convenes to face this crisis, 20 million of the nation’s smartphones have already stopped working. The attack — the result of a malware program that had been planted in phones months earlier through a popular “March Madness” basketball bracket application — disrupts mobile service for millions. The attack escalates, shutting down an electronic energy trading platform and crippling the power grid on the Eastern seaboard.
“A useful aspect of something like this simulation is it helps people visualize what is realistic and possible in some circumstances,” says John McLaughlin, who played the role of director of national intelligence. “The smart thing is to prepare now, to do the legislation now, to do the bipartisan work now, to do the intelligence work now, the foreign policy work. These are all very complicated things, and we need to get started on them.”
(Nod: Bruce Schneier)
…and sometimes you should feel like using a nut. From Lifehacker:
The folks at Apartment Therapy know a thing or two about making an almost-perfect piece of furniture perfect, and according to them, a walnut—under the right circumstances—can buff out a ding in vintage wooden furniture with the best of ‘em. The simple method, in, *ahem*, a nutshell:
- Identify areas of your wooden furniture that are unsightly because they have been bumped or scraped.
- Get your walnut.
- Rub the walnut on the damaged area.
- Watch in amazement as the damaged area begins to darken.
- Step back and admire your work. Hey, you didn’t even break a sweat!
